You can prepare yourself to succeed in your studies.  Try to develop and appreciate the following habits:

• Take responsibility for yourself.
  Responsibility is recognition that to succeed you can make decisons about your priorities, time, and resources.

• Center yourself around your values and principles.
  Don't let friends and acquaintances dictate what you consider important.

• Put first things first:
  Follow up on the priorities you have set for yourself, and don't let others, or other interests, distract you from your goals.

• Consider yourself in a win-win situation.
  You win by doing your best and contributing your best to a class, whether for yourself, your fellow students, and even for your teachers and instructors. If you are content with your performance, a grade becomes an external check on your performance, which may not coincide with your internally arrived at benefits.

• First understand others, then attempt to be understood.
  When you have an issue with an instructor, for example a questionable grade, an assignment deadline extension, put yourself in the instructor's place. Now ask yourself how you can best make your argument given his/her situation.

• Look for better solutions to problems.
  For example, if you don't understand the course material, don't just re-read the material. Try something else! Consult with the professor, a tutor, an academic advisor, a classmate, a study group, or your school's study skills center.

• Look to continually challenge yourself.

Return