Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Making good grades- is it a skill or a gift?

Stompy · 08-26-2004, 08:47 AM

Your grade generally reflects how much you apply yourself, but that's not always true. Someone could study their ass off and still get a C/D. I think the reason is a lot of people tend to study by just memorizing certain things instead of trying to truly understand the subject/topic being taught.

A good example for this would be math. People will just memorize theorems and techniques left and right without actually trying to get the big picture of what the particular topic is trying to convey. I saw this a lot in my calc class during the optimization/derivative problems. People would ask the same questions, so you could tell they weren't REALLY understanding what the optimization problems were trying to convey or why the methods involved were being used.

By looking at the subject from a different angle instead of a "shit, I gotta memorize 20 terms" or "i gotta memorize this detailed diagram of the kreb's cycle", it can completely cut out all the endless hours you'd normally spend studying. Easier said than done, of course, but the trick is in finding it, and for me, it's generally not all that difficult to find and point out. I tend to use real world examples to help me visualise everything. I'm by no means a prodigy or anything, either, just your avg person.

I used to be the kind of person in HS that studied by memorizing everything, but it quickly became a chore which resulted in low grades because I didn't feel like spending 4 hours a night doing stuff. I graduated a 2.5 student. Now that I'm in college, I'm taking a different approach, and that's actually trying to wrap my mind around what's being taught.. so far I have 3.75 GPA. I have a B here and there from slackin because I hated the particular class and has no desire to give it an A effort. Like english, I hated reading "classic" novels and doing book reports, so pointless especially if I'm going into computer engineering.

But to answer the question.. it's just something you need to practice at. Anyone can do it. There ARE some people who can get away with never studying, like my g/f. She doesn't EVER study and has a straight 4.0 GPA in college. She happens to grasp the bigger picture of things a lot quicker than I can, so it seems immediate while I often sit there for a while thinking about it before it "hits" me.

08-26-2004, 08:47 AM	#27 (permalink)
Stompy Banned from being Banned Location: Donkey	Your grade generally reflects how much you apply yourself, but that's not always true. Someone could study their ass off and still get a C/D. I think the reason is a lot of people tend to study by just memorizing certain things instead of trying to truly understand the subject/topic being taught. A good example for this would be math. People will just memorize theorems and techniques left and right without actually trying to get the big picture of what the particular topic is trying to convey. I saw this a lot in my calc class during the optimization/derivative problems. People would ask the same questions, so you could tell they weren't REALLY understanding what the optimization problems were trying to convey or why the methods involved were being used. By looking at the subject from a different angle instead of a "shit, I gotta memorize 20 terms" or "i gotta memorize this detailed diagram of the kreb's cycle", it can completely cut out all the endless hours you'd normally spend studying. Easier said than done, of course, but the trick is in finding it, and for me, it's generally not all that difficult to find and point out. I tend to use real world examples to help me visualise everything. I'm by no means a prodigy or anything, either, just your avg person. I used to be the kind of person in HS that studied by memorizing everything, but it quickly became a chore which resulted in low grades because I didn't feel like spending 4 hours a night doing stuff. I graduated a 2.5 student. Now that I'm in college, I'm taking a different approach, and that's actually trying to wrap my mind around what's being taught.. so far I have 3.75 GPA. I have a B here and there from slackin because I hated the particular class and has no desire to give it an A effort. Like english, I hated reading "classic" novels and doing book reports, so pointless especially if I'm going into computer engineering. But to answer the question.. it's just something you need to practice at. Anyone can do it. There ARE some people who can get away with never studying, like my g/f. She doesn't EVER study and has a straight 4.0 GPA in college. She happens to grasp the bigger picture of things a lot quicker than I can, so it seems immediate while I often sit there for a while thinking about it before it "hits" me. __________________ I love lamp. Last edited by Stompy; 08-26-2004 at 08:51 AM..