"Secrets of the Most Successful College Students"
Last spring, Time Magazine highlighted a book by historian and educator Ken Bain, discussing how different people learn and what students should try to get out of learning. They gave several excerpts, several of which stood out to me.
For much of my life, grades have been a driving indicator of how much I'm getting out of education. I liked Neil deGrasse Tyson's view on learning and especially his remark, "Grades become irrelevant, ambition and innovation trump grades every time." I think I agree with this mantra. Grades are important to graduate and move into the next stage of life, but they become absolutely insignificant if you didn't actually gain something from the curriculum, whether it be a new perspective or even an enhanced view on what you already know.
I also loved Stephen Colbert's words on failure. I've always felt that failure is a very important element in success and Colbert supported my point in this article. "You have to be okay with bombing. You have to love it," Colbert said. I think there's a lot of truth to this. Once you can embrace or even love failure, you'll put down your inhibitions and discover your strengths, building on those as you go along.
I think I start off courses with a 'deep learner' attitude but end up finding myself cutting corners and just focusing on completing work, rather than learning from it. I think good grades and deep learning can be combined and I need to work to find a middle ground that combines the two.
There is no doubt that improvements in 'deep learning' are imperative for success in journalism. If I focus on bettering myself intellectually, I will better understand the world around me and create more comprehensive journalistic work.
-twil (Taylor Wilson)
