HELPFUL TIPS IN ACHIEVING ACADEMIC SUCCESS

Good morning sir,

I just got admission to study ECONOMICS at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.

I need your advice on how I can beat the best and be the best among my mates; and I will also want you to be my mentor.

W. Olalekan

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First, congratulations on your admission.

Congratulations, again, for asking this question at this time, that you are just going to school.

This case is special to me because it gives me nostalgia of the days I was getting similar advice as a fresh student in same university, same course, some 13 years ago. In a tribute to one of my academic mentors, Michael Taiwo, on his 30th birthday last year, I narrated how getting right information in the early years of one’s academic journey can be a very important factor in one’s academic, and subsequently, career success. Please see the story here.

Now, I have mentioned that I finished from same department some 8 years ago, with, by God’s grace, a First Class grade,  so it’s a very familiar terrain to me. To God be the glory, again, I was the academic godfather of many junior students in that department for years, all of whom I am proud of now.

Because my aim is to specifically guide you on how to be one of the best in the Department of Economics in Ife, the factors I will reel out here are tailored to that department, but they are applicable anywhere. For general guide on academic success, read this essay I wrote some time ago.

You want to beat the best and be the best in the department of economics in Ife? Let me start with a confession:

I had similar goal when I gained admission into same department in 2001 – to be the best, because I hated (and still hate) playing second fiddle. I did my best to be, but my best appeared not good enough. Those guys were just too hot, the competition was just crazy. I was never the best in class from year 1 to 4, and the closest I came was 3rd best after year 1. But let me tell you the good thing: in trying to be the best, which I was not able to achieve, I achieved another thing: made a First Class.

My candid advice to you on how to be among the best:

1, Year 1 is very critical: I had A in all but one course in year 1. I ended 100 level with a CGPA of 4.90 (two students had 5.0). This was so strong that when a school-wide tsunami happened in year 2, I had enough buffer to withstand it, yet I was so hit that when the tsunami chips were down, I found myself in 4.63 after year 2. What if I didn’t do too well in year 1, pre-Tsunami?

2, Never rest on your oars: I must say, Year 1 could actually be the easiest, but no matter how well you performed in year 1, your CGPA is not insulated from shock in the remaining 3 years. In fact, one of the students that ended Year 1 with a staggering 5.0 CGPA almost got dropped to 2.1. Many students that were in First Class bracket in year 1 did not eventually make it. So it is never over until it is over.

3, Theory-calculation balance: If you believe you are good in written courses but dislike mathematics, or vice versa, then I’m afraid you may not be able to be the best in Ife Economics department. To be among the best, you have to be good at both theory and mathematics, else, one will draw you back. If you are weak in one, start working on it now. If you didn’t do Further Math in secondary school, I will advise you engage a fellow student or teacher that is good at it to teach you Differentiation and Integration at the minimum. These mathematical tools are central to doing well as an economics student. You just have to be comfortable with mathematics.

4, Avoid tutorial overload: Many students kill themselves with what I have described elsewhere as tutorial overload – the counter-productive practice of spending all your time in tutorials, and little time to study. If you are very good, you don’t need more than classwork and private study, but if you must go to tutorial, one good tutorial is fine. But you will see students that run from one tutorial to another, creating unnecessary panic for themselves.

5, Ask  from the prior set: One thing I used to do was making friend with at least one of the best students in the set preceding mine and asking about each course. At the end of first semester year 1 for example, ask any serious part 2 student about the courses you will do in the next semester. Questions like: How was this course? How were the lecturers? What is the toughest course in that level? etc etc. From this you can have idea about how to approach each course.

6, Compete: I hardly do anything in my life without aiming to be the best. I love competition, healthy one of course. I always targeted highest score in every subject, and anytime I achieved it (like Philosophy 101, that I scored the highest, 94%, in the whole set), I felt fulfilled.  Always aim to score the highest in every subject.

7, Listen to tales of academic feats: Thankfully, you gained admission into Ife, where you get to hear stories that fire you up, not in some schools, where all they tell you as orientation is one lecturer will deliberately fail you, you cannot make so so grade etc. In Ife, you hear tales of academic feats that will fire you up. Don’t listen to negative tales, be positive. Believe in yourself and your ability. Let me throw a challenge at you the Ife way: this guy holds the record of highest ever CGPA in Ife, aim to break his record.

8, Never miss classes: If you listen to your lecturer’s direct delivery in class, you have done 50% of what is required to pass that course. Listening very well in class makes reading the notes later, easy. Please be regular in classes, no matter how ugly your lecturer’s face is. And there are many early morning (as early as 6am) classes in that department.

9, Your notes first: It is good to read multiple materials and texts, but never at the expense of your notes and specifically recommended/distributed materials.  You should always ensure you read your notes from beginning to end, at least twice, if not thrice. Then you can read other relevant materials.

10, Read while your notes are hot: Allowing your notes to pile up or waiting till a test or exam date is announced before reading, is not the stuff of best students. Dedicate at least 2 hours everyday to go through all what you did in class that day, and weekends to cap what you did in the week. I was not a heavy reader in school, but I was a consistent reader. I used to read every 2 hours in the evening (immediately after my Isha prayers – 8.30pm – till 10.30pm) for most days, except days I spent my evening taking junior ones tutorials. Where I was not able to do the 2 hours per day routine, I spent long hours on Sunday to catch up. You don’t have to follow my routine, but be a consistent reader and never allow your notes to pile up before reading.

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11. Past questions are important: Gather as many past questions as you could on every subject and make sure you treat them. Solve them by yourself, then check the answers and mark yourself. Then study the solutions and be familiar with them. I recall the last tutorial I took for some year 1 students in SSC 106 (Mathematics for Social Sciences 2). The last question I solved for them in tutorial came out exactly in their exam the next day. They all rushed back to the tutorial venue after their paper to see the solution still on the chalk board, not rubbed off. I told them confidently  that they should watch out for that question while solving it for them the night before. It almost got me into trouble as some students that did not attend my tutorials speculated I saw the question. When you are familiar with past questions, you don’t think too much while writing exams.

12. Fraternize with brilliant students: Carefully select your friends. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you should not relate with friends that are not academically talented. No, life is not like that. But make sure you have in your circle of friends good students. Your informal discussions will be centered around your studies which is good for you.

13, Teach others: Don’t create an Island around yourself. Be a helper. Help other students, legitimately please, not in exams hall. Whether your less talented mates or your juniors, by sharing knowledge you are improving yourself and building a network that will be useful to you in the future. I took tutorials for year 1 students, for free, from my year 2 till I graduated. I also got the baton from my seniors who also taught me. It helps. One, it makes you to read. Two, you are more likely to retain for long what you read and teach others, than what you read but didn’t teach others. Without consulting any textbook, I think I should be able to conveniently lecture Differentiation and Integration now, despite last doing it almost a decade ago. Reason: I taught many year 1 students for 3 years.

14, Never be intimidated: You’re going to Ife. I don’t know how your O’level result is, but let me tell you that, right from your registration points, you will see intimidating credentials: you will see “A1-parallel” WAEC results, you will see JAMB scores of 300 plus, you will see students from high-end International Schools, so much so that you may begin to ask yourself, are these the people I will be competing with? Are these the people I want to be the best among? Well, good news: it doesn’t work that way. University is a leveller, it is a different kettle of fish. The student that topped my class attended a public secondary school in Oshogbo, his WAEC contained just a couple of As. Never be intimidated by anybody’s past. You will also see students that have all the textbooks in this world. But again, it is not by textbooks, but what you are able to make of them.

15, Calculate and simulate: At the end of my year 1, during the long ASUU strike of 2002/2003, in my room at home, I took the departmental handbook that showed all courses from year 1 to 4, took a sheet of paper, listed all the core and elective courses I wanted to do for the remaining 3 years, simulated what I needed to score in each of the about 40 courses I still had to do (year 2 to 4) in order finish above 4.50. I kept that paper till I graduated, and every semester, I checked it to know my target for that semester. I was always aiming to score A (above 70%) in all my courses, but prudently gave an allowance for a maximum of 2 Bs every semester. That was the framework. I stuck to it. Although I fell short of target in 4 subjects (I had 2 Cs and 2 Ds), I was still able to achieve my overall target of staying above 4.50. I advise you to do same. Set an overall target for yourself and divide it into sub-targets at the beginning of every semester.  

16, Know what works for you: To be among the best students, you have to understand what works for you. What works for another person may not work for you. You have to go on a self-discovery mission. What works for some people is heavy reading, 10 hours plus per day. Some of us are light readers, and 1 to 3 hours per day is fine, except during exams period when we do more. It is about knowing what works for you. I summarize any topic I read in a folded piece of paper using red and black pens, used mnemonics (like shortening some points into an abbreviation, e.g DELTA for, say, Development, Elevation, Leadership, Trend, Allergy). There were some notes I preferred reading in quiet places like Pharmacy, Agric. buildings, some others in noisy places like Awo cafe. I even soliloquized to recall some stuff I read. I didn’t joke with sleep as well. I used NESCAFE to stay awake to read in my first semester year 1 due to band-wagon effect when I hadn’t discovered myself, but I stopped it when it turned counter-productive, as  I will stay awake all night to read thanks to Coffee, but end up missing morning classes due to unavoidable sleep when I returned to my room. The thought of what good grade will earn me after school was enough psychology to keep me awake, later. I stopped stimulating myself to stay awake to read before the end of first semester year 1. If the benefit psychology did not stop me from staying awake to read, I’d rather go back to my room to have a sound sleep, rather than suffer myself dozing in reading rooms. Know what works for you.

You may have observed that I used the phrase, “to be among the best”,  more than “to be the best” in this narrative.  Truth is, Ife is one ultra-competitive environment. It takes extra ingenuity to be the best. Despite all the above, I was not the best in my class, but I was among the best. Even my academic godfather, Michael Taiwo, who topped SSCE in the whole of Kwara state when we finished secondary school, himself could not emerge the best in his Chemical Engineering class, although some of us believe that the loss of his mum in year 2 affected him. See this article I wrote in 2007 on the guy that led Michael’s class and whole school for our set.

Finally, God is very important. Some of us believe in God and despite all our efforts we don’t underestimate the power of spirituality, because, sometimes, you do all these things and not achieve result.

I will send my phone number to you and we will discuss this more extensively over the phone. I will also accept to mentor you.

All the best, young man.

Jarus

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FEEDBACK (12/03/2015)

The gentleman we advised above came back after a year with this email:

Good Evening Sir,