Hello EEP Family. As part of my effort to assist in EEPster performance I recently undertook an effort to gather advice on school success from the highest achieving EEPsters. It is an effort to gather a Best Practices guideline. We asked these top performing EEPsters to give us their top three behaviors, beliefs or practices that they believe help them perform successfully in school. After analyzing the responses, as suspected, much of their advice conforms to study practices previously established by educational research including several of my favorites that include 1.Engagement, 2. Self - regulation, and 3. Motivation! Respectively, they advised students to 1. Become actively involved in school through clubs, organizations and faculty interactions; 2. Keep and maintain a schedule planner, to monitor their performance, to understand which class material is most difficult for them and to plan their study schedules accordingly and in advance; 3. Set short and long term achievement goals, to choose to apply adequate effort to act on those goals and to be persistent in the pursuit of these goals. It is interesting that few, if any, of these students have been directly exposed to the research supporting these beliefs and practices aside from my occasional lectures/ discussions and writings. In terms of scholarship they seem to naturally act in a positive achievement-oriented manner. Cool stuff I think. I have compiled all the suggestions in a binder entitled Best Practices that all EEPsters may reference and review; I will introduce this new EEP resource at the next Group Meeting sessions. I have also organized their advice into two documents, Common Themes and Advice Per Year in EEP and will send to specific students currently working on Action Plans to improve performance. It is our hope that all EEPsters excel in their studies to ensure personal and Program success. Not so coincidentally, several high achievers submitted more than the requested top three suggestions. Over-achievers? I have added such extended responses below for your immediate review. These are excellent students with excellent advice so keep reading please. I am always eager to hear of other suggestions to help our unique students so if parents have a top three please send, perhaps I can compile a Best Practices synopsis for parents from parents?

From a 4th Year female EEPster:

My advice has more to do with the attitude you bring to school and learning, rather than systematized tips and practices for "success." I think once you have a certain mentality regarding work/school, you will be able to develop your own study habits.

1. Know what you want - I think the most important thing to developing and maintaining good study habits is to constantly question why you are in school. And I don't mean questioning like, "Why am I in this class--it is totally irrelevant to my life" or "Why am I in this class--the professor is totally boring and a horrible lecturer; I think I am way better than him/her." I mean, question why you are in college and what you want to get out of your education. But especially question why you are in college, and what you want to get out of college at your age. Don't treat the privilege you're given (going to college at a young age) as an excuse to slack off. Remember that one day you may consider applying to graduate school, and those grades will count. Your experiences, your work experience, and your GRE / LSAT / etc scores will also count, but why disadvantage yourself? Getting into graduate school is no easy feat.

2. Be humble - I know we are all smart, talented students, but I notice that once you develop an attitude like "This campus sucks; these professors suck; the material sucks; the assignments suck," then nothing seems worthwhile to you: you ditch classes, you procrastinate, your professors dislike your holier-than-thou presence, and all in all, negativity abounds. It is really a self-perpetuating trap. DON'T GO THERE!!! Try to stay optimistic and delve deeper into material you are interested in. If you feel like not enough is being covered during lectures or in the readings, try to explore that area on your own. Talk to your professors. Even if they may not be the hippest, most upbeat lecturers, it is worth it to try to talk to them during their office hours. You may be surprised at what they have to say in a one-on-one situation.

3. Set goals for yourself - No matter how small or large or insignificant or far-fetched your goals are, never underestimate the power of setting goals. You may be a cynic, and you might think that goal-setting/reaching is just some kind of illusion used to maintain your morale and your spirit while not really getting you anywhere... but you'd be wrong! Setting goals can give your life meaning, even if it's silly or transitory meaning. They don't have to be "CONCRETE, SERIOUS GOALS FOR LIFE, FOREVER." You can still be spontaneous. Your goals will change as you change as person, but that's okay. It's just very nice to have a direction and to feel like you are making small successes.

and an extra one (sorry I couldn't just limit it to three)--

4. Get involved - You probably think this one is a cliché, but there's a reason it's reached its cliché-status! Get involved in community life, school clubs, nonprofits, or if none of those suit your fancy, organize your own group! The worst feeling is feeling like you are learning in a bubble. Try to apply what you're learning to your everyday life. For example, think about how you can use what you learn to help others around you. Maybe join a nonprofit organization. If you feel like your education is helping you think critically about the world and how you fit into that world, there is a good chance you will feel less desultory and angsty (as teenagers are bound to feel--and i know, being a teenager) and enjoy learning more.

From a 5th year male:

Study Skills Schema

Step 0: Motivation. This step is almost never talked about, but it is necessary to even begin a conversation about study skills. And that is whether or not you, as a student, actually want good grades.

This may seem rhetorical, but it isn’t. I think some students honestly don’t care about grades-or at the very least, don’t care about grades in certain subjects. Physics majors may not care about their C in English 101. English majors may not care about their F in Math 103. We can argue about whether this point of view is rational or not (I don’t think it is)-but at the end of the day, if you don’t want a good grade, you won’t get a good grade. And there’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

If you want good grades, read on.

Step 1: Information Gathering. The idea of this step is, per the title, to gather information about various matters. This is divided into two sub steps:

Step 1a: Reflection. I mentioned above how study skills must necessarily change depending on the student’s skill set. This step reflects that fact.

What are you good at, and what aren’t you good at? This may seem simple, but in fact, I believe that this is not only the most difficult step in this schema, it is probably impossible to actually complete (which means the rest of the schema will be easy in comparison!). But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

Now, note that simple answers like “I’m good at writing, and bad at math” are worthless. If that’s true, great-but what this step is asking for is why are you good at what you’re good at? Why are you bad at what you’re bad at? What are the connections between those things? What common theme runs through your strengths and your weaknesses?

Step 1b: Investigation. So you have some preliminary list of your strengths and weaknesses. What other information do you need?

To put it simply, what class you’re taking and who’s teaching it. Get as much information as you can about those two things. Make sure to use more than one source, because you have to keep in mind that every source is biased.

Step 2: Synthesis. So, you now know a little about yourself, and a lot about your class and your professor. However, most likely, all this information is in little factoids, with no obvious relevance to study skills. How do you move from this to an effective list for success? By synthesizing your information.

Now, by “synthesis,” I mean something to the effect of “reflective summary.” You need to summarize all your facts into a small, readable whole-but you can’t do it blindly. You need to do it with an eye toward how this information can affect your study skills. The end goal should be a few paragraphs that accurately reflect the connections between the facts you recorded.

Because each case is so different, it is difficult to give advice for this step, but I think these general rules should apply:

Will the class require memorization, or a mastery of concepts? Is the test material from the lectures, the textbooks, or both? How difficult are the tests? How much time do the assignments take? And so on, and so forth.

Step 3: Construction. You should now have the ability to construct a list of study skills perfectly applicable to your situation.

Should any parent want to discuss their child’s performance or if there are any questions or concerns please call the office to schedule a meeting.