Reddit mentions of How to Win at College: Surprising Secrets for Success from the Country's Top Students

Cal Newport: How to be a Straight A Student

Cal Newport: How to Win at College

I would check out most of Cal Newport's recent writings. He received his PhD in Computer Science from MIT, and is now teaching at Georgetown.

His main thesis is deliberate practice consists of lots of different facets, most of which aren't necessarily thought about. While his work focuses a lot on improving work in "knowledge fields" it is drawn mostly from creative pursuits. He argues that thinking about your habits for practicing and learning (meta-habits) are just as important as sitting down to practice or learn. For example, knowing how to build a clear path of improvement and success in learning the piano is as important as sitting down and working through the hard parts. Sometimes the hardest part is simply figuring out where it is wisest to invest your time.


His article "The Deliberate Creative" I found to be particularly enlightening, among others. He's also been published in the New York Times, The Economist, and has five bestselling books.

On a side note, I originally found him looking for ways to improve my study habits, which is what he originally wrote about as an undergraduate. Any current high school or college students would benefit GREATLY (IMO) from his blog and first three books. Seriously, the guy has some great stuff.

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You're going to have your prioritize and manage your time really well. You can still have of fun in college even you need to get really good grades.I recommend you read this book.

Two books to read are Cal Newport's How to Win at College and How to Become a Straight A-Student.

After reading his books, check out his blog, Study Hacks.

http://amzn.com/0767922719

http://amzn.com/0767917871

Here's a quick synopsis of the first book, although I recommend reading the whole thing: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18512444/How-to-Become-a-StraightA-Student

Since you can't put more hours into the day, one of those items is going to have to give if you expect to give the friend more time on that day.

You could fit the friend into the same time slots that you do those items, you could just flat out reduce how much time you give those items, or you could get more efficient in doing items.

I've already posted my initial thoughts on squeezing the friend into your time slots (phone calls, study together, eat one of your meals like breakfast/lunch/dinner together) without changing them, and thoughts on reducing the time for the others (exercise, morning routine) that seem like they can be reduced.

So the last thing I can advise is getting more efficient with your studying since that seems to be sucking up a lot of time. And for that, I'll share this book (especially chapter 2) and this book by Cal Newport.

If I could give my 17 year old self advice about college, I would say read these books:

Book 1
Book 2

Key to college is knowing what you want to take (not what your parents tell you you should major in) and working smart (i.e. avoid cramming, unnecessary hard-work)

It's really all about practice and persistence really...I had to learn how to study in middle school, which is why I didn't need my mom asking me "did you do your homework/did you study" everyday. Unless you were directed under those terms, it's kind of difficult to ask you of that kind of diligence and self-dependence when you've never been raised under that environment or put it into practice.

This is a good book that I read over the summer last year, and it really helped a TON before returning to college; even for someone like me that has been putting these practices into play for awhile.

I really struggled academically until I had a professor teach me to learn by active recall. Basically, you need to be able to explain your notes without looking at them. I would write down questions from my notes for thirty minutes, then spend fifteen trying to answer them, marking any that I didn't know. Then I would take a break. I would try and do several of these study blocks each day. You can't procrastinate with this method, but I went from a C/B student to a straight A student in one semester. Remember to focus on content you don't know.

Find an activity to get involved in. I was overly involved because I was a tour guide, worked in a research lab, volunteered with Meals on Wheels, was a resident assistant, was in an honor society, nutrition club, volunteered as English as a second language conversation partner, and did meal planning/grocery shopping at my cooperative house. I kind of burned myself out and would recommend just joining one or two activities, but being really involved.

I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-College-Surprising-Countrys/dp/0767917871

Watch this video series, it will teach you good student habits and techniques: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqPtvG80ufOPH3OUoMpM4OThBpIRkrw-I

If you're putting that much time in but having poor results, then it's not procrastination that's hurting you. It's how you study. Cal Newport wrote a very helpful book on the subject, read it during your next break: http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-College-Surprising-Countrys/dp/0767917871/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y

Unpaid internships are essentially slave labor, or at least indentured servitude. That's a terrible idea.

I'm not sure what you would describe as your dreams, so I'll give you a possible alternative track for a possible set of goals that may or may not coincide with yours.

Let's say your goal is to get a well paying job and have a reasonably deep understanding of physics. Perhaps you'd also like that job to be intellectually stimulating. Here's a rough outline of what you could do to accomplish that:

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Before college

You're in 7th grade. First step, use this collection of links on efficient study habits to destroy and master your school work (check out Anki, too). At minimum, treat school like a day job. (Hopefully you'll have great teachers that teach you a love of learning and a value for a well-rounded educational base that includes the sciences, arts, and humanities.) Do all the exercises from Khan Academy from the beginning to fill any gaps in your knowledge and use sites like PatrickJMT, Paul's Online Math Notes, BetterExplained, and MIT OCW Scholar to supplement school and KA. Also, read these two books.

Once you've got school under control and are getting the most of what's available to you through that avenue, use the Art of Problem Solving Books to get a vastly deeper understanding of precollege mathematics. I'd say it should be a higher priority than learning calculus early in terms of ROI, but you can learn it if you want to.

See if you can find a group near you to train for a Math Olympiad or similar competition (like the ones listed on AoPS). Aim for the gold, but realize that it's unlikely and the real prize is how the training will bring up your mathematical maturity so you can tackle evermore challenging problems, concepts, and subjects.

Also, use sites like Coursera, edx, and Udacity to teach yourself programming. Once you've got a reasonable handle on programming, check out a site like Topcoder and maybe try to compete in the Coding Olympiad. Also, mess around with a Raspberry Pi.

You could also check out any big research universities or even decent state schools in your area. They often have youth outreach like summer camps for kids who love math to come and learn things not usually taught in schools. You could also see if there are any researchers willing to take on a hard working and science-loving high school student for a research project (this is how most of the winners of Intel science competitions get their start).

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College (Undergrad)

If you've done the first paragraph of the previous section alone, you should be able to get into any top 20 program in the country without any trouble. Chances are you'll be competitive for most Ivies and top 10 programs. Do any of the stuff beyond the first paragraph, and you'll be a shoe-in with a huge advantage over the overwhelming majority of college applicants in the country. The link about scholarships in my earlier comment will guarantee that you get a free ride. Also, read this book.

So now you want job security and financial security. Any sort of engineering would do, but I think you'd be more interested in computer science so let's say you do that and double major in physics.

Every summer you do paid internships for CS at various software firms for work experience. This will be the best way to make sure you are extremely hireable after graduation for lucrative positions with interesting work as a software engineer. That's Plan B.

For physics, you find a lab that does interesting work and start doing undergraduate research. You might change labs a few times to find a better fit. You might stick with the first one until graduation. Doesn't really matter as long as you gain real research experience.

You also study your ass of for the Physics GRE from your first semester. A few hours per week you do problems from old tests from subjects as you learn them. As in, do mechanics problems your first semester, do mechanics and E&M problems your second semester, do mechanics and E&M and thermo and optics problems your third semester, etc. (This may be different depending on how your school organizes its physics curriculum.)

You talk to your advisors and grad students and fellow students and professors about applying to grants and graduate school. They'll be able to give you actual advice tailored to your situation.

Either in the spring of your junior year or the fall of your senior year, you take the GREs and apply to graduate programs in areas that interest you and apply to grants to fund you and wait for the offers to return. Assuming you've followed my advice, at least some of them will contain acceptance letters with details of stipends. More than likely all the acceptance letters will include stipends you can live off of.

If you just get rejected, you'll at least have a BS-worth of physics knowledge and have experienced real research and can go off and enjoy your well-paid life solving interesting problems as a software engineer.

Or you can try and get a job at a national lab somewhere putting your physics background and programming chops to work and just apply again another year while saving up more money.

And all of this was debt free because you had the forsight in high school to apply to hundreds of scholarships.

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Also, read this thread on what it takes to kick ass at MIT. The post and the ensuing discussion should drive home what you could train yourself to become. (I think the reply by the twin is particularly enlightening.)

You can either shoot for the stars and hit the moon, or you can read magazine articles about gravity on the moon.