Success is Attitudinal: How to Maximize Your Study Time
“The
basis for success in …life and academics…is a positive orientation of
your attitude” –
Patrick Otieku-Boadu.
“As
a child growing up, I gave myself to observation and learning. For many years
as a student, I observed other successful students – and still do – with the
intent of finding out their “secret”.
This
is what I found out:
1.
Successful students don’t ‘joke’ with their time.
2.
Successful students are passionate about the subjects they read.
3.
Successful students are not pressured by their courses/subjects because they
have mastered the subject material and so they enjoy “rest”.
4.
Successful students have developed high levels of understanding of even the
most complex of concepts.
5.
Successful students have confidence in their ability to do well come rain or
shine.
6.
Successful students have excellent question-solving skills, in that, no matter
how difficult the question maybe, they almost always find a way to answer it.
7.
Successful students do their best to eliminate complacency from their academic
lives by constantly striving to better themselves.
8.
Successful students have their powers of concentration highly developed and
because of this they are go-getters.
9.
Successful students are excellent individuals, in that they believe in quality
of studies: they do further research into lessons taught using the library,
internet and other available sources of information to clarify things,
ascertain and deepen their understanding.
“The
attitudes underlying the above observations are what I term “academiattitudes”
- academic attitudes. Though described “academic”, these attitudes are also
essential for an excellent life beyond the classroom. The secret of successful
students, in the nut shell, simply is and will always be enshrined in the fact
that SUCCESS IS ATTITUDINAL – the central theme of this book and its
sequels.
“Based
on the above nine observations, the following attitudes were identified to be
key to academic success. How an individual responds to these attitudes is the
difference between success and failure:
1.
Study Duration
2.
Interest/Desire level
3.
Rest level
4.
Understanding level
5.
Level of Confidence
6.
Question-Solving Skills
7.
Complacency level
8.
Focus/concentration level
9.
Quality of studies
“I
love models. They help simplify and explain things as well as aiding the
illustration and understanding of abstract concepts. For a very long time, I
have always wondered why some students were more successful than others. Day in
day out I pondered over this, until finally I came to understand that success
was indeed attitudinal.
“In
my first year in the University of Ghana, I noticed something. I noticed that
almost all my colleagues had strikingly similar attitude to studies such as
those described above. These observations further strengthened my belief that
success was indeed attitudinal, and therefore developing a technology to
predict grades of students based on current attitude to studies
(A.T.S.), even before they sit for an exam, was not a far-fetched dream. And so
I did.
“Based
on these nine very important attitudes, I developed a grade prediction
technology which I called GRADA Tool. GRADA is an acronym for Grade
Determination and Analysis. Imagine the possibility of an “exam”
before exam – an examination of your current A.T.S. before the actual exam to
determine how your attitude to studies would negatively or positively impact
your grades, so as to be able to forestall impending disaster. …the grades
obtained in an exam are the product of our prevalent A.T.S. This you may
not agree with but it is nevertheless true.”
This
post was an excerpt extracted with permission of author from the book, “Success is Attitudinal: How to
Maximize Your Study Time”.
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