A Secret to Better Grades

David Salib
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read

It’s all about appreciation.

One year ago, I barely passed my first Probability course with a 55%. I didn’t deserve to pass that course; I couldn’t understand statistics beyond simple uniform and binomial distributions. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t understand statistics.

Needless to say, I was not excited for the next required Statistics course. However, in a statistically improbable turn of events, I finished the course with an 80% - and really enjoyed it!

The Paradigm Shift

In August 2016, I started a year long co-op as a Product Manager at Yelp. I was fortunate to work on the Search team where data and metrics are heavily emphasized. I started diving into metrics, hearing terms such as “p-value” and “confidence intervals”. One day, a Data Scientist proposed that the data we were analyzing followed a Gaussian Distribution; that was the point where I realized the importance of statistics.

Statistics went from being a course, to a something I needed and wanted to understand. Throughout that year at Yelp, I worked closely with the Data Science and Metrics teams, made some great friends, and developed an appreciation for statistics.

I left that co-op eager to go back to school, especially to take that next Statistics course.

The Secret: Appreciation

I was ‘that guy’ in the Statistics course. The one who actually liked the course. That guy who promoted the real life applications of what we were learning. I was excited to learn about calculating p-values, testing model fit, prediction intervals, confidence intervals — you name it, I had a tangible reason to learn it. Why? I finally appreciated what I was learning.

When we appreciate what we are learning, see a reason to want to know it, and potential to apply it; there’s no doubt that we will put our best effort into trying to understand it. Not to pass the course; rather to be able to use it in the future. Often, we as students haven’t yet appreciated the importance of what we are learning, so we stumble through it, pass the exam, and move on. It’s usually after graduation that we realize how important what we were learning was and the benefits of understanding the nuances in school. I think that’s where some regret falls upon us, wishing we optimized our academic years to learn what we now realize is important.

Co-op: An Appreciation Experience

An example of appreciation can be found at the University of Waterloo. We have a phenomenal co-op program that cycles us through academic and work terms every 4 months. A co-op term doesn’t just give students the chance apply what they learned; it exposes students to all the problems the industry is trying to solve, the skills that experienced professionals have to succeed, and it broadens our understandings on how we can benefit from our academic experience to apply it to our careers.


However you are able to do it, have a reason for why you are taking a course, that isn’t just to pass or get a degree— it will completely change your performance and the benefit you get out of it.

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