The Semester I Got a 4.9 GPA
A reflection on the techniques used and the psychology behind it
You know what’s amusing?
The fact that this post was actually meant to be titled ‘The Semester I Got a 5.0 GPA’ but if you peep at the photo below, you’d see that I didn’t hit a 5.0.
Instead, I got a 4.9 which isn’t so bad, is it? In fact, the 4.9 GPA put me in the top 2% of my class so I suppose it’s still worth writing about.
Another thing that’s amusing is that I used that one semester as an experiment.
I had a few techniques to test out. At the time, I knew they’d help my grades but I just didn’t know to what extent.
But now the mystery has been solved and as quickly as possible I’m going to break down all the things that helped me get a 4.9 GPA.
HEY, READ THIS!
Don’t just scroll through the points. Remember this is a reflection not some listicle so every line matters.
KEY POINTS
I. Aim for a 5.0 GPA
You’ll either hit it or fall slightly below it. Okay, this point is the first point for obvious reasons.
At the beginning of this blog, I mentioned that the original goal was 5.0.
That is I was constantly reminding myself of that goal. The urgency of the goal was always in my heart and in my mind.
Morealso, I was always thinking about what a 5.0 GPA would require. It meant I’d need a minimum of 80% in all my courses.
That’s what most people would tell themselves but I aimed for 100% in all my courses because I didn’t want to leave room for slacking or slipups.
Does the phrase ‘Meh, I’ll make up with my midsemester’ sound familiar?
Bet it does. Well, I made enough mental notes about the need to obtain maximum marks in all my assignments, quizzes, midsemesters, examinations, and even attendance.
The 5.0 mentality put me on a hot plate where every score mattered; I had to be prepared for every pop quiz or exam, I had to ensure my assignments were 100% correct and were submitted before the due time, I had to ensure I never missed a class without a valid excuse, and I had to be a sucker for extra marks.
Getting overwhelemed already?
Take a deep breath and hear the rest of it.
You might be thinking ‘Oh, I’ll need to give up my social life’ or ‘Oh, I’ll have lots of sleepless nights’ to pull this off.
WRONG!
All you need is a little discipline. Okay, maybe a lot of discipline depending on your current discipline level.
But that leads to me to my next point.
II. Study deeply for at least 4 hours weekly.
Right from high school, it had always been the best academic advice to study every day.
While that goes a long way, during that semester I figured that studying every day wasn’t the full solution.
Matter of fact, I didn’t study every day during that semester and I still don’t study every day. But I did study every week for at least 4 hours.
The keypoint here goes beyond setting out time for study, you also need to ‘study deeply’.
You need to be intentional about your study time; actively recalling what you’re studying, using acronyms and pointers to your every day living as much as you can to ensure you don’t forget what you’re studying, and testing your knowledge after studying.
Another thing that really helped me was being flexible with my study time. Some courses may require nothing less than an hour to effectively understand while others may just need 20 minutes of your time weekly.
Also, I could study for 3 hours in one day and do nothing for the next 2 days. It’s all about understanding your body and mind and responding accordingly.
If you want to know if you’re genuinely worn out or if you’re just being a lazy potato, try the 5 minute rule.
Pick up your course material and focus on studying it for the next 5 minutes. Don’t think about any other thing, don’t touch your smartphone.
Just 5 minutes of full dedication to studying that material.
After 5 minutes, if you still feel tired then you’re probably worn out and need to rest else you were just feeling lazy a couple of minutes ago.
And you’ll realize you even want to contniue studying even when the 5 minutes are over.
III. Create a strategic Study Timetable that you can work with.
First, I want to emphasize on the fact that whatever study timetable you create has to be something you can work with.
You need to take into account lots of things like your daily schedule, the days you have lots of classes which could translate into tiredness, the days you have some activities already planned out so they don’t end up clashing with your study time.
You may also want to give room for relaxation and long assignments that could cut into your study time.
Now, there’s no fixed way to create a study timetable. But these are the things I did when I made the study timetable that got me a 4.9 GPA.
- I ensured all my courses appeared at least once a week
- I tried to study every school night (The nights before the days when I had classes).
- I ensured the courses were arranged such that I was revising against the classes I had the next day instead of the typical ‘read what you learnt during the day’.
Say I had Java class during the day, at night instead of reading Java, I’d read Statistics because it’s the class I have the next day and I want to be able to answer questions in class and be prepared for any pop quiz while still doing the regular study routine.
Then I’d read Java the following week, the night before Java class. And the loop goes on.
Pretty simple right? For classes I had twice a week, I read them twice and I also paid attention to our lecturers and their tendencies.
Some weren’t the kind to give pop quizzes, thus the urgency of reading their courses the night before the class was lowered so I studied those courses during the weekend.
4. I set reminders on my phone to study and printed and pasted my study timetable on my wall.
When you miss a study time:
Don’t just lazy around and shrug and wait till the next time it comes up on the timetable. Try to make up for it with some free time you have the next day.
IV. Make studying attractive and fun
An average college student’s screentime is 5 hours (on all devices).
There’s something exciting about staring at our screens.
Whether we’re watching a Netflix movie or reading and responding to our text messages, we just enjoy the feeling of staring and tapping and scrolling and all of that.
Chances are you check your phone less than 1 hour after waking up every single morning, and a couple more times after that during the course of the day.
So where am I headed?
It’s only wise to bring your study life to your screen since you spend up to a third of your day using your devices.
That was what I did. I found this app called Vaia (it was formerly called StudySmarter).
It allows you put all your course materials, past questions, and notes in one place and then allows you to create flashcards (it has an AI feature that can automate this for you) to test your knowledge on whatever you’ve read.
So even on days when you don’t feel like doing a formal study session, you can just revise some flashcards and see how well you remember the things you’ve studied in the past.
Vaia also provides an AI explainer that can break down any confusing concept in your course materials and a spaced repition feature that reminds you to revise at scientifically calculated intervals.
Other Points:
I’ve broken down the four major things that I set out to experiment with during the semester. Now I’m going to run through a few other things that one way or the other helped me hit a 4.9 GPA.
I. Be present in class. And I don’t mean just signing the attendance. I always ensured I sat at a good angle from the smart board, close enough to hear every word the lecturer was saying.
I took notes and actively listened to the lecturer so I wouldn’t miss out on key points. I kept my phone far from reach so I wouldn’t be tempted to check social media during the lecture. I also sat far from my friends to avoid being distracted but we’d always see after the class and gossip as we should.
Thanks to my trusty strategic study timetable, I was always confident to raise my hand whenever a question was thrown to the class but not excessively because I also wanted to give others room to speak.
II. Always practice and don’t assume you know it. If you’re studying a Math or Computer related course, always practice and never assume you know it until you actually solve it. Practice coding with new examples and new problems and you have to constantly prove to yourself that you know it by solving any computational and calculation problem you come across to the latter.
III. Explain what you know to your friends or anyone at all. A test of how well you understand something can be measured by how well you’re able to explain it to someone who’s less knowledgable. This helped build my confidence and I noticed that explaining the things I knew to people helped identify some new insights or oversights.
IV. Reward yourself. It could be a nice lunch or 4 hours of Netflix. Whatever the case, rewarding yourself encourages you to keep going and also helps you unwind.
V. All we can do now is pray. I saw this on a WhatsApp groupchat and I just thought I’d include it as the closing point. I grew up in a Christian home and I’ve experienced God’s love personally. God loves us but also encourages us to work hard. So when you’ve put in all the work, don’t forget to commit all your hardwork to God in prayer so he can crown your efforts with a sweet 5.0 GPA.
HEY, DON’T LEAVE YET!
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Bye, till next time!
