“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
—Albert Einstein —
Theoretical Physicist, 1879-1955.
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In my honest opinion, I have never seen myself as intelligent. But I can commend myself for being a little strict and smart, especially when it comes to preparing for exams. I'm privileged to be a fast learner, depending on what I'm learning though, and most often I'm easily able to assimilate certain courses or subjects than I assimilate others.
As an engineering student, I do more mathematical, analytical, and scientific studies than theories. This means In other for me to pass exams, I have to be able to practically understand the implementation of equations and analysis.
Before now I have tried so many patterns of preparation; from recording what the lecture is saying, to taking notes in classes I even tried reading before time, but they all failed to work for me. It was hard at first to cope in my first 3 months as a fresher in the higher institution even after leaving secondary school top of my class because the teaching pattern in the higher institution is different from the secondary school level. In my secondary school teachers were compared to teach, but entering a higher institution (even though mine is a private Polytechnic) lectures teach at will, some don't even teach, yet end up setting exams which students must find a way to prepare for.
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Always knowing I was strict smart helped me cope in my preparing for exams because I don't like reading my books. This doesn't mean I'm not a serious student, the contrary is the case at this point, as I'm currently top of my class in my finals. Believe me, I have intentionally tried reading before exams, but I am not a reading person. Not that I don't read at all, but I can't just read for more than two hours stretch (this is only for my academic books).
So what I do is I pick up my book two days before exams (usually two days. In rare cases three days) and look at it. I have active retention, so as long as I was in class when that subject was taught, I don't need 1hour to understand and get ready for the exams. That's why the first step to my exam preparation is always being in class no matter what.
But then I also have to deal with lecturers who don't come to class, some teach once, some never. I make sure to buy their textbook (but I don't study them lol) I look through the course outline for the semester and since most of the courses I do are interrelated, I get to study them with the knowledge from other courses. And for those I can't get from other courses, I do a general research overview of them to get ground basic knowledge knowing fully well I can find my way around the answers no matter how the questions come. And this has worked well.
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I'm also faced with mathematical equations and codings (computer engineering) that one must study to understand; As long as I was in the class, I can easily assimilate these things, but in addition to that, I try to teach my coursemates; they mostly feel I know it all, but in the real sense, I get to figure out the entire process around these equations as I teach them. And if peradventure no one understands a particular subject or course, I just cram it and do not talk to anyone until after the exams and I forget about it. I remember the last exams I wrote on a particular course (ADVANCED CALCULUS) I didn't talk to anyone until I was done with my exam. The coursemates that were copying me were shocked to see me solve big equations without a calculator. We all laughed about it, but then the truth was that the questions the lecture set, were the examples he gave in class, but no one in class (me included) understood what he thought. So I crammed the examples with the hope of using them as a baseline to solve any similar question... And I guess I didn't have to do much at the end of the day.
NOTE
I multitask a lot, and I have engaged in exercises that train my mind to take on huge tasks (still do from time to time) so all I have said are not as easy as they sound.
Thanks for stopping by my blog today, until next time.