19 Things You Should Do to Attain Academic Excellence

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To be a success is not a child’s play. There are prices that need to be paid in order to be successful. Climbing the ladder to the peak of one’s career requires a lot of seriousness, diligence, attention, and focus. To be successful means the ability to achieve one’s aims and goals in life. It goes beyond having high grades or participating in class. Academic excellence entails taking the extra mile to achieve the set goals, avoiding any distractions and being on the tracks until one gets to the finishing line. Those who are successful in their careers do not jump down from the Heavens neither do they have bigger heads and wider brains. Students can also be like their mentors only if they can follow the steps and pathways to achieving success. ( Read an interesting article on Education is the Best Legacy here)

Below Are 20 Pathways To Academic Excellence

1. Have at least 80% class attendance. Truancy should be done away with. Lectures should be taken with seriousness. 100% class attendance should be recorded, when this 100 percent attendance might not be possible due to illness or other unavoidable excuses, class attendance should not be less than 80%. High-class attendance allows students to flow with what is being taught which will have a positive effect on academic performance.
2. Know yourself. Discover when, where and how best you assimilate when reading and make use of it. Do not walk in other people’s shoes nor be a copy-cat. If you are the type that assimilates well during the day, plan your time and make your day free and less strenuous. Do not join others that play all through the day. You never can say if they make use of their nights. If you assimilate well at night, sleep during the day so that you will be wide awake at night.
3. Establish a good study habit. Notes and assignments should not be left until the following day. Assignments should be done on the day it is given. Students should see that they do not sleep without reading what they are being taught for the day. Related reading materials and textbooks should be coupled with notes. Students should read before coming to class and after each lecture. Notes should not be piled up till when examination or test is near. Crash reading is not a technique for successful students. (  Read on The Importance Of Parental Support On Education here)
4. Utilize the libraries and research centers for more knowledge and information. The books, textbooks, journals and other related academic materials in the libraries should be utilized. More materials can also be sought online, Google is your friend.
5. A conducive reading environment should be used for the study. School and public libraries should be the abode of students. A quiet environment free of any form of distraction should be used for the study. By this, less time will be spent on reading coupled with high assimilation rate due to lack of distraction.
6. Time management. Time is an important factor in one’s life. It is essential and waits for no man. We all have 24 hours in a day. The successful ones also have the same hours available to them. Students must plan their day and manage their time. To achieve a fulfilled day, the activities in the day must be planned and strictly followed. Twenty-four hours time table can be drafted with the day’s activities clearly outlined. Time should be allocated to study, siesta, assignment and for other activities like house chores. ( Read on Effects Of Social Media On Education here)
7. Proper notes should be taken in class.  Good and neat notes should be taken in class. The areas where the teachers lay emphasis on should also be noted. Students should write notes when given and should pay rapt attention in class so as not to miss important information. The habit of collecting notes from friends should be frowned upon. When absent, notes should be copied from the serious students and not from the back-benchers who might not hear the teacher correctly. The notes should be neat so as to increase the thirst to read. Students tend not to enjoy reading when notes are tattered and rough. Students with incomplete, rough notes always prefer making copies of neat ones. A student on the path of success should not be in the circles of those that read copied notes.
8. Procrastination should be avoided. Procrastination, they say is the thief of time. Lazy students postpone what should be done till later. They procrastinate coming to classes, note writing and reading. They prefer doing other things that waste time and spend no or little time on reading. Such students are those that crash-read without having time to rest and end up performing less in the examination. This group of students always takes coffees and other drugs that prevent sleeping when its exam time. These drugs expose them to physical and mental stress before, during and after the examination.
9. Have a good relationship with teachers. Teachers help in the achievement of one’s career. Students should have a good rapport with their teachers. They give advice, share experiences and guide students. Students should be free to meet their teachers for clarity when facing any difficulty in studies. (you can read an interesting article on how to improve teacher-student relationship here)
10. Set realistic goals and work towards it. Goals should be set at the beginning of a new term or session. Desired grades in each course should be written and worked towards. The goals should be realistic. It is not enough to set the goals. They should be followed up diligently. Midnightcandles should be burned if necessary to achieve the set goals.
11. Do not be a back bencher. Serious students are always seen in the front seats where there is full concentration and no distraction. Back-benchers are labeled by the teachers as the unserious ones and trouble makers. A good student sitting at the back will be implicated by the unserious ones. Teachers focus and pay more attention to those sitting at the front.  If you are sitting at the front, a teacher can easily discover that you don’t understand what he/she is teaching by mere looking at your countenance. Students sitting at the front have access to first hand information and points made by the teachers. They also make good notes and tend to do well in examinations.
12. Class participation. You should ask questions in areas that confuse you. Students should not be shy of making contributions. It is better to say the wrong thing and to be corrected than keeping quiet thinking it is right. It is believed that anything said in public cannot be forgotten. A student working towards success should be bold to ask questions, answer questions and make contributions in class. These boost his/her morale, destroy timidity, enhance learning and enable a good teacher-student relationship (you can read an interesting article on how to improve teacher-student relationship here). Students should always go to the class with open minds and readiness to learn new things.
13. Make worthy friends. The brilliant and hardworking students should be your close friends. Any friend that does not add any values to life have lesser goals and aims should be avoided. You should make friends with people that have the same goals and values as you. It is important not to miss it when it comes to the choice of friends because the choice of a friend can make or destroy one’s future.
14. Personal care and Hygiene. Students should cultivate the habit of eating well and drinking water. Balanced food with lots of fruits should be taken. Junks and fast foods should be reduced. It is not just all about books. Students should rest and sleep adequately. Both the body and the brain needs taken care of.  The environment should be clean and free of insects, mosquitoes, pollution and haphazard. (read more about personal hygiene here)
15. Engage in extra curriculum and social activities.‘All work and no play make Jack a dull boy ‘. Time should be given to social activities and extra school activities such as sports, birthday parties and so on. Through these activities, social interaction will be enhanced, students get to meet new friends with the same purpose, get exposed to other ways of lives and educational opportunities. This should not interfere with their studies. There should be moderation in a student’s social lives.
16. Adequate preparation for the examination. Tests and exams should be prepared for. Preparation should start right from the first day in school and not when the exam is near. All notes should be read, important points should be memorized, solutions to the assignments should be practiced, No stone must be left unturned. Notes should not be disposed off after exams but should be kept for future purposes and reference.
17. Write all tests and exam. All tests, impromptu or not should not be taken with levity. You may not know which one your teacher will use. All forms of tests, class works and examination should be well written. Students should be present to write the examination. If there is any need to be absent, teachers are to be informed and the permit to be absent should be granted. This allows the grace for a make-up test or exam. If the reason for being absent is genuine and if the student in question is known not to be a truant, the teachers may decide to postpone the exam for the student’s sake.
18. Have a mentor in your career. Students always have those they look up to. They may be their parents, teachers, religious leaders or political leaders. There is a need to move closer to these people for guidance, advice, and encouragement. They play some roles in goal actualization and in career choice (read an interesting article on choosing the right career here).
19. Do not be discouraged by past failures. One of the keys to success is to rise from pitfalls. After realizing the mistakes of the past, they are to be avoided instead of dwelling on them. Steps should be made to leave the past and focus on the future.

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