The Secret to College Success

Academic, Advice

“Underachievement among American youth is often blamed on inadequate teachers, boring textbooks and large class sizes. We suggest another reason for students falling short of their intellectual potential: their failure to exercise self-discipline.” ¹

Many of you are probably familiar with the “marshmallow test,” in which Walter Mischel, and other psychologists since, discovered that children from 4 to 13 who were capable of delaying gratification by deferring instant pleasure in order to achieve a longer-term goal were more likely to grow up into “socially competent, resilient, articulate, attentive, reasoning teens who scored substantially higher on the SATs and got higher educational degrees” (Jackson, p. 227).

Researchers suggest that the reason this simple test is so effective a predictor of long-term behavior is that it measures attentional control, or an individual’s ability to use coping strategies to exercise self-control.

The children who were able to resist instant gratification did so by not thinking about the pleasure the marshmallow or dollar bill would give them, but by disassociating themselves from the item — closing their eyes, thinking of other things, trying to sleep, pretending the item was a picture, and otherwise avoiding the emotional arousal those who failed the test experienced — imagining how the marshmallow would taste or what that dollar could buy the same day.

U.S. college students are doing poorly — though many go to college, only about 54% of those who do get a four-year degree within six years, and fewer in many cases, such as belonging to an ethnic minority. Many graduate high school unprepared in English, reading, science, and math. Yet 90% of college freshman expect to get B’s or better, even though they study only about 14 hours a week. (Jackson, p. 227) The assumption in college, I should clarify, is that a student studies 2 hours for every 1 unit of coursework — so a typical 12-unit semester load would require 24 hours of homework: reading, researching, writing, etc., to ace. Yet students aren’t studying anywhere near this hard while still expecting to excel in their classes.

As many employers have bemoaned, this means that many students are graduating from college without the skills they need for the workplace. Moreover, and more worrisome, this suggests that many students haven’t learned self-discipline; they haven’t mastered the ability to control their emotions and defer instant gratification in order to concentrate on achieving long-term goals.

So, how do you learn to defer gratification? Here are a few suggestions:

• Don’t think about  immediate pleasure (of blowing off class, not studying, spending your money), but think instead about how you’ll feel when you achieve your long-term goal.
  • Put a photo or image of that goal someplace where you can see it, to remind and inspire you. Put a visual reminder of your dream career in your study area, or wrap the image of the new car or vacation you’re saving up for around your credit card.
• Focus. You can’t concentrate on studying if you’re texting friends, listening to your roommates party, or even listening to intrusive music. Go someplace quiet and alone, like a study carrel at the library, or use sound-deadening earphones, or put on soothing music that will help you focus.
• Avoid boredom. Often we start to obsess over things we want because we’re bored, so alleviate that boredom and your desire will fade. If you’re burned out on studying and starting to obsess over how much fun you’re missing out on, or how great it’d be to buy that new computer game now, or how tasty that pizza would be, take a break and do something useful that requires your concentration — go to the gym, do your laundry, call your family, take a walk around campus with a camera and see how much wildlife you can photograph. There is a good reason to take an occasional study break!
• Don’t deprive yourself. Most people are not as self-disciplined as an ascetic monk, and they shouldn’t have to be. Figure out your most important goals (learning calculus, writing an “A” paper, losing weight, raising your batting average — whatever!) and concentrate on one or two of those at a time. Then give yourself a break on the rest.

Learning how to delay gratification is an important tool for success in college and in life in general, but like all tools, it needs to be used wisely. Use it so that you can enjoy life more, not less. Achieving big, long-term goals like getting the degree you want so that you can get a good job in the field you want will give you more pleasure over the long term than attending a series of dorm parties — but maintaining social ties is important, too. Go ahead — go to the parties that don’t cut into your study time! Exercise willpower, but don’t become a perfectionist about it.

Jackson adds, “Minute by minute, self-control blossoms into broader forms of focus and persistence called ‘engagement’ that fuel both academic achievement and depth of thought. Students who study longer and get more deeply involved in their courses, and their reading and writing, report making greater gains in critical thinking and intellectual development in college, numerous studies show” ² (emphasis added).

It seems old-fashioned, doesn’t it, to suggest that students who want to succeed in college should learn how to focus on their classes? But the study results seem pretty clear — mastering self-discipline in terms of being able to delay gratification and focus on the task at hand is the secret to college success.

1. Angela Duckworth & Martin Seligman, “Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents, Psychological Science 16(12), 2005, 939-944, cited in Jackson (2008), Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, p. 227.

2. Michael Posner & Mary K. Rothbart, Educating the Human Brain (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2007) p. 64, cited in Jackson (2008), Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, pp. 232-233.

photo by hhsara, stock.xchng

drupagliassotti @ August 31, 2008