College Lessons from the Heart
The hardest part about college is learning the things you actually need in real life. Here are 5 of the most important lessons I learned at university that nobody ever taught me.
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👋🏼 It’s Linart. Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share lessons and stories from my honest attempts towards betterment. If you’re not yet a subscriber, here’s what you missed last month:
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Many of the beliefs I held during college were wrong. Some of them almost cost me a good future. But the journey helped me learn what I truly needed to learn.
In this week’s newsletter, I’ll be sharing the most eye-opening truths that helped me do well at university:
Classes start before the semester begins
Don’t manage your time. Manage your energy.
The most effective learning technique is taking care of your health
Hard work doesn’t equate to good grades
Don’t rely on Latin honors for a good career
Read Time: 9 minutes
Everybody tells you to do well in college, but nobody really teaches you how to do that.
You have to learn the most important lessons on your own. In my case, I had to go through failure after failure just to get a hold of these lessons. But looking back, they're what helped me achieve my goals, both in and out of academics.
Here are 5 of the most important lessons I learned that helped me make the most out of my college journey.
1. Classes start before the semester begins
My friend, Marge, graduated Summa Cum Laude a year earlier than the rest of our batch.
Her high school track record was excellent. She competed and won in international math competitions, and was given the Youth Excellence award by the Department of Science and Technology for 4 straight years.
Even before being admitted as freshmen, my batchmates and I knew that she’d graduate with Latin honors. But none of us expected she could do it in only three years instead of four.
For a long time, I thought that her academic success was mainly brought about by her intellectual abilities, but I learned that there’s more to it than that.
Apart from her commendable work ethic, the reason she excels in all of her classes is because she prepares for them much earlier than everybody does.
Around two weeks before the start of every semester, she’d chat with me to inquire about the classes she would be taking. She was curious about the professor who teaches the class, the requirements that need to be accomplished, and the strategies that could be implemented throughout the semester.
Most of her questions revolved around the following:
Have you taken this course before? How is the class?
Which course is better to take this semester: course A or course B? Which one has a heavier workload?
How is Sir A as a professor? How do they teach?
How difficult is the exam? What are the requirements I should prepare for?
Marge is undeniably a brilliant student. But what truly sets her apart is her eagerness to constantly learn—even before the semester begins.
If I learned anything during college, it’s that being an exemplary student requires more than just intellectual abilities. The most brilliant students set themselves up for success early on.
2. Don’t manage your time. Manage your energy.
After years of trial and error, I learned that time management is flawed.
The problem isn't that we don't have enough time. It's that we don't have enough energy.
Before, I used to create detailed schedules for my studying, which would look something like this:
To me, this scheduled looked perfectly reasonable.
I'm giving myself enough time to study lectures and complete requirements, and I give myself time to rest in between. However, what would happen is I'd end up not sticking to this schedule, no matter how disciplined I try to be.
It was only in my final year at university when I realized I shouldn’t be managing my time but my energy instead.
Yes, I may be blocking out enough time for studying. But what I never considered is whether I will have enough energy by the time I need to study.
Notice what's scheduled in the morning.
I decided to work on my Physics activity as my first task of the day. After that, I thought of studying a Math lecture.
Even if I took breaks and had a restful lunch, chances are I won't have enough energy to go through my Arts module in the afternoon. I may have been a bit arrogant thinking my brain could handle the mental demand of the Physics activity and Math lecture. It couldn’t.
So now, when I create a schedule, I carefully consider:
How much energy I have at each time of the day
How each activity will affect my energy
What I can do to recover that energy after the task
Instead of planning based on time, I now plan based on energy instead:
3. The most effective learning technique is taking care of your health
In my freshman year, I'd attend my Math classes with my eyes slowly shutting every 15 minutes. I'd sit near the front of the lecture room to make sure I paid attention, but my efforts to focus were pointless.
In the afternoon, when I decided to study in the library, I would find myself dozing off to sleep. This happened all the time.
I used to blame the cool air from the air conditioner, but at the time, I was unaware that I was denying the real problem.
I kept this routine up for a year, thinking it was normal for a college student. I told myself lies that covered up the truth about my health.
“I’m just not motivated to focus today.”
“I’m probably tired from the commute.”
“My brain just got tired from listening to the lecture.”
I was denying that I lacked sleep because being tired and sleep-deprived felt like something to be proud of.
“I have to work hard to achieve my goals, no matter what it takes.”
I said those words to comfort myself amidst the struggle. But looking back, these words weren’t helpful at all.
You know what actually helped me? Admitting that I hadn’t been taking care of my health.
When the pandemic hit, I had the opportunity to fix myself.
Because I no longer needed to commute, I no longer needed to wake up at 5am to line up at the jeepney terminal by 6am.
I gained the freedom to get up on my normal schedule of 9 am. And for the same reason, I had the luxury to sleep at 1 am after watching anime.
My parents would tell me I should sleep earlier, but for once, I was confident that I knew better. This was sleep schedule was working for me because I was getting enough sleep, and I could get up at the same time every day. It worked perfectly.
From always being tired and unmotivated, I transformed myself into someone who could not only focus but could also feel good about himself. Sure, I still had my off-days, but I felt like I was my best self in those moments.
Today, whenever I struggle with being productive, I check in on my health first and foremost.
Around 90% of the time, that’s what’s causing the problems for me. And more often than not, the health problem I need to face is lack of sleep.
4. Hard work doesn’t equate to good grades
I used to be a huge believer in hard work, thinking that the only way to succeed in life is by working as hard as you can to reach your goals.
But while perseverance is a noble virtue, I realized that effort is meaningless if it's not directed towards the right thing.
In my second year of college, six months after the pandemic began, I remember spending 2-3 hours writing down notes from a recorded lecture. It felt good at the end.
I felt productive as I looked at the comprehensive summary I wrote, decorated with bright-colored headers on the most important concepts to remember.
After an hour-long break, I went back to my study desk to work on a homework from the same class. Equipped with my color-coded notes, I prepared myself to answer the questions.
But I didn’t know how to answer a single one.
It was then that I realized I had learned nothing. It felt like my fancy colored pens and Stabilo pastel highlighters failed me.
I decided to study the lecture from the very start. It was handy to have the summary available, but I could have saved time by simply reviewing the lecture right away.
Think about it for a second:
How many times have you exerted effort into studying, only to have learned almost nothing? In my early college years, this happened all the time.
It’s so easy to fall into these productivity traps.
You feel like you’re doing meaningful work because you get something done. But the reality is that the output wasn’t helpful despite all the effort you exerted.
Making summaries and highlighting text all feel productive, but doing them didn’t help me learn much.
Later on, I found that doing practice tests as soon as I could was a much more effective approach:
🚫 Thoroughly review the lecture and only test yourself afterwards.
✅ Study just enough and immediately proceed to testing yourself. If you struggle to answer, study what you need to know to answer the question.
This approach may seem weird at first because… why would you test yourself when you haven’t learned anything yet?
But this is the beauty of this study method: You actively learn as you go through exercises and answer questions.
And if you try this out, you’ll find that the lessons stick a whole lot better than just trying to study the lectures on their own.
5. Don’t rely on Latin honors for a good career
“Graduating Summa Cum Laude would guarantee a successful career.”
I strongly believed in this statement growing up.
But later on, I discovered this belief isn’t true.
When I interviewed for a management trainee role in a bank, the hiring manager told me something I could never forget.
"It's great that you're set to graduate Summa Cum Laude. But I want you to know that this isn't enough to get the job."
I noticed this in the other companies I applied to as well. My grades most likely helped me land the job interview, but the questions they’d ask me were always searching for a level of experience that I possess:
Tell me about a time when you demonstrated leadership in your past experiences.
Suppose you are facing [a specific scenario]. How will you handle the situation?
Give an example of a time you faced conflict. How did you deal with the problem?
While I was able to share some experiences from my classes, I found that the answers they liked the most were the ones from my extracurricular activities. It is there where I went outside of my comfort zone and really demonstrated my abilities.
So here’s the thing.
While good grades will help you stand out, it’s your experiences and individual abilities that will bring you a good career.
Writing this essay helped me remember how much I actually went through during college. It turned out to be a pretty wild ride, but I kinda miss being a college student. But well, good thing I’m still a student of life (no matter how cheesy this may have sounded).
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That’s it for this week.
Thank you for being here,