How to Win at College: Surprising Secrets for Success from the Country's Top Students Kindle Edition

To be honest, if I had just graduated high school and someone gave me this book as a gift, I would roll my eyes and never open it. I picked it up a week ago, however, now that I am almost done with my second year of university, and I really do wish that I had had it (and cared to read it) two years ago.The book is seventy-five pieces of advice, each with about two pages of explanation. The advice is pretty simple, as you can see from looking at the table of contents ("Dress Nicely for Class," "Never Nap," "Eat Healthy," "Always Go to Class"). But the reason this book is effective is that it serves as a quick-reference manifesto for some of the more important (to me) advice.For example, I'm taking a grad-level fiction writing class. No due dates (except the final deadline at the end of the semester) and no class. You just write at your own pace and turn in a portfolio. This is incredibly difficult for me to do, and I'm unbelievably far behind in the work for the class. I was really quite worried about how I would ever pull it off. The whole semester, my fiction work has been priority #75, and I usually crash between priorities #14 and #20. But with some of the advice in this book ("Keep a Work Progress Journal," "Set Arbitrary Deadlines," "Avoid Daily To-Do Lists," "Don't Take Breaks Between Classes"), I actually feel pretty confident about being able to finish on time. By reading this book (and [...] and Newport's more recent book,  How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less ) I've adopted some strategies and habits that have actually yielded results.Before Cal Newport, I was up late every night, angrily doing my homework until I couldn't drink any more tea, without any free time. Now, I'm getting my homework done before sundown (for the most part), feeling enormously more relaxed, and regaining a good amount of the excitement that I had about college before I got here.If you're on your way to college, and you're the sort of person who can stomach (and listen to) advice, do yourself a favor and read this book. Newport admits in the introduction that not every piece of advice will be for you (for me: "Exercise Five Days a Week" and "Use a Filing Cabinet"). If you want to be more than an average student without being a "grind," this book has a good deal of solid advice.If you're already in college, and you're looking for more in-depth and practical advice, I recommend also reading  How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less . It has more thorough advice for confronting the terrors that you have come to know in college.

This is indeed a book full of ingenious insights from smart and confident students who lead fulfilling lives. Now that I'm already a sophomore who wasted quite a trunk of my university life feeling lost amid a sea of options and (sometimes downright wrong and detrimental) information, I wish I had this authoritative(in the sense of being offered by the most brilliant of students) guidance before I entered college. Most of the advices, I'd say 65 out of 75, are indeed invaluable pieces that I would read again and again and recommend to any student.However, here comes the caveat: this book is not without its fault. There are some pieces of advices which appear to me way too opinionated, off-the-ground and even immature. Most obviously the advices "Attend Political Rallies", "Publish (Deliberately Controversial) Op-Eds", "Don't Network but try Anti-network(which is basically an application of pick-up art)", "Create adventures", "Inflate your ambition" etc. To me, these thoughts appear, to use a subtle word, high-schoolish; to be more frank, they are downright unrealistic, narcissistic and obnoxious. I can't on earth think of any reason why a sane person would write a deliberately controversy-seeking article except for generating attention and a pathetic sense of self-importance. These acts don't contribute anything concrete to the cause of real progress and are some obvious traits of disgusting grandiose d****/politicians.Setting the above caveat apart. The book is a thoroughly enjoyable and reassuring read. And since it largely includes but is not limited to the scope of How to be a A+ Student, I would recommend this book over that one, since it helps you much more in overall.

Quick review: if you're about to go into college, BUY THIS. If you're already in college, STILL BUY THIS.This great book has conventional and unconventional advice. I'm already a fan of Cal Newport's advice and blog, but this book condenses his ideas that are most relevant to me (since I will be going to college in the fall of '15).It isn't a typical 'how to do well in college' book whatsoever. This truly gives you the truth of what needs to happen to become a part of the exceptional. And he isn't writing it with the assumed purpose of impressing everybody or becoming a mega-successful overlord; he writes with the tone that leaves up the ultimate goals you have up to you. Also, the writing style is not annoying like a lot of books are.Personally, I just want to optimize my college experience, leave my comfort zone, and get into grad school. This book will help me.If you want to start the track of becoming a super-rich, art-gallery-going, Bentley-driving, awe-inspiring successful person, this book will still be very worth your time.It's absolutely worth the money if that's what is keeping you on the edge of buying this.It has countless (actually 75) useful ideas throughout, too, if you worry it has only one or two pieces of useful advice and that's it.Bonus: if you like what you read, he has a blog with even more stuff to learn.

Loved it, had some great tips for university students! I'm from England, and though it is more directed towards the American education system, most of it still applied. I'd definitely recommend it to prospective uni students!

Excellent book, every young person should read it

Amazing book. Not linear and helpfull, it can really help if you have problems managing time and study. Other books by Cal Newport are more detailled, but this one is simple and easy to read.

In dem Buch sind 75Tipps für Studenten. Eigentlich ist das Buch für den typischen amerikanischen Studenten, der "on campus" wohnt, gedacht. Trotzdem kann man die Tipps auch für ein "normales" Studentenleben bzw. für ein berufsbegleitendes Studium anwenden. In letzterem Fall vielleicht nicht alles, aber doch immerhin so, dass man einen Mehrwert aus diesem Buch erzielen kann.Interessant fand ich den Ansatz: Nicht überall der Beste sein, sondern sich jedes Semester ein paar Dinge (Klausuren oder Hausarbeiten) raussuchen, wo man grossartig sein möchte (und es dort auch sein). Dadurch erhöht man seinen eigenen Wert mehr, als wenn man insgesamt versucht, seinen Standard hochzuheben. Diese Art des Fokus habe ich so noch nirgendwo gelesen.Oder der Drei-Tage Ansatz für Hausarbeiten. Meine letzte Hausarbeit im Studium schreibe ich nun nach diesem Grundsatz. Mal schauen, was bei rauskommt.Ich schreibe derzeit meine Bachelorarbeit und die Bücherkombination: Getting Things Done, How to win at college und Deep Work haben meine Arbeitsweise deutlich zum Positiven verändert.

When I took the book out of its envelope I was surprised about how small it is and while skimming through it my suspicion was quickly confirmed: this book is not the in-depth guide I had expected.The book gives some good general ideas (write a paper in three days, apply for as many scholarships as possible), but stays rather superficial on how exactly to achieve these. I wish it would spare some obvious or unnecessary points ("don't bindge-drink") and give a more detailed outline on how to make a successful application for a scholarship or how to "study smarter".Another tiny critique is, that many points of advise apply mostly to US-Campus life and cannot be transferred to any university. But that is no problem of the book, it is just something to bear in mind for any potential readers who do not go to university in the US.I already did my Bachelor's degree and am soon starting my Master's and bought the book hoping it would teach me how to avoid mistakes I made in the past. But I must say to really learn about efficient study techniques so far nothing I have read tops "How to study in college" from Walter Pauk. "How to win at college" is mostly fit as an introduction for students who just finished high-school, and they should be advised that they will need to buy other books to learn how to apply the most useful ideas presented in this book.