How to get A's at University

How to get A’s at University

- William Hay, MD, LMCC, CFP, ASH, FLEX FRCPC, ADM, CSAM, MROCC

The average IQ is 100.  University is established at the level where a person with an Average IQ will pass if they attend class and complete the assignments.  People who have completed high school usually have established that they have a 100 IQ.

The University is a business and it’s selling education as a product. It is no longer ‘exclusive’. Everyone can get a university education if they are willing to do the work.  Most people who ‘fail’ university in my experience have been those who did not attend class, do their homework, or show up for exams.  Others have gone to very poor high schools and been passed when they should have had remedial training.

THere are Arts courses and Science courses.  Science courses are by design more difficult and more demanding.  It’s much harder to get by in Science by ‘who you know’ versus ‘what you know’.  I can fake ‘literary criticism’ but I can’t ‘fake’ making nitro glycerin in the lab.   At the higher levels of Arts and Science studies the two become equally difficult but generally speaking a Bachelor of Arts degree is far easier to obtain than a Bachelor of Science degree.

Assuming that there are 3 hours of class per arts credit per semester, and five credits per semester for roughly 3 years or 6 semesters, to get a basic Bachelor of Arts, one has roughly 5x3 or 15 hours a week of university ‘work’ to do to get a degree.  This explains why so many people do their Bachelor degree at night school.  Attending the classes and doing the exams and assignments to complete a Bachelor degree in 3 years with summers and holidays off for work and vacation, one has roughly a 15 to 20 hour work week.

It is not surprising that most people who have government jobs have got them by having a Bachelor of Arts degree.  It’s also no surprise that people in the ‘private’ world look at most low level government jobs as ‘cozy’, ‘overpaid’, and mostly ‘secure’ but for ‘stupid’ people without alot of motivation.  It’s better to have people employed in government and union positions than to have the same people out in the community unemployed causing trouble.

To get a ‘B” average at university, all one has to do in Arts is to study one hour for every hour of class room time. Note “1 hour’” of study is ‘1hour” of study, ie sitting upright at a table or study cubicle with a computer or book focussed on the subject material with pen and note pad or tablet at hand.  This means that person is doing 30 hours of study a week for a 3 year arts degree plus doing exams and assignments.

People who do this are more likely to advance in Government positions based on meritocracy rather than ‘years in”.

If one wants to get an A average in Arts all one has to do is study 2 hours for every hour of classroom time resulting in the average 45 hour work that people who work in the private sector of society do as matter of fact for any income over $50,000 gross a year.  They are working 60 hour work weeks as students.  Not terribly onerous but the basic minimum work week of the leaders of private sector business.  In government these are likely to be supervisors and upwardly mobile.

People who gets A’s in Bachelor of Arts degrees usually go on to do another year Honours and commonly advance to Masters Degrees.

To get an A plus one simply has to study 3 hours for ever hour of class room time making an average work week of 75 hours.  Considering the average work week of all ‘professionals’ has been said to be 80 hours this is not an onerous beginning. Work is required to be an engineer, doctor, accountant or lawyer.  It’s not required to be a low level government worker but it certainly is required to be the assistant of the premier or prime minister.  Watch “The Devil Wears Prada”.  The star was a lawyer working in business.  Every industry has leaders like this.  Only in government or unions can you expect to get paid for dollars for work. That’s the ‘blue collar’ idea. I get paid by the hour.  In the ‘white collar’ one is rewarded by the willingness to do work for free and as a result of this initial committments fame and fortune follow.

In the Sciences there is another factor that makes them more difficult and onerous.  Sciences have a lab each week in addition to three hours of class room. This makes science courses in general ‘more work’.  Instead of 3 hours of class a week, there are 4 hours of class a week. Hence to get a C one has to do 20 hours of work attending 5 courses for 3 years minimum plus completing assignments and showing up for exams.

In addition to just ‘talk’ like politicians and ‘salesmen’ and ‘administrators’, the sciences require that you actually can ‘make something’.  You must be able to ‘do’ things. You can’t be all thumbs and the making of a nuclear warhead in the class room isn’t a matter ‘of opinion’. Either the product blows up the world or it doesn’t.  There’s no ‘political correctness’ in the Science lab.  In Arts one can be wildly insane and delusional and get an A whereas in Science there’s a basic need to be reality based. Gravity ‘limits’ political thinking.

To get an A+ average in the sciences then one has to assume 4 hours per class study and attenance x 4 x 5 = 80 hours/ week. I think I did the math wrong and it’s even more.

The idea here is that as Einstein said, Genius is 99% perspiration and 1 %inspiration.

The number one reason for students not doing well in school is lack of study time.  Use of a timer and a set study place with mapping of the hours of study is the best self assessment process. Most people over estimate their study time and want to get something for nothing.

This may sound ‘harsh’. It’s clearly not ‘politically correct’.  Political correctness is for losers and whiners.

If you get an ‘A” and ‘don’t need to study’ then you’re doing a ‘too easy program’ or ‘too easy university’.  I got straight A’s at university but at Medical School was 1 of 15 straight A’s of the 100 students in the class.  It’s easy to be a big fish in a small pond.  The olympics and the top universities and professional sports are places where the competition is ‘humbling’.  The same is true for the ‘rich and powerful’. I’ve never met the ‘idle rich’.  If you’re lucky enough to be rich you’ll going to have to work to stay rich because everyone else wants to take your wealth or power.

If you have say 130 IQ  or greater then you will get Straight A’s with simply attending class. If you don’t get straight A’s you’re usually not as smart as you think.  Arrogance is the other principal reason for people doing poorly at university.  It’s not rocket science but ‘laziness’ and ‘arrogance’ do exist and are common and are common ‘reason’s’ for failure. If you are a genius after you get straight A’s in an arts program you might want to get transferred to Stanford or Harvard or do a dual honors degree at University of Manitoba or Saskatchewan.  Idleness is the ‘devil’s playground’. Alot of previously likely to succeed people were under achieving and ended up doing drugs, gambling, watching tv, having all consuming self aggrandising romances or whatever.  Later they said ‘poor me’.

A minority of people have difficulties for other reasons. The majority of people have difficulties because of laziness and arrogance.  Laziness and arrogance are common.

This is not a politically correct attitude. It is common though in those who are ‘achievers’ and do well at university.  They don’t believe someone else should take care of them and they don’t believe they should get something for nothing. They do have a very good ‘work ethic’.

I will elsewhere explain how one can succeed once one has a positive attitude with a positive work ethic.  If a person is doing the minimum numbers of hours of study and still not achieving it may not be because they’re ‘stupid’ but rather because they’re ‘studying wrong’.  Once you’re putting in the time the refinement can be made but until you’re actually putting the hours in the ‘refinements’ can’t be done.  The brain is like a muscle.  If you’re not working out regularly you’re not going to succeed.  Efficiency of study is done after the person is putting in the hours, not before.