HINTS TO ACHIEVING ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

By Gavin Aleogho

What is excellence?

Excellence is the quality of being outstanding or extremely good at what you do. It is a conscious develop attitude or habit over a period of time. It is not a trait that is inherited but one that is developed. That is why you could find a man that has excelled in all his endeavours but his children are failures, you also find a reverse of the same case. This is because the trait of excellence cannot be transferred by blood, but it can only be learnt and developed. This goes to show that you can excel in life whether your biological parents are successful or not.

Excellence doesn’t imply perfection, but it’s only a walk towards perfection. And it has a price tag which is sacrifice. Excellence is never achieved on a platter of gold. You don’t achieve excellence just by being indifferent to things that concern you. Excellence is a spirit. Excellence should be developed to become a habit which is exhibited in everything that one does.

Achieving academic excellence

You can apply excellence in every of your endeavour in life. One aspect of life that demands excellence is in the aspect of academics. I believe everyone can excel academically if they desire it and if they know how to achieve it.

One of the first steps to achieving academic excellence is having the right motivation. Why do you want that degree? What is your drive? What do you want to achieve with that degree? If you can answer these questions rightly, you would not need anyone to compel you to study or put in your best.

Let us have some tips that would keep us focused and motivated in achieving academic excellence.

1.      Know and believe in yourself. The first step towards achieving excellence in your academics is to know yourself and believe in what you can do. Have confidence in yourself and your inherent ability.

2.      Know your limitations and weak point: Know your weak point and limitations and work at it. For example, if you are an engineering student but you are poor in mathematics; that is a weak point that would affect other of your courses. Work on improving in mathematics.

3.      Know your strength. Know yourself, your worth, your built, strength and abilities. Everyone have something that puts them at advantage. Look critically into your life and check what you have and leverage on it.

4.      Set a target. Have a goal in mind. What grade are you targeting in that course? Do you have all it takes to achieve that? If not, go work at getting all it takes to achieve your target. When you set a target, you brace up yourself to achieve it.

5.      Know what it requires. You need to know what it takes (the cost and sacrifice it requires) to achieve your goal. Does it require you get a new book? Does it require that you increase the number of hour of studies? Check it up and give it all it takes.

6.      Prioritize your activities. Set things in your life in order of importance. What priority have you placed in achieving that degree vis-à-vis other activities that are prone to eating up your time? Check it up and place achieving that degree a top priority and you will see that you will succeed.

7.      Discipline yourself to study: this is a conscious control over your life and lifestyle. You have to be in control of your life and not leave it to chance. You can not achieve anything in life without self-discipline. You should not wait for an external force to push you to do what you ought to do.

8.      Stay Focused. Focus all your time, energy and resources in achieving that goal. Give it all it takes to achieve your aim. Don’t allow anything to take you off course.

9.      Manage your time. Manage and organize your time in such a way so as to achieve maximum return from it. Understand your peak period and leverage on it. Do away with every form of time wasters.

10.  Keep right association. Keep right company that would spur you to achieve excellence in your academics. Never associate with friends that would waste your time or divert your focus.

11.  Prepare early. Prepare adequately and early for your test and examination. The saying that, “proper preparation prevent poor performance”, still holds true today. You can achieve much if you prepare early.

12.  Depend on God’s blessings. Never forget nor neglect the God factor. Trust God to crown your effort with success.

Beware of the following attitude

1.    Indolence. Laziness and idleness attitudes must be avoided. To achieve success you must negate laziness. For hard work is a major requirement to achieving success.

2.    Procrastination. What must be done must be done in the right time. Avoid the habit of postponing doing things that makes for academic excellence.

3.      Stupidity. Avoid doing things or indulging in things or acts that would jeopardise your chances of achieving success in your academics.

4.      Nonchalance. A nonchalant attitude is one that is indifferent about important things. When one is nonchalant about his or her studies, he is bound to fail. You can’t be unserious about your studies. For you to achieve academic excellence, you must take achieving that degree very important.