The Top 5 Things I Would've Told My College Freshman Self

Just recently, my brother asked me to give him tips about life spent studying accounting. He went on to saying he'd want to phone our grandparents because they're the best givers of advice since they've lived long enough. (I doubt the grandparents thing but I guess we could really take a lesson or two from their age.) Since I'm still not due for our little talk and that his request was one of the the wisest thing I've ever heard from him so far, I was inspired to write about ---

THE TOP 5 THINGS I WOULD'VE TOLD MY COLLEGE FRESHMAN SELF (who is an accounting major)!

So, yeah. I've written about it. I'll still talk to him though. But here they are anyway.

1. Attending class? Read up before you do. 

Boring? You can change that perspective. Not the best way to live college life? I don't think so and I've never been more certain in life. I'm even willing to shave my eyebrows if I'm wrong! (My eyebrows are very dear to me. That and the embarrassment out of not having them.)

If there is just one thing that your professors have that you don't, it is wisdom - be it one based on actually applying theory or a better understanding of theory borne out of whatever it is borne out of. Obviously, if a professor isn't wiser than you are in a particular subject, then I don't think it's a good idea for him/her to be teaching that subject.

In either case, however, reading up and understanding the topic way before the class, or at the very least the night before it, will make any classroom experience much more meaningful and worth your time. You'll do yourself a really big favor by learning something that isn't easily, easily taken from reading mainstream material about the topic or searching Google about it, which you could simply do ALONE. (#Emphasis just to emphasize this more.) Your professors aren't there to teach you how to read or to read with you. They are there to share their wisdom which you rightly do not have and to enlighten you. Reading way ahead will equip you with the ability to direct the discussion in class to areas which are still unclear to you despite all the understanding you attempted to do. In most cases, these are also unclear to most of your classmates. Anything you will learn from this is, by definition, deeper and much more profound, hence more fulfilling.

Otherwise, what's the point of going to class aside from exercising your bragging rights because you aced an exam or seeing your crush? (And your crush liking you because you aced an exam?)

And if your teacher isn't all that good with the subject, then your penetrating questions about deeper matters on the subject will let him/her think twice about whether or not he/she is preparing enough for the topics. This is a great service to your classmates and to mankind because you're reshaping education to what it really is all about: the transmission of wisdom and not knowledge easily acquired.

2. Develop a study habit and do your very best to keep it.

The very best people in the world take time regularly to develop their skill and produce masterpieces/success. Look at The Beatles, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Sharmila Parmanand, or anyone successful you can think of. All of them had their fair share of incredible and concentrated hard work - "deliberate practice". Likewise, the very worst people in the world also take time regularly to keep on failing - that is, they continuously procrastinate or play mindless internet games or find other excuses why they're not doing the right thing until they either fail to do it or do it poorly. Think of just about any person who is so disappointed with himself/herself because he/she is such a constant failure, a chronic unhealthy procrastinator, an unskillful wreck (medical, genetic, and socioeconomic conditions aside).  

If there's only one thing I would want to say, it is this: we, human beings, are simply collections of habits. The more good habits you have, the better off you are. The more bad habits you have, the worse off. It is deeply wired into our brains to automate things that we constantly do to be more efficient. What we continuously do will always reflect what we will become because in time we will inevitably find ourselves doing that thing without even thinking about it! And the longer it is engraved into our brains, the harder it is to remove it or to reformat our brains. (This is perhaps why most of us go to Facebook upon opening our browsers without second thought. The horror.) 

Think about habits as the process of making concrete and the concrete as the person you want to be. Before concrete (future you) becomes concrete, it is cement with sand and water. When it's still wet, you can still carve markings on it or reshape the entire thing to your liking. The markings and molding you are doing is the continuous practice or attainment of the skill or knowledge/wisdom which you need to become the person you choose to be (or to get the appearance of the concrete you want). These markings and molding may be the skill in writing or painting or the knowledge/wisdom of international auditing standards. Through time, this wet cement mixture hardens. This is where you are solidifying your skills and knowledge/wisdom in order to be that kind of person (or concrete) you hope to be. The harder this mixture gets (or the better you execute your chosen skills or the more wisdom/knowledge you attain), the surer you are that you really are becoming that person (or heart-shaped concrete, concrete full of paw marks, or whatever). Once the mixture dries completely, you have become what you have constantly been doing, either a success story (not necessarily the "glamorous" success story known by the public), a nobody, or a wreck. 

In case you became a total wreck, and you then wish to change, you'll find it incredibly difficult to do so. To break concrete, you need some high-powered equipment - a wrecking ball and sledge hammer for instance - which are incredibly difficult to acquire and operate or which require so much resources and effort to do so.

So, if you want to have the best learning experience possible in your course, then regularly learn things about your course, that is, study daily or every two days or every Saturday and Sunday about topics under your course. If you want to be the best soccer player, then practice soccer everyday after class. If you want to be the best good-for-nothing freeloader, then do anything that isn't worth your time or worth anybody's time everyday!

The first tip can tell you a good habit.

3. In class, never sit beside your crush or an extremely annoying person.

You just can't concentrate on the discussion. That's pretty much everything about it.

If you want to flirt, do it outside class. (Note: Classroom and class is different. Flirting inside a classroom may help in setting a "particular mood" right. Hehe)

4. If you're given the choice, choose the best time of the day for your worst subject. But before that, discover your biorhythm. 

We all have a biorhythm. It is the pattern of energy levels that your body follows. There are simply times of the day when we are most energized. Hence, there are night owls, morning larks, midday peacocks, and those who take siesta at noon. The sooner you discover that time when you are most energized, the more effective and efficient your learning can be.

When you finally find the time of the day when you learn the best, put your worst subject there. For instance, if you're most active at late afternoon and your body always snoozes out on you by midday, then avoid positioning a subject you don't particularly like during midday, but position it instead to late afternoon. Otherwise, you'll do much poorer in that subject. (Here I'm assuming you want to do good in ALL your subjects, hence feel good about your sheer awesomeness.)

Or you may also want to consider putting the most challenging subject there even if it's not your worst.

In most cases, like in the university I'm attending, we don't get to choose our schedule. So try modifying your body rhythm to suit your learning needs. So if (a) your worst subject or the most challenging subject is at 7:30am,  and (b) you are most energized 2 hours after you wake up, then shift your sleeping pattern to 9:00pm to 5:00am. In that way, your body will be most energized by 7:00am. Easy math, right?

Also use your understanding of your biorhythm to know when's the best time for "deliberate practice". (Remember tip #2?)

5. The guts to declare you're going to commit (to an org or to a goal) isn't enough. It takes awesome amounts of willpower and awareness to actually be committing to something good and committing excellently at that.

What you are doing when you declare that you'll be what you want to be or that you'll do something to realize a dream is what we call committing. And the best people around are those who stick to their commitments.

I cannot plainly explain how to maintain that required level of willpower to always follow through a commitment. In fact, I oftentimes fail at maintaining that discipline. What I can say though is that (1) developing good habits helps for the same reasons stated above and (2) choosing only a few (just around a couple) commitments is imperative because the time and energy you can dedicate is incredibly limited (especially when you're an accounting student). Most importantly, (3) you must constantly and consistently remind yourself that only the best of the best members of the human race sticks to what they say and to the good until the very end. 

Additionally, sticking to what you say or declare to be good requires so much discipline and willpower and ability to take criticisms constructively. Be especially ready for those. 

But this is not an excuse to remain to be the way you are right now until I don't know when, even if it's already glaringly bad for you or for other people - like maintaining unhealthy eating habits or being tad too arrogant and self-interested - just because you "believe it's good or you have the right to do so". I earlier said "declare to be good". "Good" does not have a singular definition and chances are we don't fully know what good means. Sometimes or most of the time, we fail to see the bigger picture (like the effects on the environment of our daily actions) or see the finer details (like the emotions of our subordinates in our organizations). So, know the difference between the two types of commitments: commitment that is good and commitment that is bad. (I know it's not that creatively labeled.)

Bad commitment is blindly following through what you like/believe/declare without thinking about whether or not your commitment helps you and others. Good commitment is following through what you like/believe/declare while being critically aware of whether or not your commitment affects others adversely in an unfair manner or if it destroys you ultimately. 

Therefore, while it is good that you wish to be the best member of the human race who has ever existed by committing until the very end, do not be afraid to denounce commitments that were bad and you just recently realized to be the case. The first few days of denouncing it will pain you very much, but in the end, you and others you protected will be much better off.