There is no one definition of smart. Is a person who is good at Math smart? Is a person who can solve some life problems better than others smart? Are we all smart in our own way? Are we born more or less smart? What are the criteria for smartness if any? Is being smart a virtue? How to be a smart person? And how to be a smart student? There are so many questions and not so many answers, especially answers that many people agree on. Being smart is mostly considered a virtue as it helps in solving daily and professional professional problems.
At the same time, they often say that emotional intellect is often prevalent over standard intellect nowadays. People want to be more aware, more adequate in communication with others. Pure intellect is no longer what you need to be successful in life and most of all — happy. Fortunately or unfortunately, we won’t be able to solve all the questions in one bit in this article, so we have decided to focus on something practical — how to be a smart student?
What Does Being a Smart Student Mean?
Again, we come back to questions, but it would be difficult not to do it, as before we give you tips on how to become a smart student we should make sure that we share the same understanding on the matter. Here are some characteristics that we think are inherent to most of the smart students:
Ability to learn
Yes, we talk about emotional intellects, but when it comes to studying your ability to learn is one of the top priorities to focus on. Ability to learn unites your inborn cognitive abilities and how you have developed them through life. There is hardly a 1% of people born geniuses, and we should hardly focus on them, because being genetically predisposed to do something better than others is not a topic of this article and is so rare. You can develop your abilities to learn by… learning. Surprised, ha? Cognitive muscle is basically just a muscle, you need to train your brain to perceive, store and recreate information when needed more efficiently. You also need to rest enough, because your tired brain doesn’t work efficiently.
Ability to focus
Concentration is the key, and it is very easy to lose it, well, as any key. Even if you are a generally smart person, the ability to concentrate decides how far you will be able to progress with your studies. Concentration is fluid, it is not some top number you can hit and keep it that way. Too low concentration is a problem because you feel too relaxed to focus, and too high concentration is also not a good thing, because you are over focused, you like “high” mentally, you can do everything and nothing for too long at the same time, you need to jump from one topic to another all the time.
Ability to delegate
We don’t know why in the recent 70-100 years people are seen as supposed to do everything on their own. The more the better. Studies, assignments, side jobs, sports, additional projects, volunteering work, self-help, emotional development, group studies and many more activities. We say that to be efficient you need to learn to delegate, you need to learn to prioritize. You can order food, you can hire someone to help you with complex assignments you don’t see fit in your schedule right now. Addressing MyAssignmentLab to get your assignments done from scratch, you receive an opportunity to plan your week, your month more balanced, while experts work on your STEM homework. Deadlines are tricky, and truly smart students prefer not to play with fire when they are not sure they can handle it. We strongly recommend that you consider delegating some of your tasks if you want to rest enough and not risk your ability to focus and perceive new information in general.
View more: Students Who Changed Technology World
What you need to become a smart student
First of all, we believe that you are already a smart student. Yes, maybe we should have said something from the very beginning. An interesting thing is, only smart people can truly question their overall intellect and cognitive abilities and try to find ways to improve them. If you made an effort to find this article, and actually have read it till this point, you are definitely on the “smart students” specter. Still, there is always room for improvement, or the entire system would be stable and dead (as any truly stable system). Here are some extra tips on what makes you a smart student you may consider valuable.
- Environment. We are strongly defined by our environment, but people we communicate with, by people we trust, study with. They say that we are the sum and average of five people closest to us, and till some point it is true. Choose your environment wisely and be an interesting and reliable person enough to be valued and welcome in such an environment as well.
- Self-care. You cannot move too fast or come too far if you don’t take good care of yourself. Eating well, getting enough sleep, giving yourself breaks, delegating some of your tasks, having fresh air, doing necessary check-ups, caring for your mental health – all these are necessary for your success in education and further in life.
- Purpose. Japanese call it Ikigai. Something that gives you life purpose, some idea, some work that you are dedicated to, something that drives your life giving it meaning. Of course, it is difficult to find such a thing being a teenager, even a very smart teenager, because you need to experience many more things before you form or find your Ikigai. Still, keep this “purpose’ concept in mind in order to find your way.
We do hope these tips were valuable and some of them will give you a better understanding of what it means to be a smart student. Still, we encourage you to find your own way, to look for your own strategy.
Taylor is a freelance SEO copywriter and blogger. His areas of expertise include technology, pop culture, and marketing.
