What the Best College Students Do

Before he invented the PalmPilot personal digital assistant, Jeff Hawkins spent much of his childhood building things, including experimental boats, and searching the local library for books on math puzzles, magic, and music. In college, he set out to answer four questions: “why does anything exist? […] why do we have the particular laws of physics that we do? […] why do we have life, and what is its nature?” and “what’s the nature of intelligence?” (33). Jeff dutifully completed the required courses, but his heart was in studies that piqued his deepest interests. He pursued the “why and how” of things and the connections between fields of study (34). Jeff was an outlier, but today’s theorists believe his experience can, and should, be common to most college undergraduates.

Students generally study in one of three ways: (1) surface learning, a work-avoidance strategy that picks up the basic facts of articles and books for use in passing tests; (2) deep learning, where ideas are probed, compared, and puzzled over; (3) and strategic learning, which focuses on what the professors want from them so they can do well and graduate with honors.

Strategic learners look good, but they don’t take any risks, and they have no time to pursue their curiosity and get lost in a subject. Their understanding of the material remains shallow; this limited understanding, along with their risk aversion, can limit their ability to innovate later during their professional lives. Surface learners, who avoid any deep commitment to the challenge of learning, end up with a shallow understanding of the material, much like strategic learners.

The reasons students choose one style of study over another can be complex. Multiple-choice exams, shallow essay questions, and excessive workloads can pull students toward quick memorization. Extracurricular distractions, or side jobs to pay for education, can limit browsing time. Social pressures to perform, and the need for a good job after college, can push students toward superficial, fast learning.

Teachers often ask prepared questions to gauge students’ understanding, but they do not ask students to propose their own questions. These would inspire deeper learning because students are more involved in their own curiosities than those imposed by the educational system.

Extrinsic motivators like gold stars, grades, honor rolls, and scholarships can generate good grades but stifle curiosity. The best students manage to ignore outside rewards and focus their studies on what fascinates them. Later, despite the fame and money they may earn, these people continue to be inspired and enthralled by their chosen fields.

Deep learners possess three main characteristics. First, they retain their childhood curiosity about knowledge and how it can be applied uniquely to various challenges. Second, they love to be creative and use that power to solve problems that are important to them. Third, they appreciate the creative accomplishments of others, which teach and inspire them in their own pursuits.

Most students, and especially deep learners, expect that college will help them develop a sense of purpose and meaning. Their studies become supercharged when they foresee a goal in their life that knowledge can help them reach. Many have a keen sense of social justice that motivates their efforts to contribute to society.

When Stephen Colbert was a boy in South Carolina, his father and brothers were killed in a plane crash; Stephen made it his job to keep his mother laughing. He loved to read, studied what he enjoyed, and, he says, “I would learn incidentally what I needed to pass my courses” (52). In college, he studied philosophy and then attended Northwestern University, where he pursued the psychology of literature and enrolled in the university’s famous theater department. He also worked in improvisational theater in Chicago, where he learned to move past momentary failures onstage. He discovered he could learn from mistakes and that he didn’t need to worry so much. This realization gave him freedom to explore and innovate.

Success can lead to arrogance, while failure can lead to a sense of helplessness. Deep learners avoid these pitfalls by recognizing the complexities not only of knowledge but of their own lives, and by realizing that they can learn to improve themselves. They develop “humility and determination” (57).

A good student and musician in high school, Tia Fuller was a competent strategic learner, but at Spelman College she struggled in a writing course in which she got a D grade. Chagrined, she took control of her education, practicing hard with sentence structure, written arguments, and her own style of thinking. This effort triggered in her a love for learning. Her dorm room became a center of discussion; everywhere she went, she brought a notebook, dictionary, and highlighter. She studied continuously in courses instead of cramming, which gave her the time to ask questions and cross-connect various topics. Tia also got serious about playing the saxophone; by practicing six hours a day, her music flourished. She planned her days carefully to include study, music, and friends. She networked, played in jam sessions, and visualized her goals. Tia graduated magna cum laude, got a master’s degree at the University of Colorado, moved to New York, cut an album, and became a member of Beyoncé’s all-woman touring band. She still treats her life and career as an ongoing education—especially in studying Beyoncé’s leadership techniques.

Despite the often-dulling effects of formal education, sometimes curiosity re-emerges as the biggest motivator. The author’s niece, at age five, peppered him with questions about astronomy. By the time she was in college, she had lost her curiosity and lamented having to take science classes. The author reminded her that she had once been intensely curious about the heavens. Years later, he asked her what she was doing, and she replied, “I teach astronomy” (63).