Unintentional Advice by Bethany

Unintentional Advice by Bethany - May 2014 Scholarship Essay

As a student, I have listened to countless pieces of well-intentioned advice from hundreds of people over the past fourteen years. Some advice was simply well-meaning words murmured by strangers suggesting that I “work hard” or “stay in school.” Less often someone would try to be more specific, telling me to make friends with my teachers so that they would be more likely to cut me breaks, or to read my notes before bed so that my brain would process the information better. All of these pieces of advice were helpful, but none truly made an impact on my educational success.

I found, over the years, that the most useful advice comes in the strangest packages. It is the advice given by the person who you have never met before, who knows nothing about you. It is the advice that is seemingly insane ramblings, until you look back on that moment hours or days later, replaying it in your head again and again, and realize that it is the exact solution which you could never think of. The best educational advice that I have received since starting school came in the form of an old man’s joking suggestion that I may be working too hard.

An old man said to me, “Young lady, you can’t push too hard or you’ll just push everything right out of that head of yours.” At first, I laughed it off, thinking “okay, whatever,” but then I realized that he was right. I realized that my trying to simultaneously force-feed chapters of information from multiple subjects into my head was not growing my mind, it was paralyzing it. That old man’s offhanded comment made me reconsider my entire academic method. Before, I tried to cram all the content I could. After, I started trying to pace myself. Study a section in a textbook, instead of a chapter. Work with one topic at a time, instead of all of them.

By slowing down and only working on one piece at a time, I allowed my mind to devote all of its focus to that one topic, and therefore better process and understand the information. Increased understanding led to using less time to work through homework and better test scores, which led to higher grades. Overall, the most important way the old man’s advice helped me was that it reduced my stress level. As all students know, you can learn better and retain the knowledge longer if you aren't stressed.

I owe a portion of my educational success to the flippant advice of a passing old man who thought I was working too hard. Little did he know that his advice to not push too hard would implant itself in my psyche and become the single most influential piece of educational advice I had ever received.