Many minds make light work. by David

Many minds make light work. by David - January 2014 Scholarship Essay

In high school I really never had to study, but once I got to college I had to learn quickly. Just paying attention and taking notes in class were no longer enough, as college classes went too fast for me to assimilate all of the information using that method. In the end, the strategy that worked the best for me was studying with a group of people who were genial but focused.

My first experience with this setup was during my Calculus class, when a cute girl came up to me after the first test and said, “You did better than me on that; would you like to study together?” Because she was cute, I agreed to meet her in the library the night before each class to study together. Once I started helping her learn, my own comprehension improved, and I breezed through tests and quizzes with nothing but perfect scores. By the end of the semester, there were four girls at the table with me, I was in heaven, and the five of us had the highest grades in the class. My professor asked me to consider a math major, and I had figured out how to succeed in any course, from Anatomy to Silviculture.

Later that year, I was talking about it with my aunt, a lifelong ground-breaker in Massachusetts education, and she told me that my findings were supported by the best education research. I had heard that classical music was really effective, too, but she showed me the published studies showing that mixed results were found with any other method. Group, focused study is the single best way to learn new content.