What the Best College
Students Do
#reflections
Thoughts on the Eve of a
New Academic Year
22nd June 2025
Tomorrow heralds a new
beginning for freshers who are just transitioning from School life to College
life. For all ye freshers stepping into College life, we warmly welcome you to
the rewards of a blessed College life.
Tomorrow, Monday, 23rd
June 2025,
at 8.15 am, kindly be seated in the Anderson Hall, for the UG Orientation for
all Freshers (Aided Stream). And for all ye students of the Self-financed
Stream, please assemble in the Anderson Hall by 1.15 pm tomorrow.
Our Principal &
Secretary
Dr. Paul Wilson will be orienting you towards life in College, and he will also be
introducing the various officials of the College, starting from the Bursar, the
Vice-Principals, the Deans, the Associate Deans, The Heads of Departments, the
Controller of Examinations and the various Unit Heads as well.
Coming back –
What makes College life
impactful?
Well, College life is a transformative time, and hence making the most of it involves a blend of academic focus, personal growth, and social engagement.
For this, let me put down a few salient
points on what your College Professors expect from you!
Or rather what I would expect
from my student in their College life. 😊
Firstly, Professors expect
students to be regular and punctual to class. Professors have an eye on
students who miss classes on a regular basis. Yes! they take it very
personally, and even as a mark of disrespect when the student continuously
absents themselves to their class, or comes late to their class, without
informing them in advance.
Secondly, Professors admire students who complete
their course work / assignments by deadline, without ‘requesting’ for
any extension. This is one of the most important aspects that a professor
expects from their students. Every extension of the deadline speaks to the
failure on the part of the student in wisely managing their time!
Thirdly, Professors expect
students
to participate in class activities with enthusiasm, by taking notes of
lectures, encouraging their fellow students, asking thought-provoking
questions, etc.
Fourthly, Professors expect their students
to make the best use of their time in College. This could be by participation
in class discussions, group discussions, panel discussions, competitions,
extra-curricular activities, etc in a consistent manner, and also by making best use of the Campus resources available to the student.
Fifthly, classroom conduct is something
that makes the student earn brownie points from the Professor. While the
teacher is lecturing, they would expect the student to avoid distractions like
excessive talking, using phones, or studying for other classes during lectures.
Sixthly, Professors admire
students who are able to manage their time effectively - make use of their
spare time by doing internships/part-time jobs, blogging, vlogging, reading, or
preparing for their future, in a consistent and planned manner on a daily
basis, and also by attending career fairs, workshops, and mock interviews to brace themselves for their future.
Finally, professors expect students to
meet them with prior appointments during office hours. While meeting with your
Professor in-person, or talking to your professor over phone, list out in a
sheet of paper, the points that you wish to talk to them for
clarification/discussion, etc. Professors are valuable mentors who have the gift of guiding you in the right path.
You can ask them specific
questions, discuss concepts you don’t understand, seek clarification on
assignments, or ask them suggestions on planning for your career ahead of you.
Since your Professor will have a
host of other commitments and responsibilities to attend to on a given day,
always meet your professors with a neatly drafted agenda, so that you don’t end
up wasting your time or the time of your Professor’s, in the process.
Ken Bain a highly acclaimed
educator, author, and expert in teaching and learning, and currently the
President of the Best Teachers Institute in the USA, in his famous book titled,
What the Best College Students Do, gives real-life experiences to
augment his findings.
The book argues that simply chasing
high grades (surface learning) often doesn’t lead to genuine understanding or
lasting knowledge.
Instead, it emphasizes “deep
learning,” which involves understanding concepts, making connections across
disciplines, asking important questions, and seeking meaning and application
for what is learned.
The most successful
students
are driven by curiosity, interest, and a passion for learning says Ken.
Moreover, they are intrinsically motivated to explore and understand, he avers.
He then narrates the story of
Sherry Kafka –
Sherry Kafka came from a small town
in the Arkansas Ozarks. Her family didn’t have much money, and they moved
around a lot trying to make ends meet. She went to sixteen schools in twelve
years.
When Sherry was in the eighth
grade, she wanted to be a writer. To become a writer, she realized that she
needed to learn more, and that meant eventually going to college.
Because her family was poor, she knew
it wouldn’t be easy, and thus she began to fish around for some means to pay
for her higher education. In her senior year of high school, she entered and
won a national writing contest that promised to pay all expenses for her first
year in college.
That fall she arrived on campus,
full of excitement about her new adventure in this faraway city, and was
presented with a list of mandatory courses.
Before she left home, however, she
had promised herself that every semester, she would take at least one course
“just for me,” something she would enjoy.
When she looked at the list of
requirements, she spotted a happy coincidence, a course that looked interesting
but also fulfilled a fine arts requirement.
It was a course in the Drama
Department called “Integration of Abilities.”
The title itself spoke to a
childhood memory. When she was a little girl, her father had told her that the
most successful people, “the most interesting” people, the people “who got the
most out of life,” were the “people who were the best integrated.”
He had told her that she
should make a connection between every course she took and find ways that they
overlapped.
“When I studied,” she concluded, “I
should think about what happened in biology and how that applied to English, or
music.” She decided to enroll. It would change her life.
Over that first meeting and in
the days to come, her professor, Paul Baker, invited Sherry and the other
students to participate in a new kind of learning.
“To some,” he said, “growth is
almost all” just improving your memory.
To others, “it lies in learning
how gadgets work—how to put motors together, how to attach pipes, mix formulas,
solve problems.”
The purpose of that type of
growth, he said, “is never to develop a new method but to become extremely
adept at the old ones.”
To a third group, growth means
you develop “cults” and “systems” in which you can estimate “how far below your
own standards other people have fallen.”
You “join, dictate, slap backs,
smoke cigars in backrooms, belong to important committees, become a pseudo
artist, musician, actor, prophet, preacher, politician. You drop names and
surround yourself with position.”
To only a few, Baker concluded,
“growth is the discovery of the dynamic power of the mind.”
It is discovering yourself, and who you
are, and how you can use yourself. That’s all you have.
Baker emphasized that in all of
human history, no one has ever had your set of body chemistries and life
experiences.
No one has ever had a brain
exactly like yours. You are one of a kind. You can look at problems from an
angle no one else can see. But you must find out who you are and how you work
if you expect to unleash the powers of your own mind.
As Sherry Kafka sat in that
revolving chair, now listening intently, her professor invited her into that
highest level of growth.
“Everybody is unique,” he kept
saying, and you have much to contribute to the world.
“Each of you has your own
philosophy, your own viewpoint, your own physical tensions and background,” he
emphasized.
“You come from a certain soil,
a certain family with or without religious background. You were born in a
certain house to a certain family at a certain time. Nobody else in the world
has done so.”
You can, Baker argued, create
in ways that no one else can.
The book goes on to narrate the lives of
students who went to college and emerged from that experience as dynamic and
innovative men and women who changed the world in which they lived. The book
talks about how their college experiences, particularly their interactions with
professors, change their patterns of thinking.
Fundamentally, we want to
promote deep, passionate, joyous, and creative learning, says Ken.
Grades are important, but anyone
who concentrates just on making straight A’s will probably not become a deep
learner. Anyone who concentrates on deep learning, however, can make high
marks.
In a series of studies, Nolen asked
students, “What makes you proud?”
Some said things like, “I feel most
successful when I score higher than other students and I show people I’m
smart.”
She called these people
“ego-oriented,” and they correspond to our strategic learners.
Others responded that they felt
most successful when they got a new idea, when something they learned made them
want to find out more. She called these people “task-oriented.”
We’ve called them “deep
learners.”
Nolen also uncovered another type
of student. She called these people “work-avoidance” types.
We’ve seen them before as
surface learners. They told her they felt most successful when they could “get
out of some work,” when all the “work was easy” or when they “didn’t have to
work too hard.”
In part, Ken observes that, success thus
comes simply from taking control over your own education, from realizing that
you are in charge.
Opportunities to learn matter,
and without them, no one can succeed, but given the chance, our subjects had to
find their motivation for working, says Ken.
With the right opportunities
in front of you, and the best college that you have enrolled yourself in, here’s
wishing you deep, passionate, joyous, and creative learning in your College life.
And through each of your memorable
days as part of your brief sojourn in college, may you develop a holistic personality,
across all key dimensions, nurturing the “whole person” equipping yourself each
day, towards becoming a well-rounded, adaptable, and emotionally intelligent
individual ready to navigate the complexities of life.
Best wishes for you!
