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!
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