Boost Your GPA and Intelligence

I was able to obliterate class averages in university by using these techniques that I'm going to share with you. I want to preface this guide by stating that I’m not an extremely intelligent person. I struggled at the end of high school and even had to go back to upgrade to get into university. I will boast that I have some natural talent and abilities with problem-solving. That’s why I chose to go into computer science and mathematics, but I am not one of those individuals with seemingly preternatural forces driving my intellect. I mention this because I honestly believe if anyone reads this guide and takes my advice, he or she can rise to the top of university classes.

I used three main techniques that helped me dominate in mathematics, computer science, and other courses. The first technique your professors will almost always tell you at the beginning of each semester. Start early. I did not take that advice lightly. I started each assignment, reading, and project as early as possible. I treated each assignment like it was a race and I wanted to win. This always gave me an edge because not only did I have more time to revise and to deeply think about my assignments, but I also never had to worry about deadlines. This took the stress off completing the assignments on time. Let me be clear, I do not think you should sprint through each of your assignments at least not the entire time. For example, you may be solving differential equations. I reommend trying all of them on your first day. On the second day, you can spend time checking your work and developing confidence that you arrived at the correct answers. On the third day, you can spend more time developing better solutions. You will often find a more elegant approach, reducing your solutions to a single page. This will make you a stronger student because you will have multiple approaches to solving the same problems. In Addition to having more time and a better understanding, I found this technique allows you to better align with professors' scheduling expectations. Typically professors assigned homework in such a way that there was a lot more time and easier concepts at the beginning of large assignments rather than closer to the due dates—the crunch. Starting early always made for a much easier experience throughout my courses.

Now that you have more time and are better organized, you can focus on my second technique. Overlearning is a powerful tool that will make the most complex concepts seem simple. Overlearning is the art of going way above and beyond the scope of the course material. In other words, nerd out! For example, you may be learning about divide-and-conquer algorithms in class. In this case, the way you may over-learn is to research additional algorithms that are divide and conquer such as, my personal favorite, FFT. The concept of overlearning helps you better crystallize the material you learned in class by using and applying the material in ways that exceed your professors' expectations. This develops a larger conceptual web that allows you to think about the idea in a more robust way. Overlearning may be done by watching relevant YouTube content, chatting with chatGPT, or reading blogs, books, and academic articles. Admittedly, you have to be careful not to overdo it. Everyone has their limit—typically around 2-6 hours of highly focused study per day. Burnout is real and will cost you more time and effort than the over-learning is worth, so avoid burnout at all costs. Instead, as a bonus technique, manage your time, striking a good balance between studying, enjoying your life, cooking healthy food, and exercising.

Finally, my controversial technique that most school boards in Canada have banned from the classroom. This technique worked so well that when I fully embraced it I felt sharper than I had my entire life. The technique is repetition and memorization. I understand many people believe that simply memorizing something is a way to circumvent digging into the topic and fully understand it; however, I have found that repetition and memorization can be the only way to fully entrench something in your mid/long-term memory and recall it quickly enough that it is usable knowledge. Furthermore, the more time I engaged with content, the better I understood it, regardless of whether or not it was as repetitive as flashcards or as engaging as reading a new academic paper. Flashcards are a powerful tool that I utilized for many topics. When I studied the notoriously difficult language Latin. I used digital flashcards to memorize the words. Another technique is to just recall information at every opportunity. I practiced iterating over the inflections and declensions of Latin nouns and the conjugations of Latin verbs every chance I got. Whether I was working, or waiting for the bus, I tried to recall the information every time the idea of it popped into my head. Another way I have found repetition to be incredibly useful is for mathematics and programming problems. Granted that you should always strive to increase the difficulty of the problems, i.e. level up, I also believe you should get faster at tackling easier problems. Make them so easy that they are reflexive and useful. I recall writing a first-year mathematics exam where I was able to do almost every question in my head because I had become so quick at solving derivatives and manipulating equations in my mind. I accomplished this by spending the time to solve countless problems in the back of the textbook. Overall, this technique not only increased my memory but also increased my other cognitive abilities like focus and clarity of thought. Though most school boards no longer see the point in memorizing and repetition, I believe it is a shame not to as it will increase both your GPA and general intelligence. ` I hope you found these three four techniques—start early, over-learn, take care of yourself, repetition/memorization—useful for your academic pursuits. Though they may seem obvious, I rarely encountered students using them, and I have quantified proof they worked well for my studies. I want to share my ideas because I believe that everyone should attempt to reach their full potential by increasing their intelligence. Throughout my experience at university, I noticed the effects of a declining GPA (throughout the student body) and believe we need to strive to improve not only ourselves but to inspire others with our best ideas and wisdom. That will push humanity forward.