5 Secrets to Being A Good Student

An excellent student in my great book of definitions is a student who diligently does what he is told to, studies and practices until he has all but perfected a topic, always has quiz pads ready, and will readily suck the proverbial academic dick to get into the honors list.

By this definition, I was never an excellent student and I never really dreamed of becoming one, not that I could ever really attain such a status even if I did want to.

A good student, on the other hand, is somebody who doesn't fail, doesn't get in trouble (often), and doesn't get refused when he asks for extra quiz paper from the excellent students . My kind of student attitude. Somebody once told me to shoot for the stars so I can fail with certainty and land on the moon. I like it better when I shoot for the moon, overdo it and make my trip to the stars accidental - it impresses chicks more.

So anyway, being a good student is not easy. Well, maybe not as hard as sucking dick like them excellent students, but it's still hard in its own way. Here are a few things that I was able to pick up as protips to get that "good" student status easier in not so "good" ways:

1. Keep nodding your head and saying "aah" enthusiastically, even when you're already lost and bored.

Nodding does two things: First, it shakes your stagnating brain, and helps all those small nutrients get into the less nourished parts of your noggin. If overdone, it gives you a concussion, which effectively excuses you from class legally, which is an awesome thing. Second, nodding gives the illusion that you actually are learning - and it gives your teachers the idea that they are actually getting their job done. In a sea of bored asshole students, anybody showing enthusiasm, however false, will stand out like a gleaming monument to teaching orgasm. You want to be that orgasm. Trust me on this. You want that position. How does that help? No matter how objective teachers say they are, once you start giving them their guilty pleasures without even appearing to do so, it will affect your grades, 100% sure.

2. If you really have to cheat, don't glance at the teacher while doing it.

I remember back in college, right after I swore off years of cheating, I noticed that the other newbie cheaters had this bad habit they couldn't shake off. They kept looking at the teacher with guilty glances. Some of them got caught, others got away because the professors didn't know what to look for, or just didn't care. If it were my HS Religion teacher who claims she hears the voice of God telling her who the cheating heathens are, they would've been caught 12 milliseconds into the act. Bottomline is this: Unless your professor is super hot and currently wearing lingerie, a student taking an exam has no reason to glance at him/her every 30 seconds. Cut it out.

3. Read your lessons before classes.

Here's one technique I didn't really learn until my college years. You'd be surprised how easier things get when you're a step ahead. For my case, I had to do it because I kept on falling asleep and effectively missed a lot of topics. Reading ahead became my insurance, in case the professor gets pissed and gives a quiz right after you wake up (happened to me twice). If you're a regular sleeper like me, this is for you. If you're not a regular sleeper, just do it anyway to make things easier. Advanced reading is like lubricant for prison anal sex. While you can't really avoid getting sodomized inside prison, you can actually make the process less painful.

4. Aim low, get high success rates.

Again, the shoot for the stars thing. Aim high, fail often. Aim low, succeed more. Whoever thinks lots of disappointment is necessary for growth has never failed so much. Nobody likes to get disappointed, specially if they're disappointed at themselves. Fuck people who set goals for you. Set attainable goals, like the passing grade instead of the highest possible grade. While it won't exactly let you have sex with that hot girl in class, it's not like being a dean's lister will give you tail either. On the other hand, at least you don't get as much pressure, which has this bad tendency of developing into various psychosomatic disorders (totally not cool). When was the last time you heard somebody who got schizophrenia graduated from college? See what I mean? Keep it real.

5. Choose your friends wisely.

See here's the thing. Peer pressure has always been taught as a bad thing, in truth though, it goes both ways. If you're hanging out with a bunch of faggots who have strict parents that do not hesitate to beat the John Lennon out of your friends when they fail subjects, they will study hard, and will influence you to study along with them. In effect, you get their motivation, minus the butt sores they get from being flogged everytime they tank in academics. Conversewise, it's not that hard to talk to somebody for 30 minutes and know that the person doesn't have much of a future waiting for him. One clue you might want to watch out for is having the words "billiards" and "umuubos" spoken under one breath. While studying is an individual thing, motivation isn't and it's just common sense beyond that. The more motivated your friends are, the more motivated you get - which applies to both graduating on time, and dropping out and living a life around mixing cement.