19 Apps Ebook: Increase Grades & Career Earnings (2018 PDF)

[or: How to increase your * grades * career earnings * learning curve * leadership skills …and still have time for a social life] Copyright ©2011 by Oliver DeMille. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Nothing in this work may be copied, stored or transmitted in an electronic or other format without written permission from the publisher. This book is for informational purposes only. Nothing in this work gives legal, medical or financial advice, and nothing herein takes the place of personal assistance and/or advice from competent professionals. Published by TJEdOnline.com Published in the United States of America ISBN: 978-0-9830996-5-9 “What image does a first-rank college or university present today to a teen-ager leaving home for the first time, off to the adventure of a liberal education? He has four years of freedom to discover himself—a space between the intellectual wasteland he has left behind and the inevitable dreary professional training that awaits him after the [bachelor’s degree]. “In this short time he must learn that there is a great world beyond the little one he knows, experience the exhilaration of it and digest enough of it to sustain himself in the intellectual deserts he is destined to traverse. He must do this, that is, if he is to have any hope of a higher life. “These are the charmed years when he can, if he so chooses, become anything he wishes and when he has the opportunity to survey his alternatives, not merely those current in his time or provided by careers, but those available to him as a human being. The importance of these years for an American cannot be overestimated. They are civilization’s only chance to get to him.” –Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind Contents Introduction: College Education and the Idea of Greatness Blueprints App 1. Know the Real You (While Most People Are Choosing a Major) App 2. Know Your Inner Leader (While Most People Consult Their Class Schedule) App 3. Know Your Mission (While Most People Change Their Major) App 4. Know Your Career “Power Points” (While Most People Seek Good Grades) App 5. Know the Great Ideas (While Most People Try to Understand the Library) App 6. Read the Classics (While Most People are Asking, “What’s Your Major?”) Technologies App 7. Master the Cards (While Most People Cram) App 8. Change the Calendar (While Most People Try to Manage Their Time) App 9. Read to Learn (While Most People Read to Read) App 10. Write to Master (While Most People Write to Pass) Horizontals App 11. Turn Study Groups into Colloquia (While Most People Use Study Groups to Prepare for Tests) App 12. Turn Study Groups into Orals (While Most People Trust Multiple Choice) App 13. Seek Simulations (While Most People Wait for Others to Lead Them) App 14. Boost Your Vocabulary (While Most People Skim Over Unknown Words) Verticals App 15. Master the Three Assignments (While Most People Just Solve Problems) App 16. Study Peer-Reviewed Journals (While Most People Only Study Textbooks) App 17. Study The Masters (While Most People Research Magazines) App 18. Personalize Your Professors (While Most People Are Just a Number) App 19. Overcome “Ringism” (While Most People “Just Wanna Fit In”) Conclusion: The Catalyst of a Great Leadership Education Additional Reading One More Thing About the Author Introduction College Education and the Idea of Greatness Nearly everyone who goes to college wants to succeed. Unfortunately, many fail to stay in college for more than a year and many others never graduate. Worst of all, even where career training is adequate, leadership education is often missing. The idea of greatness and discussion of the truly important things in life are frequently absent in even our most prestigious schools. Yet some students do get a quality leadership education. What makes the difference? The answer is that getting a Leadership Education is up to the student. Students who know what to look for and what to do can get an excellent Leadership Education at virtually any school. The key is to apply the 19 Apps covered in this book. These 19 Apps will help students get a great career and leadership education. In fact, even just a few of these will make a significant difference in helping college students get the education of their dreams. The 19 Apps nearly always improve a student’s career preparation, grades, learning, test scores and preparation for life, leadership and happiness. Indeed, any person who applies all 19 Apps simply cannot fail to do better than he/she would have otherwise. The 19 Apps work. I have experienced them personally and witnessed them applied by many students. They work in the arts, the sciences, in liberal arts majors and technical fields of study. They work for young freshmen, upperclassmen with lots of extracurricular activities, working adults in night or online courses, and adults who return to school. If you want a superb, truly excellent college education, learn and utilize all 19 Apps; they are powerful steps. I call them steps—instead of principles or guidelines—because the order in which they are applied actually matters. Subsequent steps won’t be as effective unless the student is already implementing earlier steps. They build on each other. Of course, you probably won’t use them as expertly at first as you will after some practice. But as you attempt to apply them you will naturally improve. Learning should be fun. It should usually be exciting, interesting and enjoyable. It should at times be challenging and even overwhelming, but the 19 Apps help turn even the most impossible studies into manageable and enriching experiences. Blueprints Apps 1-4 deal with knowing what you really want, need, and should get out of your education. It is said that the beginning of wisdom is to “know thyself” (Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living), and in our world of extreme career specialization this is even more vital. To really get the most out of your college experience, you need to take care of yourself as a high priority. Too many students ruin their studies by not taking care of their health, finances, schedule, relationships and so on. You are not a college student first, but a person having a college experience. This differentiation is profound, and it can make all the difference between success and failure in school and in life. Likewise, you are a person first, you are a leader second, and you are on an important life mission third; your career role (from accountant or engineer to doctor, lawyer, artist or entrepreneur, etc.) is a fourth priority. The first four apps address how to effectively balance and succeed in all of these important roles. Apps 5-6 are all about ideals. Too often education is focused on passing the bare minimums and the accepted “realities” of life rather than what really matters. This tends to lead to mediocrity. By knowing the great ideas and including the great classics in all arenas of learning, one is sure to find greatness in the curriculum. Why would anyone settle for anything less in their university endeavors? If greatness isn’t a consistent part of your learning, how can you expect to get a great education? Technologies Apps 7-10 introduce technologies of Leadership Education. The common usage may have you thinking of handheld digital devices, but that’s not how I’m using it here. The word “technology” refers to “skills, knowledge, expertise, know-how, equipment, machinery and tools” used to improve our abilities. The Leadership Ed Technologies are: Master the Cards, Change the Calendar, Read to Learn, and Write to Master. Each is central to getting a truly excellent education during college, and this book will teach you to apply each of these powerful technologies. Horizontals Apps 11-14 teach the Leadership Ed Horizontals. These connections are essential, and they are horizontal because they center on relationships with other students and peers you will work with as you study. This is geared to on-campus studies, but still applies if you are pursuing your learning online or independently. As with everything else in this book, you will want to individualize and personalize the details to fit your situation and help you get a truly great education. Verticals Apps 15-19 deal with the Leadership Ed Verticals. These are vertical relationships because as a student you need to work effectively with your teachers. This includes professors, coaches, mentors and others (including some non-traditional teachers you may not yet know about). How you approach these important guides deeply matters, and can make a big difference in the quality of your education. These steps will help you truly draw the most value from your college experience. All the steps deal with how to make your learning and your education a training in leadership abilities, skills, knowledge, ideas, principles and habits. These leadership steps are what separate a good education from a great one. App 1 Know the Real You This is actually easier than it sounds. It is vitally important, and every other step and all success you hope to have in life is built on this foundation. But it is usually not a difficult step. It consists of asking and answering a few key questions, and then of remaining true to yourself. Here are the questions. Take the time (usually about an hour total) to really answer them: 1. Why are you going to college? List every reason you can think of. 2. What is the obvious reason you are going to college? 3. What is the real reason you are going to college? 4. If you could leave college with a great education, but not the diploma, would it be worth your time and money? If you could earn the degree but with a mediocre education, would you want it? (Take some time on this one; the obvious answers aren’t always true for you. Be prepared for some unexpected insights!) 5. After graduation, how do you plan to use your degree? 6. After graduation, how do you plan to use your education? 7. When you look back on your college education at age 90, what do you want to think about it? Then: What do you want to feel about it? 8. Do you have any selfish, egotistical, or bad motives regarding your college experience? 9. What are the most important things you want to do in your life? 10.What are the top five things to which you want to dedicate your life? 11.When you look back at your entire life at age 90, what do you want to be your greatest accomplishments? 12.How do you expect your college education to relate to these things (the last three questions)? 13.How do you need to change your view of college to accomplish what you really want from your university studies? 14.How do you need to change your behavior to really accomplish what you most want from your college experience? 15.What do you need to do to take better care of yourself? Make a plan to follow through on this. 16.How happy are you? What would it take for you to feel truly happy every day? Go back and read through all your answers again. What are your overall thoughts and feelings about you, your life, your studies and things you need to change? Write your answers. This can be an overwhelming and life-changing experience. It can cause you to ask a number of new questions. Even if you don’t have all the answers right now, trust that they will come. Make the little changes you’ve felt you need. As for the big changes, ponder them during the days and weeks ahead. If you feel the need, talk to your parents, spouse, friends and/or mentors about what you are thinking and feeling. Listen and learn from them, and take the time to really think about and clarify what your deepest thoughts are on these important topics. Knowing yourself is a process, not a destination. It is the process of continually questioning, finding answers and improving yourself as you progress toward what you really want. Life is often like a buffet; and just like with food, it is only as we taste or experience something that we know whether or not we like it. The on-going process of examining our experiences helps us tweak our course as needed to get to what we ultimately want. Of course, wise parents, mentors and others can greatly help us by telling us what is ahead, and it is essential that we learn to listen to the right voices and follow the right counsel. Just the process of asking and attempting to answer these questions helps us follow the advice to “know thyself.” It is important to return to these questions often. App 2 Know Your Inner Leader Whatever your educational and career aspirations, you are a leader. You were born to be a leader. Everyone is born to be a leader. Some people live up to this potential, while others don’t. One true definition of “human tragedy” is where a person doesn’t become who she was born to be. Every education could be a Leadership Education. Every education should prepare you for the leadership that is naturally within you. Again, this is easier than many people believe because ultimately all leadership comes down to example. Many other things influence leadership, of course, but example is the indispensible element. Put another way, the only real leadership is Servant Leadership; the rest is management. In religious terms, leadership requires one to minister more than administer. Management is important, but even at its best it is not a substitute for leadership. And leadership is almost never the stuff of institutions, credentials or titles—it must usually occur in spite of these things. Again, leadership is ultimately example. Thus a great leadership education is fundamentally a matter of exposing oneself to great examples of leadership. It consists mostly of coming face-to-face with greatness—repeatedly, consistently, and over time. Those seeking a great leadership education read, study, write, discuss, process and think differently than others simply because they are actively searching for the great in everything they experience. They read a book looking for greatness—from the author, the characters, the plot, an article written about the book, music, theater or art inspired by the book, discussions or lectures about the book, notes left in the book by an earlier reader, another book found next to the book on the library shelf, or any other source. And since they are looking, they find. More importantly, they record it. They have a “Leadership” notebook in their backpack or a “Leadership” folder on their laptop. When they come across anything great, they record it. (At the very least they text it to themselves and save it later!) They return to their Leadership notes over and over throughout their college years and later life. They are students of leadership, and they keep a constant eye looking out for anything great. Thus App 2 is simply the mental shift to always look for greatness and leadership in everything and anything. You can make this shift right now. Just decide to record anything great and leader-like from now on, and make your notebook or folder. Then follow through. Nobody can give you a leadership education, because you must spend many hours, days, months and years searching for greatness and leadership principles/content. Such things are found at the movies, during breakfast, researching online, in a text from a friend, on the news, in an obscure footnote, in a conversation with a four-year-old, and on and on. Those who look, find. Start looking. Keep looking. Record. Read. Read again. Think, ponder, apply. This is a key part of the path to leadership. It is real. Someone in your class or email group is doing it. If you do it, you will find your inner leader. And then you will find him/her again and again and again. ∞ Quick Move Take a few minutes right now and make yourself a Leadership notebook, e- folder, or both. App 3 Know Your Mission Your mission in life is more important than your career. Ideally, in fact, you will use your career to help achieve your mission. For example, a person who feels his mission in life is to heal the sick may choose a career in medicine, health or education. Another person who feels her life mission is to promote beauty may select a career in the arts, advertising or as a Montessori teacher. Missions come before careers—or at least they should. When a person puts career before mission, he often becomes frustrated with his studies, career and entire life. Gallup polls show that only about 20% of people are happy with their work, meaning that 80% spend most of their lives doing things they dislike and that make them feel unhappy. This is another human tragedy. One thing that can make this particularly frustrating for many people is that college experiences in many fields greatly differ from the actual job experience. For example, a lot of people who love law school really dislike practicing law, just as many who like business school, medical school or engineering studies find the reality of careers in these fields unfulfilling and sometimes even unbearable. At that point in life, however, with responsibilities to family, mortgages and student loans, it is difficult if not impossible for many of them to go back to school and take a different path. Our society too often teaches people to choose their future career while in school by deciding how much money they want to make or according to competency exams. Some families exacerbate this by pressuring youth to follow the “family” career path or some other career idealized by the parents regardless of the student’s personal interests, aptitudes, gifts and goals. Knowing your mission helps you navigate your educational and career path right from the start. This does not mean that if you feel your mission is to heal the sick, for example, you must necessarily become a doctor—and therefore major in pre-med after studying a lot of biology before college. You may decide to study Shakespeare instead, and to major in history or engineering. And you may or may not follow this with medical school. Indeed, you might become a nurse or a doctor or you might become an entrepreneur who gets medicines to third-world nations or you might sell insurance and spend your private time studying advances in preventative or integrative medicine. There are as many paths to each mission as there are people. Knowing your mission could be helpful in outlining your precise path, and it might also be used to take you in a different direction that somehow contributes something unique and important to the field of your mission. But if you don’t know your mission, you will make unnecessary mistakes and waste a lot of resources in your education and career. There are many specific missions, and in fact I am convinced that every person’s life mission is unique. That said, there are a few main categories of life missions. These include the following: Feed the Hungry Clothe the Naked Heal the Sick Comfort the Lonely Liberate the Captive Educate the Ignorant Heal Families Spread Beauty Promote Truth Increase Knowledge Spread Happiness …And so on. Your mission is one of these, or something a lot like them. And the world greatly needs each of us to contribute our best life mission. So take a minute and think about which of these most closely describes what you feel is your deepest mission in life. Feel free to choose something like these that isn’t on the list. Whatever you choose (and remember what Stephen Covey says—that we don’t choose our life mission, but rather that we “detect” it), write it down. This is more than writing out a mission statement, it is about embracing your most genuine purpose here on this earth. Once you know what your mission is, or might be, add a special “Mission” section to your “Leadership” notebook or e-folder. That is, start taking notes of anything and everything you see that particularly relates to your life mission. This mental shift and the adoption of this habit (recording things that relate to your potential missions) will have a great impact on your entire educational experience. You may or may not use this mission to help select your major(s), programs of study, courses, etc., but it will inform all of these regardless. Every book, assignment, activity and all your relationships will teach you about your mission—if you are paying attention. Search for lessons about your mission in everything you study and experience, and if you are searching you will be taught from every source and angle. You will be amazed at how much there is to learn about your mission and how constantly the official and unofficial curriculum is teaching you. Your education will be great because you will learn at an exponentially higher level from everything in your life. ∞ Quick Move Take a few minutes right now and make a Mission section or sub-folder (you can use the second half of your Leadership notebook if you choose). App 4 Know Your Career “Power Points” Every career has power points: specific skills or knowledge that increase the power of those who have/know them. For example, power points in law might include Latin, logic, critical thinking, debate, persuasive oratory, negotiation, technical writing, English and American history (for U.S. citizens), etc. These are power points. Debate may be helpful to doctors, city managers or engineers, but it is a power point for many attorneys. The first way to know your career power points is to clarify your planned career and then study up on what the power points are for that career—online, in books, or by talking to members of the profession. A second way, which seems to be even more effective for many people, is to outline which power points you really love and analyze which careers these naturally fit. Take a few minutes and ask yourself the following questions (write your answers): Do you know what career you want? If so, what are its power points? How well are you doing on developing these power points? Which of these power points are your strengths? Which are currently weaknesses for you? What is your plan to develop these power points? What are your power points right now? What power points do you want to develop? What careers do you find interesting for your future? What are their power points? Are there some power points that are found in several of the careers that interest you? What is your plan to develop the power points you want? Keep your desired power points in mind and use them as you choose classes, activities, books, and other parts of your college and social life. Look for great stories, examples, people, quotes and other things that relate to your desired power points and record them in your Mission section or e-folder. As you look for them in all aspects of your life, you will learn a great deal about your desired power points from many sources. ∞ Bonus 13 Power Points of Success in almost all careers: * initiative * integrity * ingenuity * enterprise * passion * creativity * optimism * reliability * resiliency * teamwork * leadership * persistence * tenacity App 5 Know the Great Ideas This is a library assignment, unless you have a set of The Great Books in your home or dorm. Although this takes some extra research and study outside of this book, don’t skip it. This step is vital to getting a truly great Leadership Education. Find a set of the Great Books of the Western World. In the first three volumes you will find what is called The Syntopicon. Study the list of great ideas in The Syntopicon (I include volume 1 because it introduces The Great Ideas). Take the time to do the following: Read the entire list of great ideas. Go slowly and think about each idea. Using a pen and paper, list the top 10 that most interest you. Using a pen and paper, list 5 that you don’t know much about. Look over the list again. Are there any great ideas you think should be on the list but are not? Like “leadership” or “technology?” Write down at least 5. Glance through the “Inventory of Terms” at the end of volume 3. Are your five ideas on this list? That’s App 5. Now you know what the great ideas are! Pay attention to them in all your studies. You also know where to find the Great Books and The Syntopicon! This will come in handy in your learning process. ∞ Bonus “During each of the four years, the undergraduate should become the owner of a good choice of volumes—not textbooks, but books to keep, books that will not be [sold on ‘buy-back’ day].” –Jacques Barzun, former Provost of Columbia University App 6 Read the Classics The first five steps are something of a sprint, since they can be accomplished in a day. App 6, in contrast, is more of a marathon. The classics are vital to a great education—pure and simple. Without reading and studying them, you don’t really have much of an education. If you attend a school that emphasizes the Great Books, you will study classics throughout your time in college. If your school doesn’t focus on the Great Books, you still need to engage the classics in both depth and breadth—if you want a great education, and if you want a Leadership Education. As you learned in App 5, there is a great deal to learn and everyone who wants to be a leader needs the basic education that only the classics can provide. This is the education the upper classes have always attained, and it has helped train them for leadership and influence. Some universities have a special honors program that emphasizes the Great Books, and many such programs are excellent and worthy of a student’s time and attention. The quality of learning in such a program, in fact in any program, will depend on the type of teachers you work with. Look for teachers who engage students in discussions about the great works you have read, rather than mere lectures. Only through dialogue can you learn the deep thinking that trains your mind to deeply consider, analyze and see things from numerous angles. Whether you are attending a Great Books college, an honors program that uses the Great Books, or reading the classics on your own initiative, it is up to you to take leadership of your own education and ensure that you read and study many of the greatest classics. Every great education includes reading and studying the greatest works of mankind to date. To build on the shoulders of past successes, and to avoid the mistakes of history, it is vital to know the classics. The major part of this is to read the greatest books of human history, and this should be supplemented by studying the greatest works of art, music, theater, sculpture and all the arts. There are several ways to approach this process of reading the greatest books of humanity. Whichever option you select, I recommend reading three things as you begin your classic reading list: C.S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring” Oliver DeMille, A Thomas Jefferson Education Josiah Bunting, An Education for our Time These will help you lay the foundation for a truly quality leadership education. Here are some of the options for getting a great Leadership Education in the classics: The Great Books Option Get a set of The Great Books, either as a set or, if your finances are tight, a volume at a time. Another option is to read The Great Books one volume at a time from the library or online. These books are presented in chronological order as they were written in history, and the reader benefits from reading them in this order since later classics often refer to and build upon the ideas of earlier works. The “Other List” Option There are many quality lists of great classics, including The Harvard Classics and various online projects that codify the greatest world documents and writings. A little research will net you numerous lists to choose from. The very process of researching these lists is a valuable educational exercise for leadership and great learning. The Great Books School Option Attend a college or university that emphasizes the Great Books and classics in nearly all courses. Then simply read the works in the curriculum and extras that interest you. This is an excellent way to get a great leadership education. The “Build Your Own List” Option Research various lists of the greatest books and classics of history, and create your own list. Eventually all of us end up doing this anyway, as we sort other peoples’ classic lists and determine which are classics to us and which are not. Note that some people define classics as those books on the accepted lists created by experts, but in Leadership Education classics are defined as works you read over and over because you learn a lot more each time you read them. With this leadership definition, each of us must develop our own list of classics. Still, it can be very helpful to begin by studying the lists developed over time by those who have closely studied these works. If you decide to build your own classic list, be sure to study what others have considered the greatest classics so you don’t leave off the biggest works such as the writings of Plato or Shakespeare. The Protégé Option Another option is to find a truly great mentor and read whatever he or she tells you. This is often used in the martial arts, music, and other fields, but it is usually ignored in modern education. This is the type of education Thomas Jefferson got from George Wythe. I personally experienced this kind of education working with W. Cleon Skousen and it was incredible! It was a lot of work, more than the other methods, but it helped me truly pursue the education I wanted: an education like many of the American founders attained. The College Top-100 Option This list was created by me, and I consider it the top 100 list of classics for leadership. Note that I have also provided similar lists for adult reading and youth studies in A Thomas Jefferson Education and a Teen Top-100 list in Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens. There is some overlap on these lists, and this particular list was developed with the idea of college and university students getting a truly great Leadership Education while they pursue career training in school. The Top 100 List can be read in any order, but I have put them in the order I would recommend. All 100 titles are listed because they are truly great works on human greatness and leadership. Here is the list: Lewis, “The Inner Ring” DeMille, A Thomas Jefferson Education Bunting, An Education for Our Time 1. Emerson, “The American Scholar” 2. Lewis, The Abolition of Man 3. Barzun, Teacher in America 4. Covey, First Things First 5. Gardner, Multiple Intelligences 6. Bastiat, “What is Seen and Not Seen” 7. Solzhenitsyn, “A World Split Apart” 8. Strauss & Howe, The Fourth Turning 9. Pink, A Whole New Mind 10. Frank, Alas Babylon 11. Lowell, “The Present Crisis” 12. Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 13. Austen, Pride and Prejudice 14. Stratton-Porter, Laddie 15. Moody, Little Britches 16. Potok, The Chosen 17. Hamilton, Mythology 18. Homer, Iliad 19. Homer, Odyssey 20. Virgil, Georgics 21. Hugo, Les Miserables 22. Shakespeare, Collected Works 23. Aurelius, Meditations 24. Lewis, The Weight of Glory 25. Confucius, Analects 26. Adams, “Thoughts on Government” 27. Aristotle, Politics 28. The Declaration of Independence 29. The Constitution of the United States 30. Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap 31. Skousen, The Making of America 32. Hume, Essays Moral, Political and Literary 33. Madison, Hamilton, Jay, The Federalist 34. Washington, Collection (ed. Allen) 35. Weaver, Mainspring of Human Progress 36. Tocqueville, Democracy in America 37. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 38. Benson, “The Proper Role of Government” 39. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws 40. Machiavelli, The Prince 41. Locke, Second Treatise of Government 42. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto 43. More, Utopia 44. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin 45. Lincoln, Collected Speeches 46. Martin Luther King, Jr., Collected Speeches 47. Churchill, Collected Speeches 48. Sun Tzu, The Art of War 49. Clausewitz, On War 50. Einstein, Relativity 51. Euclid, Elements 52. Plato, Collected Works 53. Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind 54. Descartes, A Discourse on Method 55. Freud, Civilization and its Discontents 56. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 57. Sophocles, Oedipus Trilogy 58. Chesterton, Orthodoxy 59. Thoreau, Walden 60. Toffler, Revolutionary Wealth 61. Johnson & Blanchard, The One Minute Manager 62. Kiyosaki, The Cashflow Quadrant 63. Householder, The Jackrabbit Factor 64. Woodward & Brady, Launching a Leadership Revolution 65. Blanchard, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey 66. Williams, Destinae 67. Bennis, On Leadership 68. Collins, Good to Great 69. Brady, Rascal 70. Copernicus, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres 71. Galileo, Two New Sciences 72. Nichomachus, Introduction to Mathematics 73. Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry 74. Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics 75. Schneider, A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe 76. Asimov, On Numbers 77. Buchanan, Poetry and Mathematics 78. Capra, The Tao of Physics 79. Hawking, A Brief History of Time 80. Sargent, Our Home 81. Porter, Pollyanna 82. Eldridge, Wild at Heart 83. Tolstoy, War and Peace 84. Orwell, 1984 85. Boom, The Hiding Place 86. Wister, The Virginian 87. The Bible 88. The Qur’an 89. The Bhagavad-Gita 90. Grun & Simpson, The Timetables of History 91. Hirsch, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy 92. Polybius, Histories 93. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 94. Plutarch, Lives 95. Smith, Wealth of Nations 96. Mises, Human Action 97. Marx, Capital 98. 50 Top U.S. Court Cases 99. Durant, A History of Civilization 100. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire You have a lifetime to read and re-read these books. Just think how different your life will be if these great works are a part of your thinking and experience during this formative time. Remember also that (busy as your life may seem right now) you will likely never have a period in your life where you have more time to study what you choose than right now. The Bare Minimum Option Some people simply cannot picture themselves doing this much reading, even in college. Others wonder why anyone would choose read so much— especially in college. Clearly a college focused on the Great Books makes this simpler. However, you can get a superb Leadership Education at any school if you choose to do the work. And since you were born to be a leader in this life, it is essential that you get a great education. If The Great Books or the 100 Top Book List seems like too much, however, don’t give up. Consider doing what I’ll call the Basic List, which gets you the minimum to have a real Leadership Education. If you choose this list, you can always read more later. But this will give you the basics, and that’s a powerful start. Here is the Basic List that any college student can read: Lewis, “The Inner Ring” DeMille, A Thomas Jefferson Education Bunting, An Education for Our Time 1. Emerson, “The American Scholar” 2. Lewis, The Abolition of Man 3. Bastiat, “What is Seen and Not Seen” 4. Solzhenitsyn, “A World Split Apart” 5. Strauss & Howe, The Fourth Turning 6. Lowell, “The Present Crisis” 7. Austen, Pride and Prejudice 8. Stratton-Porter, Laddie 9. Moody, Little Britches 10. Potok, The Chosen 11. Hamilton, Mythology 12. Homer, Iliad 13. Hugo, Les Miserables 14. Shakespeare, Complete Plays 15. Adams, “Thoughts on Government” 16. Aristotle, Politics 17. The Declaration of Independence 18. The Constitution of the United States 19. Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap 20. Madison, Hamilton, Jay, The Federalist 21. Weaver, Mainspring of Human Progress 22. Tocqueville, Democracy in America 23. Benson, “The Proper Role of Government” 24. Machiavelli, The Prince 25. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto 26. More, Utopia 27. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin 28. Lincoln, Collected Speeches 29. Martin Luther King, Jr., Collected Speeches 30. Churchill, Collected Speeches 31. Sun Tzu, The Art of War 32. Einstein, Relativity 33. Euclid, Elements 34. Plato, Collected Works 35. Sophocles, Oedipus Trilogy 36. Chesterton, Orthodoxy 37. Thoreau, Walden 38. Williams, Destinae 39. Copernicus, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres 40. Galileo, Two New Sciences 41. Nichomachus, Introduction to Mathematics 42. Sargent, Our Home 43. Porter, Pollyanna 44. The Bible 45. The Qur’an 46. The Bhagavad-Gita 47. Hirsch, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy 48. Plutarch, Lives 49. Marx, Capital 50. Top 25 U.S. Court Cases Another approach to this option is to read about half of The Great Books set, skipping the titles that are less interesting to you. But even in the “Bare Minimum” approach, it is important to push yourself and thereby earn a quality Leadership Education. Combining the Apps Whatever option you choose to apply in reading the classics, I highly recommend that you make reading the Great Books and the Top 100 List a priority during your life. Note that reading the classics is best accomplished while you are working on the other 18 Apps. Also note that by definition, you will return to these greats (and others on your personal list of classics) over and over during your life, and gain new insights and growth each time. This is not just a checklist to rush through, but a roadmap for a long and fulfilling journey. Once you have begun working on App 6, go ahead to App 7. If you attempt to fully complete App 6 before moving on to App 7, you will miss out in three important ways. First, you won’t get the benefit of the other steps while you are studying the classics. Second, it will take you a long time, and you’ll have to put your life on hold. And third, you’ll see reading the classics as a project that ends, instead of a lifelong process. In truth, a great leadership education means reading the classics for the rest of your life. App 6 is simply the process of starting and maintaining this study. Students who read all of these 100 top classics (or The Great Books or equivalent) before graduating from college have a broad and deep leadership education, especially if they apply the other 18 Apps. Of course, re-reading these and other classics takes a lifetime—learning never ends for leaders. And leaders are readers. Reading truly classical works is a natural training in leadership and is seldom duplicated in any other way. How this Makes College Easier Some may worry that doing this much extra reading will hurt their other college studies. If all you did was add a classic list to your studies, this could compete with your career-training focus and perhaps grades. It would certainly benefit your education, however. Fortunately, you don’t have to choose between getting a great and Leadership Education and doing well in career training. Apps 7-19 make it easier to get a great education, and applying these steps will likely give you more time to study the classics and your career courses than you would have had if you didn’t use these steps. Apps 7 and 8 are especially helpful in this process. Let’s learn what they are. ∞ Bonus “Meanwhile, let us be clear about the role of the classics: they are worth studying as examples of how to think, not of what to think. We shall be acting most like Dante or Newton or Pascal if we think thoughts very different from theirs but having the same potency for our times that their thoughts had for their times. This does not exclude adoption or adaptation of former wisdom, it merely stresses the need for rethinking as against rehashing.” –Jacques Barzun, former Provost of Columbia University App 7 Master the Cards This system will drastically improve your educational successes. I want to make this as brief and simple as possible, so let’s get straight to the point. Make memorization a major part of your education. Rote memorization is sometimes overused in our modern educational systems, but at college there is definitely a place for filling your mind with a lot of raw facts, dates and knowledge in addition to ideas, principles and skills. “The cards” make a drastic difference in your ability to learn and retain massive amounts of knowledge. Buy several packages of 3x5 cards (I like blank, unruled cards best, but use what you can find). This may seem low-tech, but it works incredibly. Here is how to master the cards: On the first day of class, take notes in a notebook or on a laptop, as you normally would, in each course. Notes aren’t taken directly on the cards, but just on regular paper or, if you prefer, on your laptop. Good note taking is a skill that many don’t master before college, and many freshmen try to write down almost everything the lecturer says. By the time students are in graduate school, most have learned the secret of note-taking: Don’t write down everything the instructor says; just write the things you want to remember or feel you should remember. And then commit all of these things to memory. For some students, it may take a couple of months of quizzes and exams to start to get a feel for this, but it will happen. Don’t be shy about asking others about their techniques as you develop your own. After each class, use a red pen or colored highlighter, or the highlighter function if you took notes electronically, to mark every fact, date, factoid and other bit of knowledge you want to remember or think you should remember. Then get out your 3x5 cards. Turn every fact into a brief question, and write the question on one side of your card. Then put the answer on the other side. In most classes you can put 10-15 questions and answers on each card. For example, say you are taking a Latin class. On one side of the card you write vocabulary words. You put the English word as a question (see Chart 1.1). Then, on the reverse side of the card you put the answer for each question, in this case the Latin word for each English word (see Chart 1.2). Good. See how simple it will be to memorize these terms? Do this for every class every day of the semester. Simply transfer your notes to facts and other things you want to remember. For example, on that first day of class, say you leave Latin and go to your U.S. history course. After history, you create another 3x5 card (see Chart 1.3). The reverse side of your card might look like Chart 1.4. If you know what each of these answers refer to, great. If you don’t know much about them, you’ll make a card with questions like Boston Tea Party?, Battle of Yorktown?, Peace of Versailles?, etc., and with answers on the back. Of course, you could put more than one item per year, but even just this minimum of one item per year will help you piece together the events of U.S. history. I took this specific list from one of my son’s college freshman cards—he learned key events and people for each year from 1770 to 2008. You can personalize the cards to what you want to learn or feel you should know. Also, for that first day of history class, you might have other cards with more detailed questions covered in class (see Chart 1.5). The reverse side of this card might look like Chart 1.6. Another card for this class period might look like Chart 1.7. The answer, all 10 items, would be listed on the back of the card. In a nutshell, this is how the cards are made. They can be used for all topics where you want to memorize things. In skills courses such as math, computers or dance, you can still use the cards to memorize theorems, programming language, historical dance facts and styles, etc. The cards are a dream: they get a lot of information and knowledge into your brain in a way that it stays! And for language courses, like the Latin example above, once you have fully memorized each vocabulary word you can turn the card over and memorize the Latin to English. Of course, there are more important things in your education than memorizing. Nobody is debating this point. But memorizing is important, and the cards work! They are fast, simple and effective. Whatever the class, memorizing a significant number of key points about it is valuable to your learning. It will also have a major positive impact on most of your grades. Back to the first day of class: Make cards for every class you attend today. Then memorize them all tonight. Go through each card 10 times tonight, or this afternoon at lunch or in the library. Use a pen and put a dot next to each item you answer correctly by memory. The first time through a card, you might only remember one word from class—your card would look like Chart 2.1. This means you knew by memory that “two” in Latin is “duo.” You put a dot by it because you got it right. Now you go through the card a second time. This is a process of repetition as you memorize. You look at each question and try to remember the answer. Then you check your answer on the back. If you got it right, you put a dot by it. If you don’t remember it, you look at the answer on the back anyway and repeat the answer in your mind so you can remember it next time through. After ten times through, your card might look like Chart 2.2. Good. After 10 times through all of your cards, you are done with the cards for today. Read and do other assignments, knowing that you have started memorizing a bunch of important facts, dates and other things. Most of your classmates will still be trying to figure out what’s for dinner and what to do for fun tonight, and you have already memorized a bunch of knowledge. You are well on your way to learning a lot in college! On the second day, you repeat the process. Since most college courses don’t run every day, on day 2 you will make new cards for other classes. Then you will repeat the process of memorizing all your new cards by going through them 10 times each. As for cards from yesterday’s classes, you will go through all of them 10 more times. Put a dot by each that you remember. If you run out of space for dots, ask yourself if you really need to keep memorizing this question or if you now know it by heart. With all those dots, you probably know it by now. If you know it, put an x at the end of your dots. An x means that you don’t need to keep going over it again and again. Your cards may now look like Charts 2.3 or 2.4. From the third day on for the rest of the semester, you will do the following every day with your cards: 1. Make new cards after each class today. 2. Make new cards from everything you learned today in your readings. 3. Make new cards from everything you learned in discussions, projects, etc. 4. Go through all new cards 10 times, with dots. 5. Go through all yesterday’s cards 10 more times with dots (and x’s when you really know the answer). 6. Go through all past cards once or twice today (skip the questions marked x). Every Saturday (or another day when you have no class), go through all the cards for the semester so far, including all the x questions. If you have forgotten a question, put a red circle next to it to show that you need to start over by memorizing it 10 times today. Put it with your 10-times pile. Use rubber bands to keep a packet of your cards for each class. Carry the cards you are currently memorizing with you everywhere, pull them out and go through them when you are waiting for class or lunch, riding in a car, etc. Again, every day make new cards and go through them 10 times. Do yesterday’s cards 10 times each. Do all the cards with questions you haven’t fully learned yet, skipping the x questions. On Saturdays go through all the cards and every question (including those with x) so far this semester. When a test comes up for a class, memorize all the cards for that class 10 more times. Keep memorizing until you know every question on your cards by heart. You also outline possible essay questions and memorize these outlines of your ideal answers on cards. Chart 2.5 gives an example of a card after the semester is over. The dots come during the memorizing, the first x when the item is first fully memorized and passed off to oneself, and the additional x’s come each time the card is later reviewed on Saturday’s and before midterms and finals. Any O during the later memorization means that the student missed it during one of the reviews. It might seem like this will take a lot of time, but that isn’t true. It will actually save you a lot of time! It really will. Here’s how: If you follow this model, you won’t waste time on study groups hoping that somebody else will help you prepare for the exam. At the study groups, you will be the one everyone wants to ask questions. Don’t avoid them, though, just because you feel well prepared. I’ll discuss later the benefits of group studying, and how to make it work for your leadership education goals. You won’t waste time cramming for exams. You will go back through all your cards, add anything new if the teacher or TA tells you something for the test, and you’ll literally be bored during finals week. Other students will be cramming, and you’ll be so prepared you’re just looking for something fun to do. You’ll read extra and get ahead for next semester. Or you’ll take a longer vacation. You won’t forget most of what you crammed two weeks after the test. Because you have learned the material over a whole semester, you’ll retain it much longer—probably most of it for life. In later classes, you won’t have to relearn things you’ve already mastered, you’ll have more cognitive “hooks” to hang your new learning on to make valuable associations and applications, and your cumulative knowledge will make each new pass at a classic read an unexpectedly richer experience. Did you catch that? All that hard work doesn’t just disappear once the grades are posted; you own that information, and will be able to apply it throughout your life! You’ll really know a lot! I mean, really! As you do this every day with every class each semester for several years of college, you will be truly amazed at how much you learn. So will your teachers. You will add real breadth and depth of knowledge to the other more important non- memorizing parts of your studies. If you’re paying your own way through school, you’ll likely get scholarships that reduce the time you have to spend working. Your time in school may go faster because you can take more credits and/or take classes right through summer because your finances are covered. You’ll probably be able to take more credits because you can memorize so much so easily. By the time you are in your second year of using this system, you will almost surely be so good at pulling out and learning information that you’ll have a lot of extra time for additional courses, internships, projects, etc. You’ll be amazed at how long it takes other students to learn the material. On a daily basis, the cards can take an extra hour or two of your time. This may seem like a lot during your first year of college. But most freshmen can spend an extra two hours a day on the cards and still have time for plentiful socializing or a job. And by the time you have finished your first semester of college, you will literally be a semester or more ahead of nearly all your classmates in terms of what you have learned. Over the course of a four-year program, you will learn exponentially more than most of your peers. Of course, this isn’t about doing better than your classmates; it’s about getting a truly great education. The cards alone won’t give you a world-class education, but they are a vital part of it. Without them, you are simply cheating yourself of the education you could be getting. If you attend a school that requires a major final oral exam at the end of your studies, like Oxford and many others, simply pull out your box of cards during your last semester and review everything. Again, you will be amazed at how much you know and how easy it is to recall everything you may have forgotten. If you end up teaching, you pull out and re- memorize the cards on the topics related to your course. The cards are a powerful part of a great college/university education. Chart 2.6 shows a card used later in life, for an Oxford final at the end of a four- year degree or in preparation for teaching a class. An O means the memorizer missed the answer, the F stands for a new memorizing dot during a four-year Oxford-style final. If you want a truly great education, master the cards. This may feel like hard work at first, but after your first year you’ll be amazed at how much you know and how effectively this works. Even if you only use this one step, Master the Cards, it will have a huge impact on how much you learn and you well you do in college. Combined with the other 18 Apps, it is a sure recipe for a great educational experience. App 8 Change the Calendar App 8 is quite simple, but it has a profound impact on your ability to master your education. On the first day of class, rewrite the calendar in your favor. Collect every syllabus you receive in all your classes, and make a list of every assignment (reading and otherwise) for the entire term. Put these assignments in chronological order. Don’t make a separate list for each class, but a total list that combines all classes in order. The list should contain two columns, one for papers and one for everything else. Be sure to put both columns on the page so you can see them at the same time. For example, the beginning of your list might look like the chart on the next page. Typically your assignment column will be much longer than your paper column. Once this is complete, you have your semester calendar. Now, forget the dates on the calendar and go to work completing these assignments and papers on your list. The only time to watch the calendar is on papers, exams and major projects, but even here you will check the calendar only to be sure you are ahead. Your daily studies consist of the following: 1-attend classes 2-make and memorize cards (usually 1-2 hours) 3-complete the next assignment(s) on your assignment list, and get far ahead of the syllabus due dates 4-spend at least an hour working on the next paper on your list 5-read from your great classics list Your weekly studies consist of: A-attend classes, labs, etc. B-make and memorize cards C-memorize all the semester’s cards each Saturday D-complete the assignments on the list, one after the other without paying attention to due dates (other than to ensure that you don’t turn one in late); don’t fixate on the due dates, but get so far ahead that when you check your due dates each day you have nothing to stress about E-complete papers in order, and get them done early F-read from your great classics list This process becomes your favorite calendar for several reasons. First, by working on your papers early and over time instead of during the last week or days before the due date, your writing will improve and the quality of your papers will significantly increase. Since writing is one of the most powerful venues of learning, this will greatly benefit your overall education. Second, by spending some time each day in class, writing, memorizing the cards, doing assignments, and reading in the classics, you will get more done because you won’t get too tired of any one type of study. Students I’ve worked with using this system typically put in over two hours more study per day than students who don’t use the cards/lists model. This adds up to a lot more learning over the course of your college experience. Third, whereas many students measure their progress by keeping up with the daily due dates in their classes, you will get ahead by forgetting due dates on most of your assignments and just focusing on learning as much as possible. Thus the calendar will not limit your education the way it does many students. Fourth, by completing papers early you have time to get feedback on them from teachers, TAs, writing labs and other students. Feedback helps you rethink, rewrite and improve your work. Fifth, being ahead of the due dates in your assignments means you will often understand a lot more of what is being covered in class. As you memorize cards from your readings ahead of the class, your level of learning drastically increases because you already know much of what is covered in class—this allows you to make new cards and ask questions that are more detailed and nuanced. Sixth, by turning in assignments early you often get feedback by teachers on areas where you need improvement. Some teachers will suggest ideas and allow you to make changes and resubmit your upgraded work for better grades. Doing work over and over to improve it is an important learning technique. Seventh, after you have done this for a while you will become very proficient at completing the class assignments early. In a number of classes in college I had completed the coursework and papers by the midterm and was able to take my work to the professor and ask for additional assignments. I received job offers and glowing recommendations from many of these professors. More importantly, some of them let me help with their personal research, asked me to lead out in class activities, and shared the cutting-edge studies they were doing at the time. This greatly increased the depth, breadth and quality of my educational experience. While many students struggle to manage their time, you instead have the ability to control your calendar using these two simple lists. You list out your assignments and get them done early and well. This small thing has a huge positive impact on the quality of education over time. App 8 is a simple yet powerful technology. Remember the definition of technology: “the practical application of knowledge in a particular area”. Another definition of technology is “a capability given by the practical application of knowledge” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). The one thing I constantly heard in college as a student and later as a professor was that students wish they had more time in the day. In effect, this technology does give you more time in the day. Along with the cards, changing your calendar using the two lists is a powerful way to get “more time” in your day and more learning from your semester or term. These technologies work. They make a huge difference in the studies, grades and level of learning of those who truly apply them. App 9 Read to Learn If you are already applying Apps 1-8, App 9 will be an easy addition to your learning process. It will also allow this chapter to be very brief, but don’t let this fool you. App 9 is an extremely important and powerful learning technology. While most students read to read—meaning that they read to say they completed the book or finished the assignment—you will read to learn. In short, you will read with your book in one hand and your 3x5 card in the other. Each time you read something you want to remember or think you should know, put it on a card. That’s App 9 in a nutshell. This is the next best thing to a photographic memory! Simply pull everything you want to learn and should learn out of the readings and commit them to memory using the cards system. It is truly amazing how much you will learn and remember using this method. (If you are a student who usually reads right through a chapter without stopping to ponder deep questions or pull out a lot of extra information beyond what the author has written, pay special attention to App 15.) If your course is a technical topic like biology, chemistry, language or history, this is especially valuable. Put down dozens of facts, dates, vocabulary, processes, etc. from each page you read and make them part of your knowledge base within 48 hours. Just think, instead of reading your text and then wondering what will be on the test, you will commit every important idea from your reading to memory! If, on the other hand, your course is a “thinking” class like literature, psychology or some philosophy courses, for example, ask deep questions and outline longer answers on the reverse of your cards. Use the card system to learn long and complex concepts as easily as you memorize dozens of facts from your texts. This system works. In short, you are reading your books looking for things you want to learn and know, and then putting them into a technology (3x5 cards and then your brain, meeting another Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of technology: “a manner of accomplishing a task using technical processes, methods or knowledge”) that will help you remember them long term. You aren’t just reading to finish the book, but to find important ideas and knowledge in the book and download it into your memory and knowledge base. As you follow this system: o Writing the questions and answers on the cards o Memorizing them 10 times the first day o Memorizing 10 more times the next day o Memorizing them over and over until you know them by heart o Reviewing them all each Saturday all semester o Reviewing many times again when the test is coming up …you are virtually pouring knowledge into your mind. For books of literature and great classics, I recommend reading the book and adding the things you learn to the cards and then, when you have completed the book, getting a list of additional questions (like from Cliff’s Notes) and making cards out of these questions too. This not only helps your learning but also your grades, the number of credits you can handle and how many outside projects you can do along with your studies. As I already mentioned, memorizing this much information is certainly not your whole education, but it most certainly doesn’t hurt! Your studies will naturally help you learn in other ways, especially if you are reading a great classics list. Adding a lot of memorized knowledge to your other methods of learning only broadens and deepens the quality of your education. It gives you added breadth and context to help you make associations and find meaning and application in the things you are learning. Like I also said above, getting used to this system may seem to take extra time, but by the end of your first year you’ll be way ahead and from then on you’ll progress so much faster than you would have otherwise. Read to learn. And learn what you read. Bestselling author Marcus Buckingham shares how he successfully graduated from Oxford using a version of this step: He simply made a close study of the introduction, table of contents and conclusion of the books assigned in his university courses. By knowing these parts of the books really, really well, he was able to pass his exams and get a good, solid education. Imagine how much more you can get by applying this method to every chapter in all of your books. Or, in certain classes where you just want to get through but not necessarily master, you can go in depth in the parts you need to pass and commit these to memory—while skipping less important material. My perspective is that every class and every topic in college should be fascinating and provide the opportunity to learn a great deal and obtain a truly superb and great education. But it is important to not just read books to get through them; this is worse than skimming because you don’t learn much more even though it takes a lot more time away from other studies. Read to learn—and go deep using the cards. If you want a truly great education, App 9 is an incredibly effective technology for learning. App 10 Write to Master Most people write college papers to pass their classes. They write with the professor as the audience, and they do little to impact the thinking of anyone about the topics they address. Still, ask university graduates what they learned in college and most will mention things they wrote about in papers. The process of researching, writing and re-writing papers is an extremely effective way of learning. Not all courses assign papers, of course, but even in these classes writing a paper can improve your learning. For example, let’s say you are in a math class that is required for your general education credit but you find yourself supremely uninterested. Writing a paper about the history of statistics, or of calculus, for example, can have a lasting positive impact on your interest in the topic. This works in many fields of learning. Writing and turning in such a paper also makes you a living, breathing reality to your teacher—and in some classes this makes all the difference between succeeding and failing. If your algebra teacher knows your face and name because you turned in a paper taking a position on the history of algebra versus geometry, for example, and then you meet with him to discuss it, he is more likely to give you extra help or put you on the list for a new tutoring program the math department is trying out. In courses that do require papers, writing is your chance to gain some real expertise. Most college courses, even for upperclassmen, are still very basic. If you want to really go deep in your class, your paper is often your best chance. If you work on your paper early and take drafts to your instructor or TA for suggestions on sources, you will often get a lot of personalized help and valuable recommendations for research and improving your writing. Most students don’t get such help because they wait until the due date is coming (or has arrived) to start writing. The keys to good writing are reading the greats, thinking great thoughts, and a lot of rewriting. Continue reading the greats throughout your college studies. And when it comes time to write, go research the foundations of your potential topics in The Syntopicon. The great ideas are the basis of virtually every topic under the sun, in some way or another. So when you start a paper, study any ideas in The Syntopicon that are in any way related. A lot of great thoughts will come out of this. Then research the greatest classic and modern works ever written on your topic. Know a little about them to inform the big picture undergirding the topic you are writing about. Beyond that, get your ideas on paper and then do a lot of rewriting. More on writing will be covered in later steps, especially Apps 16-18. For now, focus on writing early, working on your papers a little (or a lot) every day of the semester, and include The Syntopicon and the great ideas each time you are planning a paper. (If you are writing a paper right now and don’t have time to get through all the steps first, jump ahead and read Apps 16 and 17.) Writing is one of the most effective ways of learning, especially if you want to really go deep into your topic. So write early and rewrite a lot! Like some of the earlier steps, App 10 is a powerful and useful technology for learning. As we discussed earlier, technologies are “skills, knowledge, expertise, know-how, equipment, machinery and tools used to improve our abilities.” For some reason, writing about a topic is one of the best ways to really learn it. So if there are areas you really want to learn about, research and write about them. Writing is most effective when it is written to be read, and in the Internet Age it isn’t difficult to find an audience. So, sometimes at least, try forgetting your professor and write to a broader audience. Research various publications that relate to your topic and write your paper to submit to a specific publication. Sometimes your professor will help you in this process if you tell him your publication plan and ask for help. Whatever you do, use writing to gain lasting knowledge about the areas of interest you really want to learn in depth. Don’t just write to pass the class, but to learn, to be read by others, and to influence the thinking of your readers. Again, pouring yourself into the writing process helps you start the process of becoming a persuasive writer rather than merely a student paper writer. This change of perception has a real impact on your thinking, writing and learning. Don’t write to pass the class; write to learn, write to be read, and write to make a difference—even in your college writing. If you have a professor or two who wants you to take the more traditional student role in your writing, that’s fine, but apply this more advanced technological approach wherever you can. As you write to learn and to make a difference, you will see your writing improve much more quickly than otherwise and you will find that you are learning more than the students who just use papers to get their grade. You will likely get better grades on your papers (and in your classes), and you will certainly get a better education. ∞ Bonus An excellent book on writing is On Writing Well by William Zinsser. App 11 Turn Study Groups into Colloquia You’re using the cards, so you usually won’t need a study group to prepare for the exam. In fact, most study groups are an academic waste of time (though some of them may have significant social value). If you make copies of your cards and hand them out to everyone, a few will cram them and do well on the exam. A few others will ask you about your study system and learn how to do this long term to get a great education. But study groups are excellent places for colloquia. A colloquium (the singular form of colloquia) is a discussion, preferably about a book or work that all the participants have read and studied. If you attend a school that uses a colloquia model of learning such as Oxford, or learn from professors who utilize the Socratic Method, or something similar, you will get a lot of colloquia in your everyday courses. At most schools, however, students experience far too few colloquia. This is a shame because discussing the ideas you are learning with your peers is essential to great leadership education. You learn things from other students that you would never learn just through reading and lecture, and you even learn a great deal as you participate in dialogues and hear yourself saying things you didn’t realize you had considered before. Dialogue is vital to expanding your thinking, recognizing the limitation of your own logic and insights, and inspiring you to study harder as you see others excel and achieve things that you hadn’t thought were in your reach. Colloquia are part of any great education. It is easy to turn study groups into colloquia. Simply go to the study group with a list of questions about the book(s) in the class. As the group is establishing its study plan, let the other participants know that you have a list of questions and you hope the group can share their views on the answers. Cliff’s Notes has lists of such questions for many books, and you can find other questions in the appendix of my book A Thomas Jefferson Education. You can even research questions online—or just write your own. Hand out a copy of your list of questions at the beginning of the study group. Most of the participants will be glad for the list and use it to improve their studies. And most study groups will take time to discuss at least some of your questions. Take part in the discussion and ask the opinion of students who remain mostly quiet. If your group doesn’t finish your list or runs out of time, propose an additional study group to address the questions on your list along with whatever else the group needs to cover. As you do this over time, you will experience a lot of colloquia and find that they significantly improve the quality of your learning experience. Do your best to help the group succeed in other ways beyond colloquia. As valuable as colloquia are, most people have to experience them several times to realize just how great a learning tool they are. Do as many colloquia as you can, and involve others as much as they show interest. The colloquia method of learning has to be experienced to be valued. It is truly a superb type of learning that helps you increase nearly all your thinking, questioning and other learning abilities. You’re doing a favor to every person in your study group when you bring a list of deep questions and ask for everyone’s views. They will share profound and exciting ideas that you have never thought of and that your professor may never mention. By the way, if you are pursuing your college education through the online or distance-learning formats, it is still essential to find ways to engage in colloquia. Current technologies offering group-meeting formats are widely available. Use them! App 12 Turn Study Groups into Orals Another excellent use of study groups is to practice answering questions about your classes in an oral fashion. Oral exams are a lot more intense and deep than essay or multiple-choice tests because each time you give an answer the questioner can ask several follow-up questions. Since you have memorized the cards, testing each other orally in group studies can broaden your knowledge and that of everyone who participates. You may find that others have a different answer than what you put on your cards, or that your answer is in some way incorrect or incomplete. You may learn that other students have views that you never considered but are worthy of thought. You may learn that your memorized outline for a potential essay question is missing a vital key point. There are so many other lessons that come from orally quizzing each other about the things you have learned together in class. You already have a list of questions on your cards, so it is helpful to listen to other peoples’ questions and see if you have gaps in your cards. When it is your turn to share, you can use the questions you are struggling with or have yet to fully memorize. Or, if you have memorized answers to potential essay questions, this is a good time to ask other students to share their views on the essay topic. Study groups can provide a valuable service by sharing lists of questions, ideas and thoughts you may not have considered—and returning the favor to other students. This oral format broadens and deepens your own lists of questions and answers on cards. Take good notes during study groups and transfer the new things you’ve learned to your cards for memorization. Although this chapter is short, don’t underestimate the value of oral testing. It teaches you in ways no other type of test or activity ever approaches, and without it your learning lacks quality and depth. If study groups aren’t available or if participants prefer not to engage in oral questioning, set up your own groups to practice oral exams. Oral testing only takes two people, though it can benefit from a group. App 12 is simple, but it is deeply important. Set up study groups that make oral examining a key part of your learning. In later life, most people will use the skills and ideas learned in oral questioning much more than any other testing format. For example, my friend Tiffany Earl tells the story of living in a rural subdivision that was considering whether or not to require curbs and gutters— at considerable expense to the individual homeowners. A community meeting was held, and one resident, who felt very strongly about the issue, trembled and stuttered, used weak language and basically failed to make his case. He was an intelligent man with some important ideas to communicate, but because he lacked experience and skills in this type of environment, his voice went virtually unheard. Tiffany was grateful for the many times she had stood in a simulation, likewise trembling, and had learned how to master her fears and communicate effectively when there was nothing major at stake. It prepared her to speak effectively for things that mattered to her deeply later on in life. Even if you are naturally a good public speaker, you will find that your examiners will step up their game to challenge your abilities and help you refine your skills even further. Indeed, the better speaker you are, the more you should practice oral exams— just like talented musicians or athletes focus on their vocations more than other people typically do. Oral exams help you: o Learn to think on your feet o Reinvent the question (not just a good exam skill, but a powerful problem-solving tool!) o Share things you do know even when there are things you do not o Know when you are reaching your audience, when you are not, and how to modulate your delivery for a transformational experience o Recognize deficiencies in your own preparation o Discover new strengths o Rethink your ideas and assumptions from the point of view of a questioner In short, if the goal of a great education is to be able to apply your college learning to meaningful life experiences, then no great education is complete without mastering the Oral Exam. App 12 is simply not to be missed. App 13 Seek Simulations Events Nothing teaches quite as effectively as experience. Look for opportunities to get real-life and simulated experience in your field of study, and outside of your comfort zones as well. Most schools have some kind of simulative courses, such as moot courts in pre-law clubs, debates sponsored by various on-campus organizations, a university-sponsored Model United Nations, online simulation competitions, etc. The key is to become a bulletin-board reader. Spend some time regularly browsing the postings on your school’s website, reading the ads in the school paper, and standing in front of bulletin boards in hallways across campus to read flyers. Some of the best simulations are visiting lectures by experts from around the world and workshops sponsored by your school. Don’t hesitate to look for similar programs at other local universities and community-sponsored events. Many such programs are free or offer waivers or discounted prices for students. Online searches for seminars, conferences and special events for college students often net some great opportunities. Of course, always check out the details and use strong safety guidelines. Many student associations, alumni organizations, clubs and faculty projects offer events and opportunities for research, projects, travel and other learning environments. Participating in student government, if it is used on your campus, is a type of simulation. In short, don’t just do classes, books, cards, classics and papers—look for other opportunities to improve your educational experience. Especially seek out and participate in hands-on events like moot courts, model congresses, and others in which you take part, play a life-like role and learn by doing. Internships One special kind of simulation that is extremely valuable to leadership education, and in fact to nearly all kinds of learning, is internships. The rule of thumb is that the more education you have (and I mean skills and knowledge, not necessarily credits), the better your internship. Years ago I gave this counsel to two students who had been invited to do internships with their state legislatures. I counseled one student, a freshman, to wait two years to do the internship when she had the basics of a quality leadership education in the classics and great ideas. I counseled the junior, who already had two years of such studies, that the internship would be a great opportunity. Both students decided to do the internship, one against my suggestion and the other with my recommendation. The students worked in the same office and for the same supervisor, but they had drastically different experiences. On the first day of the internship the supervisor put them in charge of setting up tables and refreshments for an open house, answering calls, and filing documents. For the freshman, this turned out to be the extent of her duties and experience for the full three-months. But the junior took a different path. Within a few days she used her skills learned in business leadership simulations and mock congress to outline three major weaknesses the office was facing and develop several options to turn these problem areas into strengths. She used her negotiating and interpersonal skills polished in leadership labs to propose them to her supervisor and get them enacted. She was asked to implement these changes into the office routine and did so. Remember, the freshman was still filing papers during all of this. As the junior was implementing the new plans, she used her education in the classics to spend evenings studying the various pieces of legislation before the legislature that term. She selected three she felt strongly about, developed a plan to pass or defeat each, and wrote up her proposals. Then she met with the head of the lobbying organization where the two students were interning and sold herself as the perfect person to pull off this agenda. She was selected, and she ended the session by accomplishing her goals with all three bills. In the process she negotiated with legislators and senators, briefed the press, and did a number of things that gave her valuable real life experience. The freshman filed a lot of papers and answered a lot of phone calls. She did have a very good experience, and she later did another internship that was much more substantive—after she had a better education and more maturity and preparation. That’s the rule of internships—the better your education and skills, the more valuable most internships will be. I have seen very young students do successful internships at the World Bank, United Nations, numerous businesses, and many other places; but again, their level of preparation made all the difference in their experience. Travel Another powerful simulation-type experience can be found in travel. Once again, taking care for safety is vitally important. Many travel opportunities are available and can be very beneficial to education. You can do this by simply reading biographies of local heroes, learning about the architecture, cuisine, geography, arts, or language of the region. The more points on which you connect, the richer your experience will be, and the more valuable will be the associations you can make to the rest of your education in general. In summary, there are many things beyond the classroom and library that can help students get a truly great leadership education experience. It is up to each student to search out and take advantage of the many opportunities that abound. ∞ Bonus When you travel, read up on the history of the place you are going. For example, if you are going to Austria, read all the selections on Austria from Durant’s History of Civilization. App 14 Boost Your Vocabulary This step can have a significant impact on your lifetime income, since vocabulary is the number one factor in income levels. If nothing else, it will certainly boost your ability to think since our thoughts are often limited by our language. Every time you hear or read a word or phrase you don’t know, put it on a card. Look up the definition, and memorize it. Every time. That’s App 14, and it is important! ∞ Bonus Some words and phrases to start your list: dialectic, induction, precession, epistemology, coda. App 15 Master Three Kinds of Assignments Classics expert Robert Grudin suggests in The Grace of Great Things that there are at least three major kinds of academic challenges. First is the Task challenge, where we have to take action to accomplish a goal. Task challenges include most academic assignments, and also simulations, artistic productions such as concerts and plays, and anything else that requires the student to rise to the challenge of accomplishment. A second kind of challenge is the Problem. “Here the challenge is complicated by unknown factors,” Grudin says. Students must first think diagnostically and then follow up with therapeutic responses. When teachers elevate assignments from mere Tasks to full Problems, they invite students to think more deeply and apply their thinking more broadly. Note, of course, that Problem challenges include Task skills since the “therapeutic” part of overcoming a problem involves tasks. But problems require much more than tasks, since the “diagnostic” portion of surmounting the challenge is fundamentally intellectual. It also involves significant risk to arrive at a diagnostic conclusion and then take action (which may or may not succeed) to apply it. A third type of challenge Grudin calls a Mystery. In a sense, this is the highest level of challenge because the teacher doesn’t openly tell the student that he is completing an assignment. The student, in the course of learning, comes across a challenge and has to recognize, on his own, that he is facing one. He has to identify that there is a challenge, clearly define what it is and is not, and then turn it into a problem and finally a set of tasks. This teaches leadership skills, independent thinking, creativity, innovation, initiative and originality—all of which are difficult to teach. Indeed, since these things patently require the original action of the students, instead of the teacher, they are the hardest of all lessons to teach. This is one reason the great classics are held in such high esteem by mentors who want to teach leadership. Textbooks, by definition, present Task challenges or Problems. But the real tests in life are Mysteries with multiple problems and tasks inherent—waiting for leaders to recognize them and take action. An education built around textbooks mostly trains followers and at best trains problem-solvers. Leaders must do so much more—the first and greatest challenge being to recognize that there is a challenge in the first place and then clearly, and accurately, define exactly what it entails. No such assignment exists in any math textbook I have ever read, for example, but it is the norm in math classics—see Euclid, Nichomachus, Newton, Whitehead, Flatland, Asimov or even Buchanan’s classic essay “Poetry and Mathematics.” Or read Schneider’s A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe. Other fields, beyond math, follow the same pattern. Grudin takes us through the process of recognizing Mystery as we study: “Once more, an urgent truth lies in the text. But no one has told us that it is there, much less that finding it is of paramount importance. Moreover, even if we have somehow turned to the correct page and are looking at the right message, there is no certainty that we will recognize it…for it is written in language that, on the surface, looks exactly like everything else in the text. The only signal of a challenge, the only factor distinguishing us from the thousand readers who have examined the passage before us and found nothing, is a vague sense of disquiet: a sense either that there is something curiously ‘wrong’ with the text or that there is something strangely wonderful about it. The only way to reduce this subtle code is by looking at language with new eyes, by radically reinterpreting what seems to be common and obvious verbal structures.” Once a student learns to read this way in the classics, suddenly textbooks, workbooks, technical manuals and all other readings open up and share their mysteries. The student who knows how to read looking for mystery finds much hidden in all writing. Note that the “cards” process described in App 7 turns all reading and classes into a mystery! This is not esoteric or apocryphal, it is just that writers communicate more than the mere words they write and good readers know how to read the nonverbal cues as easily as a practiced diplomat knows how to read body language. By the way, this is not a rare phenomenon—the simple word for this is “literacy.” All who are truly well educated know how to read this way. The fact that so many modern readers are technically literate but not culturally literate in this type of reading was the topic of at least two major bestsellers: The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom and Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch. The classics help students, and teachers, reach the level of mystery in their studies because we naturally approach Shakespeare, Plato, Beethoven’s 5th or “The Mona Lisa” with the knowledge that generations have considered them truly great. We assume there is something deep, profound and perhaps hidden in their work, and so we look for it. Because we look, we find—unless we give up too soon. We wander the Parthenon or Ground Zero expecting to feel greatness, and we are rewarded based on our efforts. Mystery challenges are the real assignments in education, the ones that truly teach us the most important and lasting lessons. Mystery pushes us to our own initiative, creativity and innovation—it helps us see more about ourselves. Indeed, it also connects us personally with the topics we are studying—it takes us beyond thinking and analyzing into the realms of feeling and internalizing important knowledge and ideas. This is all part of a great education, and it is the reality behind leadership educators wanting the student to come face-to-face with greatness in her studies. All knowledge is the same topic, and, as Gregory Bateson put it: “Break the pattern which connects the items of learning and you necessarily destroy all quality.” Perhaps the most important benefit of Mystery challenges is that they are often accompanied by epiphany. When we experience an epiphany—a sudden flow of wisdom, knowledge, peace or enthusiasm, a profound breakthrough— we are changed forever. Grudin quotes Michael Polanyi on this point: “Having made a discovery, I shall never see the world again as before. My eyes have become different; I have made myself into a person seeing and thinking differently. I have crossed a gap, a heuristic gap which lies between problem and discovery.” (Add “heuristic” to your vocabulary cards?) Note again that overcoming any Mystery challenge naturally also includes Problem challenges and Task challenges. All three are needed for a great education. Whether or not your teachers and texts provide Mystery assignments, you can search for such challenges in all your studies. This kind of deep thinking is key to getting a truly superb education. ∞ Bonus At some point in college, probably around the end of your sophomore year, be sure to read The Social Animal by David Brooks. This book will help you put your college experience in context with your career and life, and it will help you make some very important discoveries. For example, career success most often comes by standing at the junction of two departments, two subjects, or two career fields. At some point in your learning, probably during the junior year but possibly a little earlier or later, it is important to find your “Unique Selling Proposition”— that one thing that you do better than anyone else and that can be done over and over in whatever field of work and specific projects you undertake. Figuring out your unique selling position and polishing it is a vital unofficial part of getting a quality education. It is essential to real success and all leadership. Reading The Social Animal will help you with these and a number of other crucial skills. It will teach you a number of concepts that are critical to success, including priming, anchoring, framing and much more. Be sure to read this truly great modern classic. App 16 Study Peer-Reviewed Journals Whatever the focus of your education and the field of your career, there is a certain source that is vital to read and understand. Many of the top experts in most fields write articles on cutting-edge research and publish them in peer- reviewed journals. Such articles are read by other experts in the field to ensure accuracy and quality in the content. Reading such journals is a special source of knowledge for your field of study. To introduce you to scholarly journals, please complete the following exercises: 1-Go to your university library, or the closest major academic library, and spend the day there. Ask the librarian where the scholarly journals are found, and spend the day perusing through all the journals the library has. Start at one end of the stacks of journals, pull off one volume of the first journal on the shelf, and look through the table of contents. 2-Do this with every journal the library owns. If you aren’t particularly interested in the topic of a journal, just look through the table of contents in one volume to familiarize yourself with the journal. Make a list of the journals that interest you. 3-Go back a second day, maybe a week later, and go through the table of contents for every journal on your list of interests. Make a list of articles you would like to read. 4-Return as many times as needed to read the articles on your list. If you find that an article isn’t helpful, skip it and go to the next one. Read the articles that teach you a lot, even if there are quite a few of them. And dig through them even if they use a lot of technical language. It may be helpful to know that many libraries allow you to do this research and reading electronically. When you write papers, go back to these journals and research everything written about your chosen paper topics. Note that many journals include reviews of books on topics you may be researching. These book reviews are often an invaluable source of learning. You will learn much more than before once you discover and consistently use this valuable source of knowledge. As you spend time in the library with scholarly journals and the books they review and recommend, your educational experience will be significantly, probably even drastically, enhanced. These four assignments will get you started in this process. Scholarly journals are hugely beneficial to getting a truly great education. Take the time to complete these four assignments and to incorporate the journals into all your studies. This step is often the difference between beginning and advanced students. The sooner you do these assignments and embrace the value of scholarly journals in your college experience, the more you will learn and the sooner your studies will begin their advanced phases. I could say much more about this step, but once you complete these four assignments you will be well on your way to more advanced learning and anything else I write here will be redundant. This step is very important, and you will find that the scholarly journals are a great benefit to your educational quality and su

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