Get Rich or Blog Trying.....: January 2010

"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery." Charles Caleb Colton

You know that your marketing campaign has been successful when someone copies it. When an ad campaign is copied by a close rival, it will likely lead to a lawsuit, but what about when it's by a company in a completely different marketplace?. I think the Apple marketing team won't be too discouraged that their ubiquitous "There's an App for That" campaign has now been adopted unashamedly by Subway. Personally I don't think this is a bad thing for Apple because Subway are a reputable company in a completely different field, and if anything Subway's advertisements reinforce the Apple brand in customers minds.

I think the slogan is a particularly good fit for Subway because Subway have changed subs from being something you only had at lunchtime to being a snack/meal you can have at anytime of the day. The "we've a sub for that" slogan further emphasises the notion that whatever time and whatever mood your in, Subway have enough variety of choice to please you. It's a win-win situation...or is it? Is there some angle I'm not seeing that could have a negative impact on either Subway or Apple??thoughts?

If your the type of person who goes to bed early, gets up early, goes to all your classes, takes good notes and studies hard, then your probably going to do awesome in college, and you don't need to read this.

But if your normal and want to get the best possible results with the least possible work then read on!

1. It's Never Too Late

It's never too late to learn something. Everyone has a different routine when it comes to exams. Some people prefer to get a good night's sleep before hand, some stay up all night. Outside the exams hall some people are glued to one small sheet of paper and some are sitting down with what appears to be the full coursework spread out in front of them. To each his own, and I think whatever works for you stick with, but there is one point I would like to make, which I think is important regardless of what method you use. It is never too late to learn something. I've heard people say the night before or even on the mornings of exams, if you don't know it yet, you'll never know it. I wholeheartedly disagree. You've done no work all semester? 24 hrs till the exam? Never let anyone convince you that you won't be able to pass. There are two reasons for this

A) You would be amazed at what you can learn in that time, as I mentioned in this post

B) A test is a not an exam on an entire years work. No test is long enough, instead test represents some key aspects of the course. I have been doing exams for the last 6 years and have always found that the 80/20 Pareto Principle applies. The exam is comprised of 20% of the subject material. Since you only need 40% to pass, if you cover even 8% of the overall coursework, you can pass! And I think that with 24 hours the majority of people can cover 10% of a subject easily

2. Lecturers, Professors, Teaching Assistant's are people too

Being objective is probably the hardest thing in the world. Almost every action we take is influenced by how we feel about people. So, never give a lecturer the opportunity to dislike you. Respect them and they'll respect you. ie. don't arrive for class late, talk in class or do anything else which can give them a negative perception of you.

3. Attendance, Attendance, Attendance

This is linked to point number two. Your professor will have worked their whole life to get in a position to be in front of your class giving a lecture. So naturally they will be predisposed to students that acknowledge this hard work by attending every class and sitting at the front. But I'm a realist, it's college, we all know that if we go to every class and study every night we'll do better, but still very few people do it.

SO....... what you want to do is take advantage of when you do drag your ass to class! For subjects you attend infrequently, I would recommend sitting, near but not at the front (because if you sit at the front, when you miss class it'll be noticeable). When you do attend, I would recommend being as noticeable as possible and try and get to know your professor, or at least for them to know you. The easiest way to do this, without actually having to do much work, is to read up on one topic of a lecture and after class go up and ask a question about it. Doing this will show your lecturer that

A) You were paying attention

B) Your interested in the subject and

C) your a hard worker, as your willing to stay after class to learn.

4. It's not what you know, it's who you know

Coursework in general changes very little from year to year. If you can get in contact with someone who took your subject last year/semester you can gain some vital information in to what type of character your professor is, and what they expect from their students, as well as a good idea of what are the most important aspects of the course.

Having contacts in the class to get notes off of, is invaluable. I knew very few people in college who studied everything from the book. The best method is for a group of people to get together and each write out summaries of book chapters and then swap. This reduces workload for all and allows for more time actually studying and less time rewriting books.

5. History Repeats Itself

The single greatest factor in my achieving good results in college was this point. When I study, I study smart. I do not learn one single fact of assigned coursework that isn't required. How do I know what's required? Past exam papers are the greatest tool in discerning what information is really important and likely to appear on the exam. In any body of work there are topics that are so crucial that they must be examined, study these intently. I am constantly amazed at how many people study for weeks before looking at past exam papers. They are also really useful because you can become familiar with the exact format of the exam and the style of questions asked.

Another little trick linking back to number 3 is when a topic is covered in class, bring in a past exam appear that deals with that subject. This again will highlight the fact that your a hard worker as you already thinking about the exam, particularly effective early in semester

BONUS POINT

Whatever your subject is, learn a few facts that aren't located in books or notes and include these in your answer, this shows a thorough knowledge of your subject and your professor will also realise that you did extra research and give you extra credit. The best example I can give of this is an exam I did on business strategy. The case study we had studied was on Yahoo. So in my answer I made sure to include the name of the CEO, the current stock price and a few other extracurricular facts, which gave great context to my answer for a few minutes work.