My Thoughts on Assigned Readings

1. "How to Become a Deep Thinker at College"

http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/24/how-to-become-a-deep-thinker-at-college/

I found this article really helpful. It basically gave you a simple technique of how to train your brain to think better. This requires three steps, and they are:

1. choose courses that seem interesting to you, and no more than half of these courses should be in a subject that you already know something about.

2. calculate the number of hours per week you need to handle the workload for these courses.

3. double the total. keep this number of hours free in your schedule. so keep the number of courses you choose a reasonable number.

I wish I had known about these steps before I started college. I did pick one course which I know nothing about and that is Spanish. I really was not looking forward to that class and it is very intimidating to be in a class with mostly people that have already taken several years of the language, but now I am glad that my brain will benefit from it.

“Students who make great mental leaps and become more sophisticated thinkers are those who have more than enough time to think about, work on, grapple with and revel in their coursework. If one of your goals at college is to become a deeper, more nuanced thinker, then you need lots of time.” I think this statement is very important because I never really thought about how time can affect your brain and help you become a better thinker.

2. "Don't Eat the Marshmallow Yet"

http://www.ted.com/talks/joachim_de_posada_says_don_t_eat_the_marshmallow_yet.html

In this video, children about four years old were put in a room and a professor gave each of them one marshmallow and told them not to eat it for 15 minutes. If they did not eat the marshmallow, they received a second one. If they did eat it, they didn’t get anything. 2 out of 3 children ate the marshmallow before the 15 minutes were up. A follow up study was done when the children got to 18 or 19 years old and the ones that did not eat the marshmallows were very successful students. The ones that ate the marshmallow had bad grades, did not get in college, and were not successful.

What I got out of this video was how rewards can change your actions and how self discipline affects your decisions and eventually how successful you are. If you wait and don’t just act on impulse, you will benefit from that in time.