THE GOOD CHEATS
This week I’m preparing a series of learning strategist workshops for student advisors at a post-secondary campus. In other words, I’ll be coaching the coaches.
If you’ve been following my blog, you will have a pretty good idea of the content of these workshops. As I’m preparing them, I’m reflecting on the college advisors I’ll be working with, and then on the many post-secondary advisors I have seen in my practice aiding students in achieving their goals.
So this is a bit of a hats off in appreciation, as well as an invitation for you to be aware of their resources that go beyond the aid you get from your instructors (which, of course, is critical and quite useful if you go to class).
It is possible to go through your entire program class-lab-seminar-study-assignments-exams rinse and repeat. This is like the gamer who never uses the cheats, or even knows about them. They miss the hidden buffs and perks, but not the hidden traps.
These are the good cheats. You can do your academic game without them, but you will do your academic game with greater ease and better results if you don’t leave them on the table.
What does your campus offer? My profession being what it is, Learning Strategy workshops come to mind—exam anxiety, exam strategy for different types of exams, academic writing, research, presentations—these are a few. Know what’s available.
Peer tutoring and tutoring groups cut the learning time in STEM courses, especially if you enrol in them before you really, really need them.
Then there are those special people. Counsellors come to mind right away for dealing with issues, whether personal or interpersonal. Advisors come to mind for helping plan course loads and schedules to meet requirements, or for how to get off academic probation. Who doesn’t come to mind right away are librarians. Librarians know where to find information. Whoa. That is big. They even know how to help you find out what information you need. One business school librarian was offered a six-figure job in the US as a prompt engineer. She stayed with the business school because her joy was in working with students rather than training IT professionals on AI.
If you go to a librarian with a question about a topic or a paper or an organization and you don’t leave with information that you didn’t know you needed, I’ll eat that hat I always take off to them!
Data specialists can be there if your mass of data isn’t making sense, or you don’t know which approach to use, or which program. Back when p-hacking was acceptable, one campus had the queen of all p-hackers: she knew what and how to correlate to what and how to do it; her seminars were crammed with grad students. She has since moved on to more significant analytical methods as the field demands greater sophistication. Whatever your specialty, there are acceptable and preferred approaches to data analysis, and likely people on campus who can shorten your learning curve or keep you from heading down dead ends.
Office hours. Instructors who have office hours have them because they want you to succeed. See them before you really need to. Asking for review of your approach to an assignment can help you target requirements more closely. If you’re encountering difficulty, they may be able to point you to appropriate assistance, especially if you don’t wait until the week before the final.
Faculties and Departments. The handouts. The receptionists and office managers. (Bet you didn’t think of those people. They KNOW the system and the bureaucracy.)
There’s so much more! Rooms that can be booked for group meetings. Accommodations! Financial aid! Course recommendations you might not have thought of! Career assistance! Resume writing!
So know the cheats! And use them for a winning academic game!
I’m booking for the fall term. Check in with me to plan and strategize for your 2025-2026 academic success. [email protected]
The information in this blog cannot take the place of support from your own mental health professional or community health resources. Reach out to them. And IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS, PLEASE DIAL 911.