How to Become a Straight-A Student review

If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you would have heard the name Cal Newport. He is one of my favorite self-improvement authors, and his casual writing style is, (so far) in my opinion, unparalleled. This book has a simple goal: to convince students As can be achieved through minimal effort and the methods by which that can be achieved. It is for college students, and in that book, he took interviews with several straight-A college students from top universities. The best audience for this book is definitely high school seniors, although 9th graders could potentially implement some of these stuff if you had a majority of AP classes. He begins with counterarguing why more effort isn’t the only and effective solution for higher grades. The thing I found interesting is that not many of his methods required drastic changes to your existing study routine or lifestyle. Some of them are very intuitive; like using time in between classes to do assignments. Some of them are eye-opening, like planning your ‘hard’ days. I do have a grudge with this book. This book teaches you how to get As, but not exactly how to retain knowledge. That is my problem. It slightly feels like he is prioritising grades over learning, which might not be the case, but this is the feeling I got, especially with him assigning hierarchies with assignments and tests. For example, he mentions that you could take any quiz that is worth less than 15% of your grade lightly without much studying as that does not matter that much. Of course, this is not to say this book is misleading you and changing the purpose of college. It is a great read, and I would definitely use his methods, but also indulge in gaining knowledge on the major I’m studying. 

To any college students or high school seniors reading this, here’s your new year gift.

Everybody else, Happy New Year and have a great year ahead!🎆

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“How to Become a Straight-A Student.” Audible.com, 2019, www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Become-a-Straight-A-Student-Audiobook/B07M92PN2J. Accessed 1 Jan. 2025.