ich smoother with valuable guides like
these to help encourage you along the way.
I BEGAN BY CHANGING MY SURROUNDINGS
My first task was to translate those words of encouragement and high ex-
pectations from people I respected into concrete action. I started close
to home — literally,
I lived in an all-male section of the MIT dorm called Chocolate City,
or “CC.” CC was founded by a group of African American upperclass-
men when the dormitory opened in 1975. The name would be based on
the title song of a Parliament/ Funkadelic album; Chocolate City was the
nickname for Washington, DC, because of its majority-black population.
The goal of the “CC” dorm was to establish a culturally safe place for the
28 young black men who lived there.
CC had a regional reputation for its parties and the beautiful young
college women who frequented the place, some of whom stayed for days
at a time as "guests." Though we had the off-campus attraction of being
MIT students with promising futures, on campus we were not known
11
NANI
timo
cha
"DE
CC - one of the brothers built a personal computer in his room from
scratch, this at about the same time IBM launched the PC and Apple the
Macintosh. However, as a group, CC brothers were not exactly pushing
up
the curve.
Nor was the space conducive for studying. Though most of us had
single rooms, as a freshman I was assigned a double with a guy who
always had a television on. If that wasn't enough, even with the door
closed, we had to manage frequent interruptions, from brothers stop-
ping by to talk about their various exploits, to music being played loud
enough to be heard throughout the floor.
My two hours of “studying” for that physical chemistry exam by
glancing through the notes in my dorm room with the television blar-
ing in the background and music playing down the hall proved to be a
failed experiment. I didn't need another “data point,” nor could I af-
Id
the
bu
ni
tin
in
n
ir
ta
w
t
I
ford one. The semester was moving quickly and it would have been futile
to try to bounce back from two poor exam grades. The next big exam
was in physics.
I resolved to try studying in the Stratton Library, a study space on
the fifth floor of the Student Center that was open 24 hours a day. Why
I moved my workspace to Stratton was fuzzy. Maybe I was trying to avoid
MIT's tradition of showering freshmen in the dorm before the first phys-
ics exam, a sort of rite of passage. More likely, I must have known that to
garner deep understanding of my courses, I needed a quiet space. After
all, I used to get up early to study while I was in high school, particularly
during my senior year when I took my hardest courses, though these
were relatively easy compared to what I was now encountering in college.
It just so happened that mornings in my house were the quietest time,
though I thought I was doing it just because of my sleep pattern.
The decision to study in Stratton may have also been influenced by
my older brother, Keith, who used to speak about how he used the quiet
of Stratton to write his senior thesis. Regardless of my reasoning at the
WORKING SMARTER. NOT JUST HARUER
hic stars in
room from
Apple the
y pushing
time, I'm glad I made this change. It was the first of several important
changes.
of us had
-
guy who
he door
ers stop-
ed loud
kam by
n blar-
to be a
d I af-
and it
futile
exam
was
ce on
"DEEP DIVE" LEARNING: PREPARING FOR MY FIRST PHYSICS EXAM
I decided to set aside two days not just two hours — to study before
the next exam. Once again, I don't know what prompted that decision,
but I must have thought that with an extra day, I'd have a backup eve-
ning to study if for whatever reason I couldn't begin two days ahead of
time. Moreover, a two-day advance would give me time to get any linger-
ing questions answered on the day before the exam.
I committed to reviewing all of the textbook reading and my lecture
notes in detail. To go back to the beginning. Much of what is taught
in these courses is "vertical”; new material builds on the previous ma-
terial. I knew that if my foundational knowledge was shaky
then I would struggle to understand more advanced concepts
that were being introduced in a rapid-fire manner. On the other hand,
I reasoned, if I can go back to the beginning of the semester and shore
the foundational principles, the rest of the material will come more
up
easily. I resolved not to move to another concept until I deeply under-
stood the previous one, and not just to understand The What — that is,
the steps I needed to follow to derive an equation or procedure - but
most importantly, The Why.
During the first afternoon and evening that I set aside, I reviewed
the reading material from the textbook and from my lecture notes. I
read every page, every word, and worked out every sample problem. I
knew I needed to take notes of my notes, and I wrote these “notes of
notes" in a separate notebook that I dedicated for this purpose. (Today,
students would probably use an iPad handwriting app like Noteshelf or
OneNote.) I knew from high school that I best remembered new material
when I wrote it down, especially if I wrote the concepts, facts, defini-
Why
void
phys-
at to
fter
arly
ese
ge.
ne,
by
et
e е
tions, or procedures in my own words.
13
KARL W. REID. ED.D
Mine was an active review – reading, writing, highlighting, and
noting questions in the margins of the notebook. If I didn't under.
a
or definition I needed to remember, I wrote it down in the dedicated
notebook.
I didn't realize it at the time, but this notebook would prove helpful
in preparing me for the final exam later in the semester because the
exam schedule did not lend itself to the “deep dive” I was now undertak-
ing. Some colleges have a two-week reading period that allows sufficient
time for students to review a semester's worth of material. At MIT at the
time, classes ended on a Friday, and exams
which could occur on
three consecutive days — began the following Monday. Not much time
to study at all!
-
TWO-HOUR BLOCKS. THEN SHORT BREAKS
In preparing for this physics test, I would work for two hours straight
and then take a break by walking around the library or using the rest-
room. Occasionally I would go down to the coffee shop two floors below
to grab a cup or some other snack to keep me energized. On a few oc-
casions, I would venture into the arcade. I wasn't a big video gamer at
the time, but I would enjoy watching others play. Strange, I know. It may
have been because I didn't have much money as a student. Whatever the
reason, I was fortunate never to have been caught up in the video-game
vortex. Watching one or two games would be enough of a break for me.
I had work to do and I was eager to get back to it.
I stayed in the library well past midnight until I had completed the
review. I recall feeling a growing sense of accomplishment. I was finally
getting it. More importantly, I was struck by the contrast between how
foreign the material felt when I heard or saw it in lecture for the first
time, and now weeks later how familiar it became going back and read-
ing for understanding. The subject matter that had seemed to be com:
posed of random and long derivations and diagrams began to make
14
and
ER
It under-
s a concept
dedicaten
sense to me. Now I needed to figure out how to close that knowledge gap
in the future, and in my other courses.
The real test, of course, was how I would do on the exam in two days,
but the first day of “deep dive” studying boded well for me. I remember
thinking, "I may have found my weapon for counterattacking the MIT
monster,” a weapon I would eventually employ and teach throughout my
ve helpful
career.
cause the
undertak
sufficient
IT at the
occur on
-
uch time
-
traight
e rest-
below
eW OC-
her at
t may
ONE DAY TO GO: A RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF MASTERY
The next day
one day before the exam I sought out my teach-
ing assistant to answer the questions I had uncovered during my “deep
dive." I am not an outgoing person, and I typically didn't feel confident
reaching out to my professors and TAs, at least until I had something
specific to ask. This is one instance when I did. The “deep dive” gave me
confidence to ask questions. Preparation produces confidence, even for
an introvert like me who tended to be intimidated by the preeminence
of these great minds.
The other good news is I had only a few questions, because I had
gone through the work so thoroughly.
After classes were over for the day, and once I got my questions an-
swered, I returned to the library. It was still early, with few students there,
so I was able to choose the same cubicle. That location had worked for
me the night before and it was quickly becoming familiar. I had already
discovered the power of context; if there was a place that I could associ-
ate with certain activities like studying, then in the future, it would be
easier to be motivated to work on that activity simply by showing up in
that place. That cubicle in the library became my place for serious study.
And while I couldn't always reserve that specific space (after all, there
were about 8,000 other students on campus at the time), I discovered
that any cubicle in that library produced the same effect on me.
And now, the night before the exam, after understanding The
Why, the goal was to apply what I had learned: in other words, to work
r the
ame
me.
the
ally
OW
rst
ad-
n-
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15
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