Judy Fishel

I teach First Year Experience courses at a university, and Fischel includes a lot of concepts in her book that college freshmen need to learn to be successful. I appreciate the discussion of “intentional learning” and the attempt to get students to move beyond the hyper-focus on grades to concentrate instead on the purpose of learning.

My favorite sections of the book involved a plethora of memorization strategies backed by current research and the section on learning critical thinking skills. The time management section addresses some standard strategies, but goes beyond creating schedules to discuss some additional perspectives such as flextime and independent study time. While these are specific strategies, they also help shift students’ mindsets about the value of learning.

The section I found to be the least helpful was on analyzing data. This is a crucial topic and I am glad it is addressed. However, I think it is problematic to try to introduce this in such a short section, and it seemed a bit shoehorned into the text. The tone of the text is a bit preachy at times, which may be off putting to some students. Some improvements could be made in the general formatting and making some sections more concise.

I really appreciated the numerous strategies presented throughout the book. It would be helpful to have a quick reference guide that lists all these strategies somewhere at the beginning or the end of the text. The emphasis on reflection and metacognition throughout the book is good, as well as the explicit connections between chapters. It’s always refreshing to see someone emphasize that rereading and copying are not effective study strategies and then go on to provide useful alternatives (thank you!). This can be a good resource for new college students. Note: I received a free copy of this book from the LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.… (mehr)

As a veteran college professor, I was curious to see whether this book had any different strategies than most other "self-help" study books. There are lots of great strategies (though nothing really special or new about it), but I wonder if a college student will really read this whole thing. It might be good to have an introductory chapter that helps the student to analyze what they personally need to improve, and then point them in that direction. I also think that some of the chapters have too much background information to really be of interest to a student. One has to think from the student's perspective: Do I really want to read this whole book? Do I care HOW a strategy was developed or the science behind it? Or, do I just want to get some ideas for how to improve a particular part of my study strategies?… (mehr)

There are many books that tackle the question of getting good grades. Judy Fishel tackles the questions of How can I learn more when I go to college? and How can I get the best education possible? Many learning strategies are discussed, as well as time management, and setting goals. Fishel also shares the results of learning studies, and student anecdotes, many taken from her own college educational experience.

I am long past my own college days but much of the information in this book would have benefitted me at the time. I was “smart” but had limited time management, goal setting and study skills and those limits kind of sunk me in college. My teenage daughter looks to be heading for a similar experience and I requested this book to see if its information could improve her college experience. After reading it, I’m not sure if this is the book for her.

While Fishel has much, much, much good information it’s buried in so much verbiage that she may have a hard time selling it to the people who could use it. An example from page 193: “As I explored different ways of thinking, I came up with the number ten. I don’t claim that ten is the correct number. I am certain other people, if asked to list ways of thinking, would come up with a variety of numbers and categories. But, since organizing ways of thinking makes it easier to develop useful strategies, we’ll begin with my list of ten. Because it’s difficult to remember a list of ten items, the ways of thinking are grouped in five pairs:” (and then the pairs are listed). When I read this paragraph and many others like it, my mind wandered off into wondering what the other ways of thinking might be. This paragraph is like a side track, and makes the author sound like she’s not confident in what she has to say. Why not say something like “There are ten ways of thinking, grouped into five pairs:” and get on with it?

Another thing that might have been helpful would be some guidance in how to select the areas that would be most helpful to the specific student. The book contains an overwhelming amount of information, lists of how to implement various strategies, and encouragement to keep many, many journals. A student could not implement all the suggestions simultaneously in one semester, but may have a tough time determining where to start.

This book has terrific information and an interesting premise, but needs better editing. If you are willing to wade through the excess verbiage and able to pick out what you can use the information in this book will be an asset to your college experience.… (mehr)