What Is Success?

A college education is aligned with greater success in many areas of life. While enrolled in college, most students are closely focused on making it through the next class or passing the next test. It can be easy to lose sight of the overall role that education plays in life. But sometimes it helps to recall what a truly great step forward you are taking!

It’s also important to recognize, though, that some students do not succeed in college and drop out within the first year. Sometimes this is due to financial problems or a personal or family crisis. But most of the time students drop out because they’re having trouble passing their courses.

In this section, we examine the elements of college success. Are there patterns of success you strive for but aren’t yet reaching? Where might you shore up your support? What strategies can you use to achieve success in your college endeavors?

Defining Success in College

How do you define college success? The definition really depends on you. You might think that “success” is earning an associate’s degree or attending classes in a four-year college. Maybe success is a bachelor’s or master’s degree or a Ph.D. Maybe success means receiving a certificate of completion or finishing skill-based training.

You might be thinking of other measures of college success, too, like grades. For instance, you might be unhappy with anything less than an A in a course, although maybe this depends on the difficulty of the subject. As long as you pass with a C, you might be perfectly content. But no matter how you define success personally, you probably wouldn’t think it means earning a D or lower grade in a class. If most students believe that passing a class is the minimum requirement for “success,” and if most students want to be successful in their courses, why aren’t more college students consistently successful in the classroom?

Perhaps some common misconceptions are at play. For example, we often hear students say, “I just can’t do it!” or “I’m not good at math,” or “I guess college isn’t for me.” But, these explanations for success or failure aren’t necessarily accurate. Considerable research into college success reveals that having difficulty in or failing in college courses usually has nothing to do with intellect. More often success depends on how fully a student embraces and masters the following seven strategies:

1. Learn how to listen actively in class and take effective notes.
2. Review the text and your reading notes prior to class.
3. Participate in class discussion and maybe even join a study group.
4. Go to office hours and ask your instructor questions.
5. Give yourself enough time to research, write, and edit your essays in manageable stages.
6. Take advantage of online or on-campus academic support resources.
7. Spend sufficient time studying.

So if you feel you are not smart enough for college, ask yourself if you can implement some of these skills. Overall, students struggle in college, not because of natural intellect or smarts, but because of time management, organization, and lack of quality study time. The good news is that there are ways to combat this, and this course and textbook will help you do just that.

Your Grade-Point Average (GPA)

Grades may not be the be-all and end-all in college life. But you should pay close attention to the GPA as it may be important to achieving your future goals. Your GPA is a calculated average of the letter grades you earn correlated on a 0 to 4.0 or 5.0 scale. Each semester you receive a GPA based on the grades you earned in all of your classes during that semester. You also maintain a cumulative GPA—an ongoing average of all your semester grades beginning with freshman year. Many institutions provide students with an online GPA calculator which you can use to keep track of where you stand.

Words of Wisdom

It is important to know that college success is a responsibility shared with your institution. Above all, your college must provide you with stimulating classroom experiences that encourage you to devote more time and effort to your learning. Additional institutional factors in your success include the following:

• High standards and expectations for your performance
• Assessment and timely feedback
• Peer support
• Encouragement and support for you to explore human differences
• Emphasis on your first college year
• Respect for diverse ways of knowing
• Integrating prior learning and experience
• Academic support programs tailored to your needs
• Ongoing application of learned skills
• Active learning
• Out-of-class contact with faculty

Ideally, you and your college collaborate to create success in every way possible.

Characteristics Of Successful Students

It takes several qualities and habits to be successful in college. When we think about going to college, we think about learning a subject deeply, getting prepared for a profession.  We tend to associate colleges and universities with knowledge, and we’re not wrong in that regard.

But going to college, and doing well once we’re there, also relies heavily on our behaviors while we’re there. Professors and college administrators will expect you to behave in certain ways, without any explicit instructions on their part.  For instance, professors will expect you to spend several hours a week working on class concepts (homework, writing, preparing for exams) on your own time.  They will not tell you WHEN to spend those hours, but leave it up to you to recognize the need to put in the effort and schedule the time accordingly.

To recap, those 8 traits are:

All 8 traits are things that you can put into practice immediately.  With them, you’ll see improvement in your school successes, as well as what lies beyond.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is an important element of self-regulation. It can be defined as the ability of individuals to recognize their own and other people’s emotions, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one’s goal(s). Those with high levels of emotional intelligence are able to recognize and reflect on their own emotions and those of the people around them; they are also able to respond to those emotions in ways that minimize negative consequences and support the achievement of intended goals.

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Growth Mindset Vs. Fixed Mindset

What is the difference between a student with a growth mindset versus a student with a fixed mindset?  Students with a growth mindset believe that intelligence can be developed. These students focus on learning over just looking smart, see effort as the key to success, and thrive in the face of a challenge. On the other side, students with a fixed mindset believe that people are born with a certain amount of intelligence, and they can’t do much to change that. These students focus on looking smart over learning, see effort as a sign of low ability, and wilt in the face of a challenge.

In a 2012 interview, Carol Dweck, author of 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, defined both fixed and growth mindsets:

“In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

Which student do you think has more success in college? Think about this statement: You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic intelligence. People who really agree with this statement have a fixed mindset. People who really disagree with this statement have a growth mindset, and, of course, people might be somewhere in the middle.

It turns out that the more students disagree with statements like these, the more they have a growth mindset, the better they do in school. This is because students with a growth mindset approach school differently than students with a fixed mindset. They have different goals in school. The main goal for students with a fixed mindset is to show how smart they are or to hide how unintelligent they are. This makes sense if you think that intelligence is something you either have or you don’t have.

Students with a fixed mindset will avoid asking questions when they don’t understand something because they want to preserve the image that they are smart or hide that they’re not smart. But the main goal for students with a growth mindset is to learn. This also makes a lot of sense. If you think that intelligence is something that you can develop, the way you develop your intelligence is by learning new things. So students with a growth mindset will ask questions when they don’t understand something because that’s how they’ll learn. Similarly, students with a fixed mindset view effort negatively. They think, if I have to try, I must not be very smart at this. While students with a growth mindset view effort as the way that you learn, the way that you get smarter.

Where you’ll really see a difference in students with fixed and growth mindsets are when they are faced with a challenge or setback. Students with a fixed mindset will give up because they think their setback means they’re not smart, but students with a growth mindset actually like challenges. If they already knew how to do something, it wouldn’t be an opportunity to learn, to develop their intelligence.

Given that students with a growth mindset try harder in school, especially in the face of a challenge, it’s no surprise that they do better in school. Students with a growth mindset view mistakes as a challenge rather than a wall. Many students shy away from challenging schoolwork and get discouraged quickly when they make mistakes. These students are at a significant disadvantage in school—and in life more generally—because they end up avoiding the most difficult work. Making mistakes is one of the most useful ways to learn. Our brains develop when we make a mistake and think about the mistake. This brain activity doesn’t happen when we get the answers correct on the first try.

What’s wrong with easy? According to Dweck, “it means you’re not learning as much as you could. If it was easy, well, you probably already knew how to do it.”

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Do You Have Grit?

“Grit is the disposition to pursue very long-term goals with passion and perseverance, sustained over time. So the emphasis is on stamina.” (Duckworth et al., 2007). Grit is a component seen in hard working and persevering people. Keeping a positive attitude about your potential achievements and productively struggling are traits that mostly come from within, part of a person’s self-efficacy. Self-efficacy relates to an individual’s perception of their capabilities or their belief in themselves. Individual differences in perceived self-efficacy have been shown to be better predictors of performance than previous achievement or ability and seem particularly important when individuals face adversity. Meaning, if you believe in yourself and your ability to succeed, you are likely to succeed.

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