40 Chapter 26: Conclusion
“Success is a journey, not a destination.”
– Ralph Arbitelle
You have successfully made it through your first semester of college. Your first college exams, first college projects, first college finals, congrats! This is the point where you want to evaluate your accomplishments for the semester and plan for the steps ahead.
Thank you for reading this OER textbook. I hope you had a positive experience. Your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and criticisms are valuable for future revisions and improvements. I encourage you to let me know if you are finding success, accomplishing your goals, or even if you are struggling. If you have the passion discussed in unit one, you can find a way to do it. And when all the hard work, time, energy and effort pays off, it should be a proud accomplishment.
Balance
Students often ask me what I think they should do. Achieving and maintaining balance is perhaps the most important advice I can give, and it isn’t easy to accomplish. Each student has a balance for important things in their lives that is different from other students. There is no right or wrong there, but I see a lot of students who are not balanced and it makes academic success challenging. It may take time to achieve better balance, but it’s worth the investment.
Persistence
Thomas Edison is well known for inventing the electric light bulb. But many people are not aware of how many times he failed in trying to do so. Edison made a note of what he had done and what components he used each time he made an attempt. He would make an adjustment and try again. When the adjustment didn’t work, he would make a note of that, readjust and try again. Edison learned from every experiment. He learned all the ways that it would not work. After approximately 10,000 failed experiments, Edison then successfully invented the electric light bulb.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
– Thomas Edison
British inventor Sir James Dyson, well known for creating the bagless vacuum cleaner took 15 years and 5,127 prototypes to “get it right.”
Be persistent. You will encounter situations where you will want to give up. You can overcome the obstacles and challenges, if you are persistent.
“Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.”
-Gever Tulley
Teamwork
You will not be able to accomplish some of your biggest goals by yourself. You will need support and community behind you and the selection of your support team is important. Surround yourself by people who are interested in supporting you and your goals. It’s important to also understand that being a good friend means supporting your friends’ and family members’ goals as well.
Sherine Ebadi played on a UC San Diego volleyball team that won a National Championship. She gave an inspirational speech at the award banquet. She described teamwork as “a complete denial of self-interest, individual statistics and personal glory, all in exchange for making your teammate look good, even when they don’t, and be successful even when they’re not. It’s making sure she knows that she’s never fighting alone, that she’s not merely an individual member of a team but rather an essential component to a unified whole working toward a common goal.” Reading this statement, gives me chills.
Other Advice
Make wise decisions. More important than making wise decisions though is learning from decisions that are made and the positive and negative results and consequences of those decisions.
If at all possible, be optimistic. This may not help you with studying, but it is an enjoyable way to go through life. There will be times where your attitude and outlook will reflect on you and may create opportunities for yourself. Take advantage of those opportunities.
Closing
It is my sincere hope that you found information in this textbook helpful. I wish you academic success and keep working towards your goals!
-Rosie Carbajal-Romo, College of DuPage, 2022.
Content previously copyrighted, published in Blueprint for Success in College: Indispensable Study Skills and Time Management Strategies (by Dave Dillon), now licensed as CC BY.