Friday, January 1, 2010

Introduction to SHOC LSMSA

Today is New Year's Day, a traditional time for resolutions. I have a resolution for this upcoming semester: "do less, do better, and know why." This is the Zen Valedictorian philosophy, created by Cal Newport, an MIT postdoc and the writer of two college success books and the Study Hacks blog. Study Hacks is committed to guiding students towards a balanced, low-stress, successful school life. To further this goal, Cal Newport has created Study Hacks on Campus.

SHOC is for students who want to take control of their lives. Students on campuses across the world are forming groups open to anyone who wants to defeat procrastination, stop over-working, and lower their stress levels. In other words, we want to become one of "those" students. You know, the students who are chilled out all the time, but still get excellent grades. Well, if you want to join the ranks of the Zen Valedictorians and escape the "procrastinate, scramble, get crappy grades" cycle of doom, SHOC is there to help you.

SHOC is designed to help reduce your burdens, not add to them, so don't worry about having to fit countless meetings and obligations into your schedule. Meetings will take place every other week, and the exact days will be flexible. During the meetings, we will discuss strategies to try in the future, and what strategies have worked for us in the past. We will blog about every meeting and the results of this experiment. The group is meant to act as a support system and a resource for ideas, so we will all be looking out for each other. Hopefully, we will all be kickass students by the end of the semester.

If you want to participate in this group, let me know. Our first meeting will probably take place near the end of Special Projects Week. If you want to know more about what we'll be doing, these two Study Hacks posts are good places to start.

Study Hacks blog
SHOC LSMSA blog