ClickNSmart Team

Are you frustrated because you have a low GPA? Are you struggling with getting good grades in school.
No worry, I have been in your situation before. Now I want to share some success secrets and traits of an A student.

My Success Secrets :
- Time management is crucial;
- Focus, don’t wander around when studying with all the hype social networking sites;
- Study efficiently : read all the reading materials before you do assignments;
- Hard work and persistence.

Some Traits of an A Student:
- Persistence;
- High level of curiosity;
- Hard-working;
- Never give up attitude;
- Like challenges;
- Hardly procrastinate;
- Passionate with the classes.

You may try to follow my success secret tips and pick-up some of the traits above in order to perform better at school and to become an A student.

Good Luck and remember that “Hard Work always pays off at the end“.

Written by ClickNSmart Team

ClickNSmartTeam

How can an average student ever get a perfect 4.0 G.P.A? How can I earn good grades for all of my classes? Well the good news is that it is possible for an average student to earn good grades and thus also earn the perfect 4.0 G.P.A that every student is dreaming about. Today with hard economic times and lots of unemployed people, graduating from schools/ universities with an average G.P.A is not enough to get you an entry level job. When you’re graduating nowadays, you may be competing with 100,000 applicants (undergraduate, graduate students, and experienced unemployed professionals) nationwide for a single job opening. So the questions will be “How am I going to differentiate myself among the crowd to get hired?” I would say that work experience is no longer enough, since there are many of unemployed experienced job applicants are hunting for jobs. Graduating from a reputable universities may give you an edge, but a 4.0 G.P.A certainly distinguish your resume among the crowd especially if combined with some related work experience and related academic background.

To get a 4.0 G.P.A you don’t need to be a genius. In fact, all you need are hard-work and persistence. The difference between a genius/ smart students and an average student is that it may takes shorter amount of study time for a smart student to get an A, whereas it may take a longer study time for an average student to get an A. What matters is that you get an A and thus that 4.0 G.P.A at the end of the quarter or semester. Of course you need to make tradeoffs if you’re an average student wanting to get a 4.0 G.P.A; tradeoffs such as: studying hard over the weekend instead of partying, listen to class lectures attentively, be actively participate in class discussion, read textbook/ class materials ahead of the schedule, and so on. A 4.0 student has a clear objective (e.g. get an A) and always relentlessly work hard to earn his/her objective by the end of the term.

Don’t trust people that say you can’t get a 4.0 G.P.A! They’re just telling you a lie. Anyone can get a 4.0 G.P.A and there is no secret formula in getting that perfect grades. The key elements, as we all know, are HARD WORK and PERSISTENCE. Recently I conduct interviews with many top executives enrolled in the Executive MBA programs at my school. Almost all of these executives agree on one point, “A student with a 4.0 G.P.A shows courage, hard-work ethics and intelligence; these attributes are what we’re essentially looking for when hiring new employees.”

Written by ClickNSmart Team

ClickNSmart Team

Have you ever seen the movie “Beautiful Mind?” Great movie, isn’t it?

Not only I like the movie very much, but I am inspired to become the smart guy in that movie, John Nash, mathematician that developed “Game Theory” and won the Noble Prize in Economics. I want to be smart and be a 4.0 student, too.

So what, Jefery? some of you may ask this question.

As the title of this article goes, 4.0 requires 90% hard work and only 10% intelligent for me. If your friends or your professors said that you’re just an “average” or “below average” kid, then do not listen to any of their opinions, because believe me they really do not know how much you can do and/or achieve.

Growing up as a kid, I used to have a hard time in almost any subjects in school (from Elementary up to High School). All I knew back then was just one thing, namely: “Basketball” and care less for studying at all. Many of my teacher told me I was just “below average” kid and compared my performance to that of my older sister’s performance. Unfortunately, I went to the same elementary, junior high and even senior high schools that my sister had gone before me. My sister was a genius on campus, always 4.0 G.P.A and A’s all of her classes. On the other hand, I was always barely got a “C” grade in almost all of my classes, except one class in which I got an “A”. Can you guess?

It’s Physical Education class, of course it is obvious, right? Yeah, everybody that I knew told me that “I was just a below average kid.” However, let me tell you the secret recipe for my success later on in my life: “Be Stubborn and Don’t Care What Others Think of You.” I knew even back then that I could achieve great things and never take other people opinion personally; this attitude helps me to build self confidence and courage to prove to people that I was not “just below average kid.”

After graduating from High School, I went to Golden West College and majored in Mathematics. In Golden West, I studied hard (day and night + weekend) and also worked part time as a mathematics tutor at Golden West College; I became a 4.0 students back then and got accepted to UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara. I chose UCLA since it is my child dream to go to UCLA because UCLA has the best basketball team in the country and of course best mathematics program as well. At UCLA, it was different experience; UCLA courses are much harder than classes at junior college, but again with “90% hard work and 10% intelligent” in addition to being stubborn and persistence, I was able to earn 4.0 G.P.A for a consecutive 4 quarters at UCLA. During that time, I applied for a program in Physical Chemistry and Physics PhD and did not need to take any GRE test at all due to my good grades and excellent connections to my professors.”

I abandoned my plan and now, instead I am enrolled in Master in Business Administration at California State Long Beach Business School. My first semester, I “A”s all the graduate courses. After finishing my MBA in August 2010, I plan to enroll in a Master of Science in Material Engineering at UCLA.
Now, I would like to ask my dear past friend and past school teacher, ” Shame on you guys. The below-average-kid is now outsmarting you Big Time.”

The lessons are these my friends:

“Believe in yourself and do not take other people’s opinion personally.”

“To get 4.0 G.P.A, you only need 10% intelligence and 90% hard work.”

I wish you all good luck in your academic journey.

Written by ClickNSmart Team

How many of you have crammed in school and still get an A at the end of the term? Any of you ever see your friends crammed at school and still get an A at the end? Most people usually raised their hands when I asked these two questions during my discussion session.

Now, the next question I usually ask is, “Any of you ever farm? Ever cram at the farm? You know, like playing golf in the spring and summer and hit it real hard during the fall and then harvest in the fall as well?” Most of the audience usually laughed when I said this to them. They know how ludicrous it would be to cram at the farm. Farming is based on a natural process, but our school is based on value, social values to be exact. Some of us would think it is kind of a social norm to cram or procrastinate at school and still get a good grade at the end, so some of us would just follow the social norm.

However, we can get a degree, but NOT an education. The development of human mind is like a farming, which is based on the natural process. It takes time for us to learn the material; by studying regularly, we can store the knowledge and information in our head for future use. This is what I am referring as “Getting an Education.”

Grades matters! I am also a proponent of getting a 4.0 G.P.A, but how great of a deal it would be if we not only get a 4.0, but you also get valuable knowledge that will stick in our mind as well.

Good Luck on your journey to a 4.0 G.P.A!

Written by ClickNSmart Team

“Yes, everyone says that… but it’s hard to do… not everyone can do it”, a friend of mine says. Why? Because no one ever really thinks what’s the advantage of this simplistic algorithm. Here are 4 reasons why you should:

1. (Time required for early starter) <= (Time required for late starter)

Assume: Carlos and Russell have the same brain power.

Carlos does his homework the day it is given, after 3 hours, he’s stuck on homework #5 and #10 (The though ones). He tried to solve it, no good? He yawns, goes to bed, and put more hours tomorrow with hints from his TA or teacher… In about 5 hours it’s done almost perfectly.

Russell starts the same homework a day before it’s due. After 3 hours, he’s stuck on #5 and #10 also. He tried to solve it, no good? He panicked, yawn, get that coffee (or worst, adderall), and tried to solve it. After 30 min of being stuck, he called his ‘genius’ friends. Errr, they’re asleep… OH NO. He then has to go for the half genius… ooh… they can’t do it too… after 30 min of calling… he decided, he’ll pull an all-nighter. After 3 hours of plunging his time to the hole, God feel sorry for him and light him with the answer. For those of you who don’t believe in God: poor Russell. He spent at least 6 hours with panic, coffee, and Godly miracles. He might not even finish it. The stress, the pain, all for nothing. He just can’t achieve perfection. He then has nightmares in his night time.

Carlos took 5 hours of peaceful homework hours, Russell took 6 hrs with miracles, nuff said.

Wait! That is if they got stuck right? Okay, let’s increase their brain power to the maximum level such that both of them can answer any questions. How long does it take to finish the homework? Awwwww, it’s the SAME. The best case scenario of the late starter is equal to the early starter. (Time required for early starter) <= (Time required for late starter). All of you who go to school and don’t understand this, shame on you.

2. Shit happens … well, I got 3 more days to clean them up, HAAaaaaaa

How many of us are genius? Ask any of them, ever got stuck? Hell yes… I got a cum laude friend, he got stuck. A good homework is supposed to challenge you. Leave room if you’re not up to the challenge, don’t be a hero. Just win the battle.

3. Take advantage of your teacher and TA

Hate to be taken advantage of by your teacher and TA? Strike back. Use them as you please to help your homework problem. Some of them will give you initial hint, some of them do half of the problem, and some of them do it all. Seems silly? Maybe, but some of them care so much that you understand the materials; they are willing to do so. For the ones that don’t care, hey, they deserve to be taken advantage of (You paid them). Therefore, use them.

4. Ace it and have fun

Do something better than panic, than stress, than procrastinating. Finish your assignments!

Then go out, get some money, get a date, go to gym, or parteeeyyy!!! You choose! You only live once, why spend it more than you have to on assignments? Let’s enjoy our youth, start early.

I hope I’ve convinced some of you with these reasons, now, I really really hope that you stop reading my blog, kill that assignments, then maybe (just maybe) leave comments of how great that feels.

What do you guys think? Anyone disagree? Is there anything I miss? Please share it with us. The point of this blog is to build a community for people to help each other getting a 4.0. Again, login is not needed to comment!

~ Soma, Founder of ClickNSmart Inc

4.0 seem to be a sacred thing. If you got one, it is an undisputed sign that you understand that class. Yet many people say it seems so hard to get that shiny thing. When I first entered my freshmen year, I remember looking all my seniors with their shiny 3.9 GPA. It seemed impossible.

Everyone said: “No way Soma, 4.0 GPA means you won’t have a life at all, and that still doesn’t guarantee you a 4.0”. I looked at my brand new official transcript, and I said to myself, “I want it to be all 4.0 because I want to transfer to a good university.” Guess what happened? This is what I achieve:

1. Successive 4.0 average GPA for two years.

2. Student of the Month of May 2007. (click, u gotta see it before continue)

3. English is not even my native language!!!

4. A beautiful two years relationship with the best girlfriend I’ve ever got. We went out often on weekends.

5. I make great friends there.

I had a beautiful life, I had the 4.0, and I was even active in school. Who said you can’t do that?

So all you lazy people out there, “SHUT THE HELL UP”!!!

Just because u can’t do it, don’t assume other people can’t do it!!!

Listen, YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT IF U REALLY WANT IT!!

You can get a 4.0 if you really want it!

This blog is dedicated to help all of you to get that shiny 4.0. If you have a low average GPA, a 4.0 will shoot your average GPA to heaven. If you have good GPA, I’ll help you get that last tiny bits of GPA up to 4.0. If you have many 4.0, help out, share some tips J

My personal feeling towards it is:

4.0 is perfection. It is completely different than a 3.9. It means you work hard, you pay attention to every detail, and you have what it takes to set your target high and reach it.

What do you guys think about a 4.0 GPA? Please leave comment, you don’t have to make an account to leave one. It would be wonderful if we can have a community of students with passion for academic success.

~ Soma, Founder of ClickNSmart Inc