I can't help but feel that successful students/academics give terrible study tips.

I've seen a lot of "study" tips that range from "work hard" to "buy better pencils" to elaborate systems that create the illusion of hard work but really isn't. I think a lot of these people are overestimating the value of their advice to the public and underestimating their intrinsic ability to pursue whatever career they want.<br><br>I really can't speak for most degrees, but I'm in engineering, which I assume is the worst for this sort of thing. After 2 years of trying all these silly strategies and patterns and calendar apps and whatever, I finally just accept that being a good student means putting in more time than your average student who doesn't want to do anything with the engineering degree they're getting. I finally understand the material now. I'm pretty sure that's just the reason. I've been pretty stupid for the past 2 years to assume there was a "smarter way" of getting good grades.<br><br>I feel like I'm coming to a conclusion that the most successful students are the ones that are generally good students. And they have no idea what it's like to be an average or bad student. I'm pretty sure there's a large portion of students who aren't actually bad at academics, they just don't want to put in the effort. <br><br>The strategy that I believe works best is to accept you're going to study for the next 5 years and it's going to be really hard and you'll have little time to do anything else. And you should accept that you'll be doing that, and if you choose not to, then, hey, that's fine. I think the "strategies" these people recommend are really just a way to cope with the actual fact of the matter, and it's reassuring to know that there are smarter ways to do things. <br><br>I accept that I'm going to be spending the next few years putting in more effort than everyone else just to be about middle of pack for my degree, and that's fine, I can live with that.