 Are you pre-med, pre-PA, pre-nursing, or you just want better grades? Are you doing okay in school, but you feel like there's just that one thing missing, that one factor that's gonna change everything and get you that 4.0 that you want? Listen up, here's three uncommon tips to help you improve your grades. Number one, understand and try to learn how to think like your professors. Understand your professors and try to learn how to think like them. Don't be intimidated by your professors. Find a way to relate to them, even though they know way more about the subject matter than you do. They're PhDs, they're MDs, they're some sort of a terminal degree, they're intimidating, they're older than you, and they don't seem human, try to humanize them. Understand how they think and what they think is important, and that is going to help you when studying for their class. Perfect example, okay, for my own life. When I was doing my post-bac, post-baccalaureate program in pre-medical sciences, I had this brilliant, brilliant, brilliant biochemistry professor. He had this very thick Korean accent I could barely understand him. I didn't understand the material at all, biochemistry was super hard. So at first, to study for his class, I basically just like transcribed his PowerPoints in my notes by hand and just hoped to God that something would stick from like reading it over and over again and writing it over and over again. That was my study strategy, just transcribing until something stuck. You know, it was an okay study strategy but definitely very effort-intensive, very time-consuming, not very efficient. And I only tried to employ this study strategy because everything was confusing. I didn't know what to focus on. It was a mess. So the turning point came this one day when the professor was talking about Apo Lipoproteins A and B, Apo A and Apo B. And then remember, he had a very thick Korean accent. So when he said Apo B, it sounded like Apple Bs. And one day he was like, and Apo B, hmm, that sounds good. Maybe I'll get dinner there tonight. So he knew that he was being funny. He knew that it sounded like Apple Bs. And just like that little moment, it caught me off guard, it caught my attention. And it just like right there, it just like humanized the guy and made him not seem like a robot who just knew everything and was like super human to this guy that like had a sense of humor. He understood that he had a funny accent and that like the way he said Apo B made it sound like Apple Bs and he made a joke about it. It just humanized the guy for me. And then probably because that moment was so humanizing, I remembered exactly what he said. And this was six years ago at this point, I still remember the next thing that he said. And what he said was about whatever subject matter we were talking about, he said, and right here, this is B level. If you know this, that's enough to get you a B in my class. Now this, however, this is important and this is A level. And he was like very passionate about saying it. He was like B level, A level, B level, A level, B level, A level. You know, he just like really emphasized it. He was very animated. And just right there, I saw the guy differently. Instead of like seeing him like I just said, as this like biochemistry robot, PhD Ivy Liger, like who just knows everything. He's unapproachable. I'll never be like him. I'll never be as smart as him. Instead, I imagined him as just this like smart little kid playing video games, trying to get to the next level, going like, man, I'm at B level, but I really want to be at A level. Like just the way that he thought about things just opened up to me and I just understood him. And he just happened to be a distinguished, you know, biochemistry professor telling his students in his own fun way, what he wanted them to know for his exam. He said basically, in not so many words, study this. This is what you really need. And then if you also know this, this will be better. You know, it just like it humanized him for me. This made everything much less intimidating. It made him much more fun to listen to. And my whole attitude, the way I saw the professor, my confidence and eventually my grade in his class, everything got better from that moment on. Tip number two, talk to your professors. Get to know them, develop a good personal professional relationship with them. Like I said in the previous tip, they might be intimidating because they're older. They have a PhD or an MD or both. They got a terminal degree. They got all these like papers and all these merits. But at the end of the day, they're just people. The more you talk to them, the more you'll see them. Now, also while you're talking to them, while you're getting to know them, always, always, always be friendly, make their day better by having spoken to you. Don't complain, don't be grouchy, don't be, definitely don't be mean. Don't be like negative, be positive, be uplifting, be friendly, be a net positive in their day to have talk to you that day. Always greet them with a smile. Don't buy them things, don't suck off. Definitely just greet them with a smile, be a positive presence in their lives and also show genuine interest in them as people and in the material. So ask them about their lives, about their kids, about whatever it is that they choose to talk about. Ask them, you know, write it down in your memory and next time you see them, ask them. Oh yeah, by the way, how is, I don't know, your garden coming? How's your car? How's your kid? How's your husband? How's whoever? Like whatever they are talking about, remember that and ask them about it. Be surprised how few people even close to them in their lives ask them about these things and actually take the little tiny bit of mental effort to listen to them and this is what sets you apart and makes them like you. Remember also, these people teach for a living and most of their students treat school as something boring that they just have to do, a check in the box to get to their career or whatever they want and just like to move on. If you're someone who gets excited about the material, you're going to stand out in a good way. So a pretty practical example of how this might work for you is if there happens to be a written question on an exam that leaves any room for interpretation, maybe that professor that now likes you will naturally see your interpretation a little bit more positively. So the TLDR, the too long didn't read version of this is be nice to your professors, put in that little bit of effort into getting to know them and being positive with them and that will get them to like you and when people like you, they help you, okay? All right. Tip number three, participate in class. Don't be pushy, but also don't be a push over. So if you're like me, you're extra careful about not being pushy because you don't want to be perceived as domineering, especially as a guy that's like big and has a deep voice that carries. I'm always sensitive to that, especially in school if I seem to be a little too domineering. So I kind of go the other way. I swing too far to the opposite extreme and try to check that. But unfortunately that behavior of trying not to be domineering actually almost screwed me one time in class, especially because this class particularly had participation as part of the grade. So maybe think about checking in with your professors from time to time, once a week, once every couple of weeks to see if you're participating enough. See from their perspective, if they think that you are participating enough or not or maybe too much, right? But mostly it's gonna be not enough. And like I said, this particular thing almost screwed me in one of my post back classes. Here's exactly what happened. And by the way, a little warning, here comes a humble brag. I apologize for the humble brag, but I do have to share the exact percentages in order to get this example across, okay? So in this one class, I wanna say it was not molecular biology, maybe it was molecular biology. It was one of my post back classes. It was like a higher level biology class. And oh no, I think it was bacteriology, immunology, either way, whatever. It was a higher level biology class in my post back. I had a 96% but I needed a 97% for an A plus, right? So 90 to 92% was A minus, 93 to 96 was A. And then 97 to 100, 100 plus was an A plus. Why does it make a difference? Well, because an A is a 3.7 towards your GPA, or sorry, an A minus is a 3.7 towards your GPA. An A is a 4.0 towards your GPA. And an A plus is a 4.3 towards your GPA. So if you happen to get like, I don't know, a B plus or something that wasn't an A in one of your other classes, that A plus can actually push you off to that 4.0 that you want, right? So an A plus is tremendously powerful for your GPA. It gets you the 4.0 and then it pushes you a little bit higher for your other classes, which is fantastic. So I know most people would probably say, you already had the A, who cares? Don't freak out, you know, don't be that guy and like maybe put in some extra effort into one of your other classes. Don't freak out so much about getting the A plus. Well, my overall post-spec GPA at the time was a 3.8. So that 0.3 difference from that A plus actually pushed me up to a 3.9, which that tiny difference mathematically ended up making a huge difference. And now, you know, when my PA school application, grad school applications came up, there was a 3.9 on the paper instead of a 3.8. Yeah, 3.8 is an excellent GPA, but a 3.9 is a much more excellent GPA. There's way more people that have a 3.7, 3.8 than have a 3.9. And there's more people that have a 3.9 than a 4.0, right? So when you're in those kind of like upper echelons of GPA and you're trying to get into a tremendously competitive program like medical school or PA school, yeah, that 0.1 difference actually makes a huge difference. So this might be a little bit of a bonus tip, but any little tiny amount of effort that you can make that might get you even half a point, do it. You're not gonna have to be this way forever, but in school, in undergrad especially, it's like a weed out process to your grad school and whatever you wanna do with your life, right now is when you have to be that guy, you have to do it. You have to get every point, 0.5 of a point, 0.01 of a point that you possibly can to improve your grades. So you have now my permission to be that guy, be that annoying person in class that tries to get every single freaking point possible, all right? So I guess that was a bonus tip. That's four tips now that I just gave you to improve your grades. Thank me later. I'll see you guys in the next video.