SECRETS of the
Most SUCCESSFUL
College Students
College-admission letters go out this month, and most recipients
(and their parents) will place great importance on which universities
said yes and which said no. A growing body of evidence, however,
suggests that the most significant thing about college is not where
you go, but what you do once you get there. Historian and educator
Ken Bain has written a book on this subject, What the Best College
Students Do, that draws a road map for how students can get the most
out of college, no matter where they go.
“What the Best College Stu-
dents Do,” a book by historian
and educator Ken Bain, draws a
road map for how students can
get the most out of college, no
matter where they go
By Annie Murphy Paul
4
Link Magazine | 2017 Edition
As Bain details, there are three types of learners: surface, who do as
little as possible to get by; strategic, who aim for top grades rather
than true understanding; and deep learners, who leave college with
a real, rich education. Bain then introduces us to a host of real-
life deep learners: young and old, scientific and artistic, famous or
still getting there. Although they each have their own insights, Bain
identifies common patterns in their stories:
When he was in college, says the eminent astrophysicist Neil de-
Grasse Tyson, he was “moved by curiosity, interest and fascination,
not by making the highest scores on a test.” As an adult, he points
out, “no one ever asks you what your grades were. Grades become
irrelevant.” In his experience as a student and a professor, says Tyson,
“ambition and innovation trump grades every time.”
Get comfortable with failure. When he was still a college student, co-
median Stephen Colbert began working with an improvisational the-
ater in Chicago. “That really opened me up in ways I hadn’t expect-
ed,” he tells Bain. “You must be O.K. with bombing. You have to love