This is probably the most important part of this particular study skills guide. It’s all very well to have looked at the way we learn, but we need to have good reasons for learning. After all, learning is quite hard work! Who does hard work without good reasons? Being a university student should be a happy and rewarding part of your life. Learning can be fun - indeed it should be fun - even when it’s hard work! A University Principal once told me “all learning is accompanied by some pain”. I disagree, though if he’d said “effort” instead of “pain” I would have agreed. Effort can be painful, especially if you haven’t developed the relevant muscles enough. So in a way, I hope these study skills guide will help you to develop the “muscles” you need for a successful university career, and that your efforts will be as painless and productive as possible.

I’m assuming that since you are reading this, you’re either a university student already, or soon to become one. It is often said that the most important ingredient for success is motivation. Now, there are many kinds of motivation, as we’ll see shortly. Some motivation is good and positive, but sometimes more negative factors can cause their own kind of motivation.

I agree that it is very useful to be highly motivated. However, motivation on its own isn’t nearly enough to guarantee success.

That’s why I’m dealing with motivation in this section, then using most of the rest of these study skills guide to help you develop your own skills - all sorts of skills in fact - all helping towards that guarantee of success.

So, if you’re highly motivated all ready, great. If not, let’s see whether we can sort out some good reasons for being a student that you can adopt. But even if we can’t, the rest of this series should help you pick up the skills you’ll need - and maybe the motivation will come along with the skills. (If you’re good at doing something, you usually enjoy doing it. So if you become good at studying, you’re likely to enjoy studying - what better motivation?)

Right, then, let’s see what your reasons are for being a university student. Try Activity 1, then turn to my “response” towards the back of this section. Don’t cheat and look ahead, in these questions I want you to do some thinking before you compare your thoughts with mine.