Follow Christ in Your Studies!

1. Have a will to learn. Make a serious job of your class assignments and even go beyond

them. Do not be satisfied with the minimum. On your own initiative, do a lot of collateral reading and study. Ask God to put in you a holy ambition or zeal for study. Much time and talent go to waste when ambition and zeal are lacking.

2. Use your time productively: Attend first to the things that are necessary, then to those

that are useful here and now (not those that may possibly be useful in the remote future), lastly attend to those things that please you. The productive use of your time is an item you should not omit to examine at the end of the day.

3. Stop leakages of time: Plan each days work. Think beforehand both what you are going

to do and how. Avoid, doing or studying, just now this, just now that, flitting from one thing to another according to the pressure of the moment. Discipline your impulses even the good ones.

4. Remove emotional disturbances and futile worries: They take a heavy toll of time and

energy. A soul at peace can not only pray better, but can also study better. Do not attach major importance to minor duties, such as answering courtesy letters. Dispatch this after your main work.

5. Often check your method of study in order to improve it: Tell your professors of your

desire to read this or that subject. Ask them to tell you the better method of studying, how to make better use of the library. Do not be afraid to ask these things from your professors; nothing gives them more pleasure than to feed their students with curricular and extra-curricular activities.

6. Study when your mind is most fresh and alert. If the mind is fresh and alert, then it is

very easy to understand and memorize different topics, including those which are intellectually challenging. This is because the mind is prepared to perform higher levels of thinking. Conversely, dont ever study when you are so tired and sleepy because your attention span is very short. In this case, short attention span implies poor information processing and poor level of understanding.

7. Work together with Christ; have purity of intention in your study: Purity of intention

means making your own the intention that God has put in the mission assigned to you. It also means that one must do it for Gods glory and not for his own. One acquires this purity of intention simply by putting ones heart and mind in the job assigned to him. Christ does not give you work and then goes away. He invites you to work with Him and in Him.

8. Think that you are not alone: You study with Christ and others as well. Your

companions are studying with you, help them with your silence and your total dedication to the work you are doing. You can do group study also and be enriched by the sharing of insights and review materials prepared by the group members.

God bless! - Roland