How I Produced a First Class in My Master of Science Studies. A Brilliant Brain is Not at Automatic Passport to Elite Academic Performance.

Elite academic performance and achieving breakthrough academic results is not just about being gifted with a brilliant brain. It's also about strategy, how you manage yourself and your lifestyle and how you manage and use the brain.

I say this because I went straight from a string of brilliant academic results throughout my primary and secondary education, to disappointing results in my first year at University and back to a stellar performance in my Master of Science studies where I produced a first class. The failure I experienced in my first year at university was not because my brain's performance had deteriorated or because the subjects were too difficult for me. It was because of some reasons that are within human control; reasons I will explain in another episode.

When I decided to shoot for my Master of Science Degree, I was still smarting psychologically from my first-year university dent in my academic performance. When you are not used to academic failure, the failure has a huge emotional impact on you even if you know the reasons for it. So I told myself that for my Master of Science Degree I had to produce a distinction. Now, for me, since I was in my fourth year of primary, motivation in academic performance has never been about getting a good job or what. All through my academic life I do not think there was ever anytime I tried to motivate myself saying,

"Hey Simon, you gotta produce great academic results so that you can get a good job."

I have always taken academic education as a performance and just a way of pushing myself to produce my best possible results just for the sake of it. In fact during my first three years I never out any deliberate thought about my performance and results. It started in my fourth year in my primary school.

So I when I got to my university, Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, I was already angry with myself. I was very clear what it took to produce a first-class and my general strategy was simple;

1. Produce great results on my coursework because in cause work you have all the time to produce your best possible results.
2. Make sure you produce a brilliant dissertation because you also have ample time to produce the best possible result
3. Do your best preparation for the exams and hope you get exam questions that you can answer very well.

I reasoned that my course work would also help me to measure how well I was progressing and the chances of producing my desired result.

Disaster struck right at the start with my first course work assignment. We had to do the assignment over the first semester holiday. It being my first time in the UK, I decided to go and spend my holiday with my cousin who stayed in South End on Sea east of London. I carried a few books and I thought was going to make it with my assignment that way. But somehow I got carried away and spent more time enjoying South End on Sea than studying. The result was interesting;

I got a 50% in that assignment! That meant that had a huge 30% gap to cover because 80% was the minimum mark I set myself for my coursework.

This result shook me and jolted me into a serious change of attitude and approach. I immediately became very serious, with the first goal to eliminate the 30% deficit in my marks that had produced.

But an even bigger disaster was brewing. I took a course called scientific writing and made it one of my assessed assignments. I took the course because I reasoned that it would also help me improve my scientific writing skills and help me to achieve my overall goal of getting a distinction. What happened!

I failed to produce a 50% the course and I had to rewrite it. And when you rewrite a course, the best you are given is a 50% even if you produce a first class.

With these two set backs I would have quit my goal of producing a first class, but something told me I was still on course. So I pushed on and the rest of my coursework results were good and I managed to close the deficit well enough to be able to close the gap, hopefully, with my examination and my dissertation.

I went into my examinations in anticipation. I was neither excited not anxious. I told myself that I had been in examinations before and, at my best, have produced outstanding results so these exams cant be different even if they are at a Master's Level and in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Management) field.

My exam results surprised me. There was one subject called renewable energy that I was dead scared that I was going to fail but I passed it and got very good results in most of the results.

Coming to my dissertation, I decided to do something different. Instead of doing an analysis dissertation, I decided to go the development route. I took a shot at developing a quantitative, dynamic model to predict the behaviour, transport, distribution and fate of hydrophobic organic chemicals in an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant. I used Microsoft Excel as my platform. I got a distinction and another student did his thesis studying my software.

I had two supervisors for my dissertation because what I was doing needed three different knowledge areas that neither of my two supervisors had.

I am saying this not to brag, but to highlight that everyone's academic performance can be improved and that my REAPER elite academic performance and breakthrough academic results system is based on personal experience and science.

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?Simon Bere, 2024