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What the Best College Students Do

Students

Dr. Ken Bain, provost and vice president for academic affairs of the University of the District of Columbia, discusses how students succeed in his book What the Best College Students Do.

Students

In researching What the Best College Students Do, Dr. Bain interviewed graduates who had become successful in various fields after graduating, including comedian Stephen Colbert.

The common thread among graduates who had become successful was taking control of their own education by studying what they were passionate about, really engaging what they were studying and learning it in a deep and thorough way, and not being afraid to fail and learning from mistakes.

Dr. Bain mentions that Stephen Colbert said that "you have to embrace the bomb" (as a comedian meaning when you bomb onstage), and said that that's true of all of life; you can learn from mistakes and move on and not let them reshape you.