What the Best College Students Do

Sherry Kafka came from a small Ozark community and became the only person in her family besides her father to attend college. At a Texas university, Sherry took a class, “Integration of Abilities” (2), that taught her how to find connections between subjects of study, learn about her strengths, weaknesses, and her own style of thinking, improve her creative ability, and find her unique ways of contributing. This experience helped her become a successful author, designer, and urban planner.

What the Best College Students Do explores the ways in which people can use higher education not merely to become more skilled in specific fields but to become “deep learners” who develop their thoughts and ideas constructively. Through interviews with graduates who went on to successful careers, the book reveals the ways they used their college experience to grow into imaginative doers and thinkers. Bain explains, “We wanted to find interesting people who are aware of the world, difficult to fool, curious, compassionate, critical thinkers, creative, and happy” (6).

How much students learn has little relationship to their grades. In one study, introductory physics students with the highest marks didn’t demonstrate understanding of the principles taught any better than students with lower grades.