To further your academic career....

Would yo take study aids such as ritalin?Just noticed as I progressed through college,more and more students are taking them.Do you see this as cheating?

Personally I think if they want to do it,they can.I believe the side effects of using such drugs to be worse than any benefits you get.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it will become the norm in the future, as better drugs are developed to aid memory, concentration and the like.. but I don't think ritalin is a great choice...

Phaetonman

Any stimulants like that are counter productive in the long run. Same goes for cramming.

Good academic performance can usually be achieved by year round studying increasing around exam time. Healthy diet and exercise is important all year as well.

WindSock

Just thinking of this earlier. If I go back to study, I will definately need some, as I....Oh look, a dog with a puffy tail.



/ Runs off shouting 'Here Puff, Here puff'.....

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Phaetonman wrote: »

Any stimulants like that are counter productive in the long run. Same goes for cramming.

Good academic performance can usually be achieved by year round studying increasing around exam time. Healthy diet and exercise is important all year as well.

Yeah but....that's no fun. I definitely wouldn't use ritalin, black coffee fuelled all night cramming sessions have worked well so far like

Tripp Tasteless Rag

Tripp Tasteless Rag wrote: »

Yeah but....that's no fun. I definitely wouldn't use ritalin, black coffee fuelled all night cramming sessions have worked well so far like

I tried that in second year and got my 2:1.Then last christmas,I did the same thing except the night before the first exam,I had a severe panic attack and had to defer my exams(also because I had high blood pressure.They siad this was due to stress!

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Deleted User wrote: »

I tried that in second year and got my 2:1.Then last christmas,I did the same thing except the night before the first exam,I had a severe panic attack and had to defer my exams(also because I had high blood pressure.They siad this was due to stress!

Ah sure don't let that put you off! Do you think the caffeine caused the attack or just the pressure?

I think it was a mixture of both.Although the doc said if I hadn't had the coffee.I wouldn't have had the panic attack.It happened around midday and I had about 7 cups of coffee since getting up at 5:30 am.

beautiation

I do sometimes, they nearly made me blow my leaving cert classics exam. I needed an A1 so was already pretty panicky beforehand, and then I looked at the paper and the questions were just horrible. Went to the toilet and took about 10 Metoclopramide tablets (I usually took 2 or 3 tops), which made me feel so zoned out and weird that half an hour later I didn't even realise I was sobbing loudly until the examiner came up and asked me if I was ok. It was so embarrassing, I couldn't stop! But at the time I didn't feel anything except elation cos I was suddenly feeling like I didn't care one bit for the leaving cert, for the first time in months. I was really enjoying the exam, I was pretty much ignoring the questions and just gushing about how much I loved the Odyssey. I was crying cos it's so sad when Odysseus isn't able to reach out and hug the ghost of his mum when he meets her in Hades! So I suppose the performance enhancement I got out of it wasn't making me smarter, but relaxing me, though probably a tad too much.
If I ever find the examiner who gave me an A1 for the rubbish I wrote in that exam I'll give them my last rolo.

Pherekydes

Phaetonman wrote: »

Any stimulants like that are counter productive in the long run. Same goes for cramming.

Good academic performance can usually be achieved by year round studying increasing around exam time. Healthy diet and exercise is important all year as well.

+1

May not sound like fun, but reading the results is. :pac:

keen

I feel if you need to take drugs to achieve a decent mark then college isn't for you or you doing the wrong course.

keen

keen wrote: »

I feel if you need to take drugs to achieve a decent mark then college isn't for you or you doing the wrong course.

I am in third year Micro and the amount of stuff we have to learn off for it is unbelievable.Then the head of the department tells us he does not believe in exams.His lectures are interesting though.Lecture series entitled(Philosophy of microorganisms):pac:

No. My reasoning is that you would be taking drugs to perform better at a stressful point, and when you get to the workplace you might find it even more stressful, and since something was 'normal' before...

Well, you get the idea.

keen

Deleted User wrote: »

I am in third year Micro and the amount of stuff we have to learn off for it is unbelievable.Then the head of the department tells us he does not believe in exams.His lectures are interesting though.Lecture series entitled(Philosophy of microorganisms):pac:

Do you need to take anything to aid your study?

keen

keen wrote: »

Do you need to take anything to aid your study?

No.But i have thought about it.However,I don't think with my susceptability to panic attacks that I should go experiment with study aids.

Toto Wolfcastle

To further my academic career I will cram for the next week and then forget everything because my academic career will officially be over after next week's exams, thus no need to further it.

I don't see taking ritilan as cheating, but I also don't see it as a study aid.

beautiation

keen wrote: »

I feel if you need to take drugs to achieve a decent mark then college isn't for you or you doing the wrong course.

Why? If you're confident in your body's ability to handle it and have done proper research, it's just a logical extention of wanting to eat only the healthiest foods around the time of the exam. A psychoactive drug is defined as anything that changes your mood or behaviour, and food can do that, so there's not altogether that clear a distinction between the two. Ok, food acts on the body to energise the brain, whereas psychoactive drugs act only on the brain, but if there's no harmful side effects then that doesn't really make a difference.
I don't think anyone said they needed the drugs, I've done plenty of big exams without them, but they certainly can help.

keen

beautiation wrote: »

Why? If you're confident in your body's ability to handle it and have done proper research, it's just a logical extention of wanting to eat only the healthiest foods around the time of the exam. A psychoactive drug is defined as anything that changes your mood or behaviour, and food can do that, so there's not altogether that clear a distinction between the two. Ok, food acts on the body to energise the brain, whereas psychoactive drugs act only on the brain, but if there's no harmful side effects then that doesn't really make a difference.
I don't think anyone said they needed the drugs, I've done plenty of big exams without them, but they certainly can help.

It all depends on the drug taking of course, coffee is a drug that would keep you awake which would help you stay up later to get more study in wouldn't have a problem with that.

What drugs do you take to help you in big exams? And could you achieve a decent mark without them or are you striving for perfection that's above your academic abilities without said drug?

Everyone can benefit from good foods without any bad affects not everyone can benefit from drugs like ritalin used to study harder.

Faith

I've read all these articles about college students taking ritalin, but I don't know anyone who has ever taken it. I have no idea where you've even get it.

I've been in education for 17 years now. If I hadn't learnt to study by now, I wouldn't have gotten this far. Anyone who takes drugs like that is lazy, pure and simple.

18AD

Drugs that directly increase memory and cognitive functions with little to no side effects already exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nootropic

I wouldn't mind trying it.

Good luck.
AD.

the_syco

Faith wrote: »

Anyone who takes drugs like that is lazy, pure and simple.

Ah, cop on, tbh. Not everyone can hold their concentration for long periods of time (or more than 20 minutes at times). Sure, I can read the book if it's interesting, but studying it the 2nd time ain't as easy, and the mind wanders. Reading 200 pages of History without daydreaming halfway through it is nigh impossible, so I'd be interested in these "brain drugs" if they were to help my concentration, but meh, I'd have to check the side effects of it first.

WindSock wrote: »

Just thinking of this earlier. If I go back to study, I will definately need some, as I....Oh look, a dog with a puffy tail.



/ Runs off shouting 'Here Puff, Here puff'.....

+1.

Phaetonman

Ah, go **** yourself, tbh. Not everyone can hold their concentration for long periods of time (or more than 20 minutes at times)

Perhaps university educations isn't the place for these people. Maybe a career in manual labour would be more appropiate for somebody who can't study without the aid of drugs.

beautiation

keen wrote: »

It all depends on the drug taking of course, coffee is a drug that would keep you awake which would help you stay up later to get more study in wouldn't have a problem with that.

What drugs do you take to help you in big exams? And could you achieve a decent mark without them or are you striving for perfection that's above your academic abilities without said drug?

At the moment, I'm taking Piracetem (along with Valium for when I'm overstressed, but that's a whole other story). I could achieve a decent mark without them, yes. But I feel having the drugs at hand guarantees against the worry I'll have a bad day for the exam and sell myself short. Though as long as you're disciplined enough to take the drugs only once in a while, your body won't learn toleration, so the sensation of novelty is present whenever you take them. That sensation is in itself an aid to creativity. My career will mainly be in research if I succeed, in university, and I am competent at that kind of thing, so exams to me are unpleasantries that I don't feel represent fair tests for my specific ambitions. As such, I'll get ahead any way I can, though of course these drugs are not miracle workers and as I've said, I primarily use them as guarantees.