Boston College Enrichment Tutoring

I recently had a student who set himself the goal of getting 4.0 all 8 semesters of his college career at a major university in the Boston area.  He did achieve the goal, and graduated summa cum laude.
Here are some of the things that went into this student's achievement, some of which I taught him.

• When learning material, take care also to learn how to learn.
• Use part of those long summer days to get a head start on the year's courses.
• Work hard to develop an intuitive understanding of everything that you "understand" technically.
• Let no true thing seem counter-intuitive or unintuitive. Work on your intuition.
• Practice certain techniques to snuff out the tendency to make careless errors.
• Commit to your goal so that all your actions are done out of free will.
• Do not care about achieving the goal (very important, though seemingly. paradoxical.  Borrowed from Buddhist philosophy.)
• Take action quickly when a course looks like it is starting to go south.  This is one place where a tutor is needed.
• Remain functional and even relatively cheerful during periods of depression that occasionally afflict high-school and college students.

Question: What is the downside of achieving excellence?  Answer: There is no downside.  (The "Do not care" item in the above list is essential in preserving the benign nature of the endeavor to achieve a high goal.)