Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations: Book of the Month

• Author: Michael |University Scholar
• Filed under: Book of the Month
• Date: May 1,2008

Photo by David Paul Ohmer

The book of the month for May 2008 will be Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. A book of a Roman Emperor’s philosophies. Aurelius never intended his writing to become a book, but rather more or less a journal. Aurelius may be surprised to see book read in many introductory philosophy courses.

I would love to spend a month discussing Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations. It will be the beginning of a continuous series of academic discussions.

Academic Discussions

I intend to make this a continuous series on University Scholar. My plan is to each month choose an interesting topic, do some research, and post what I have found. I would love for this to be a community discussion among a large portion of students and student bloggers. If you have an idea for a possible topic to discuss please send the idea my way. We could discuss topics from music, art, psychology, literature, mathematics, chemistry, or even history of cinema.

I am not sure how exactly the discussions will start or how they will evolve, but I look forward to them. My hope is the discussions will allow us to become multi-disciplinary students. I have not actually taken a philosophy course, so by no means am I claiming to be an expert. If a state something incorrectly please correct me.

If you want to write a guest post for the topic or would like me to link to your own post on the topic, just contact me. Also if you come across an interesting article I would love it if you would send me the link. The more who participate the better the discussion will be.

Below is a link to purchase Meditations at Amazon.com, but because Meditations is part of the public domain by the end of the weekend I will post a free copy of Meditations on University Scholar.

Review: How to Win at College

• Author: Michael |University Scholar
• Filed under: Book of the Month
• Date: Mar 17,2008

Cal Newport’s How to Win at College is a book that all college students should read. It will give you inspiration, and you will realize that being an excellent college student is not as difficult as many believe it to be.

Is it easy to read?

How to Win at College is very easy to read. It took no more than 2 hours to read. Each chapter is 2 pages on average. Newport even took the time to bold the sentences that were the most important. The book is perfect to sit down and read it during one sitting, but the short chapters make a perfect book to read a chapter a day.

By reading a chapter a day, you can take the valuable advice and attempt to apply it to your own college life.

It’s all Common Sense

When you read How to Win at College you will probably feel that all the advice is just commonsense. Then why aren’t you a top student? Sometimes we believe things to be commonsense, not because it is common, but because after we hear the information we realize that we understood the concept all along, but we never placed it into tangible words that we can use in our lives.

It’s Just the Beginning

How to Win at College is the perfect book in your step to becoming a better student. The advice Newport gives is a starting point. Becoming a better college student is not about getting the right advice, but about discovering yourself. Every student will have different study habits, different ambitions, and different environments. The more self knowledge you obtain the better student you can become.

Cal who? Why should I listen to Cal Newport?

Cal is currently a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is young and he has already published 2 books! Sounds successful to me. If you don’t believe me check out his Bio.

Buy or not to buy?

If you are a student who has lost his way, How to Win at College is an excellent book to get you back on track. If you think you are already an excellent student, you may decide to skip the book and jump on over to Cal Newport’s blog. He continuously adds new ideas to increase productivity, discover ambition, and make the most out of college.