Become motivated. Even if the subject/discipline that you are studying does not interest you very much, try, first, to convince yourself that you are going to need it in your profession (you never really know what you are going to need until you start working), thus developing your prospective motivation, and, second, try and find what may be interesting personally for you in the subject. There are no disciplines where you cannot find something really interesting and exciting for you personally and if you do find it, your process motivation will start developing. It will make studying the subject easy and will create opportunities for involuntarily retaining the subject matter.

Be systematic. Regularly (preferably for a short time but every day) work on the subject that you are studying. Only systematic, regular work may bring results. Studying by fits and starts and, especially, learning by ‘cramming’ before your examination will lead to quick forgetting of what you have learned. Studying for eight hours in half-an-hour sessions during eight days will bring much better results than if you work for eight hours on the subjects just in one day.

Be responsible. Strictly keep to the deadlines when doing your tasks and always be on time when handing in the work done to the teacher. This alone will help you to improve your grades. Being systematic (see above) will really help you achieve such a result with no efforts.

Be a good reader. Read everything that is recommended by the teacher; do not rely only on the material that you heard during the lectures. First, lectures give only the basic information about the discipline but not the details. Second, in most cases visual memory is much stronger than the auditory memory and what you have read you will remember better and understand deeper than what you have heard.

Be independent or, at least, autonomous in your studies. You cannot really learn the subject deeply if you rely only on what you hear and note down during lectures, read in the recommended textbooks and/or on what you learn during practical classes and seminars. Search for information on the subject in libraries and on the Internet and try to collect as much additional information as possible. Such information search will also help you to become interested in the subject and may satisfy your ambitions because you may find something that neither your classmates nor even the teacher know. This will develop process motivation facilitating further learning. Also be independent/autonomous in doing your learning tasks. Copying someone else’s work will teach you nothing while your own work, even if done not so well as those of other students’, will help you progress and gradually attain their level or even overtake them.

Be creative. Try to find non-standard, innovative solutions for all the learning tasks that you are doing, volunteer to work on all creative tasks that your teacher suggests (like learning projects, presentations, writing articles and abstracts for students’ scholarly conferences, etc.) and try to do them to the best of your creative abilities. Use your imagination, fancy, all your creative potential for finding non-standard solutions. This will develop such skills of yours that are going to make you a specialist highly valued by all future employers.

Never plagiarize!

Be active. Always speak at practical classes and seminars, ask questions (during lectures too), express your own opinions and ideas, do not be shy to take the lead in discussions and always participate in them actively even if your ideas on the issues being discussed are not quite clear, volunteer to do additional learning tasks, etc. Only this can help you to clarify your knowledge of the subject, will make you comprehend thoroughly what has not been fully understood before, earn you an excellent reputation with your teacher and improve your grades significantly.

Generalize, specify and establish links with practice. Pay the greatest attention to the principal notions and ideas of the subject/discipline that you are studying to develop its general ‘picture’. This will help you to put more specific information into its proper place and link it to the basic notions and ideas. At the same time, pay attention to specific information and details that illustrate the basic notions and ideas since only specific examples can make you understand them clearly and thoroughly. Try to establish as many links with practice, especially your future professional practice, as possible. That will show you how to use the obtained knowledge in your future work. Try to find a lot practical examples (cases) and details yourself.

Be thorough and attentive. Never do your learning tasks carelessly, just to report to your teacher that they have been done. Finish your work only when you feel that everything possible has been done to complete it well to the utmost of your abilities and when you are really satisfied with what you have done. When working/studying, learn to concentrate your attention on what you are doing without being distracted by other things (it does not mean that you should not make breaks in your work but they must be short and not very frequent).

Memorize the information that you need to remember using effective means. Never do it through mechanical repetition. Use associations with what is already well known to you and remembered, structure the new information to fit it into the information systems and structures already existing in your memory, use the opportunities for involuntary retention when they arise. Remember that the better you understand the information the more chances there are that you remember it well. So be conscious about what you are learning achieving full comprehension of every small detail and systematize everything learned because only systemic information can be remembered well.

Revise everything learned regularly and systematically (not only before the examinations and tests but during the course as well). Only this will help you to generalize and systematize your knowledge and, therefore, remember everything well.

Put your knowledge to practical use whenever and wherever possible. Only practical use will help you develop automatisms and skills, and first of all, professional skills. Besides, practical use is the best test of knowledge, the best way of retaining and systematizing it.

Write as much as you can when learning something. First, when you are writing you are generalizing and systematizing knowledge. Besides, writing ensures better retention of information than speaking, listening and reading. That is why writing essays, abstracts, course papers, etc. on the subject/discipline being learned are very important tasks for ensuring learning success.

Be optimistic about your learning results and try to have positive emotions as to your learning process.