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From the ABCs to a BA: How Childhood Lessons Still Apply Today

From the ABCs to a BA: How Childhood Lessons Still Apply Today
3/27/2012
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Angela Andaloro

As human beings living in an ever-changing world, we always have something new to learn. Some of us continue our education in pursuit of expanding our knowledge but it’s important to recognize that some of life’s most important lessons are the ones we learned early on as children. They’re also the lessons that can help you learn more, the easier way. Here are some examples:

Have manners. It’s so easy to forget how important it is to throw in a quick “please” or “thank you” but it can make all the difference. As a child, you’re constantly reminded to use your manners but as you get older, it’s up to you to remember. In your adult life, having manners can be important in your job search: Following up and saying “thank you” to someone for an interview can help you stand out from a pile of applications.

Find a way to remember things. Remember how much mnemonic devices helped us learn when we were younger? “PEMDAS” (or “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally”) helped us remember our order of operations in math so make up your own to help you remember things today, whether they’re for an exam or for a job. Giving your memory a boost will save you time in the long run.

Get organized ahead of time. Did anyone else have a homework sheet with a list of assignments that your parents had to sign and return to your teacher? It served its purpose: Writing things down helps us remember we have to do them and checking them off along the way gives us a feeling of accomplishment. Make lists of the things you have to do each day and make sure it’s all done when you’re ready to unwind at night.

Some of the things we learned as children may have seemed tedious at the time we were incorporating them into our everyday lives but they served a bigger purpose and will continue to help us in college and beyond. Have other childhood lessons that are still very important today? Let us know in the comments!

Angela Andaloro is a junior at Pace University’s New York City campus, where she is double majoring in communication studies and English. Like most things in New York City, her life and college experience is far from typical – she commutes to school from her home in Flushing and took nearly a semester’s worth of classes online – but she still likes to hang out with friends, go to parties and feed her social networking addiction like your “average” college student.

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