COMPLETING MY FIRST BOOK: 'HOW TO STUDY SMART AND BOOST YOUR GP'

The birth of this book started from the day I got my admission letter to study at my alma mater, the University of Ilorin in 2017.

I was super ambitious to do my very best in all the courses and started planning what and how to achieve this goal.

Part of this plan was taking a "How to Improve Your Study" course online from the University of Groningen. It was super-encompassing. The reflections on what I learnt from the course are reserved in this book.

I drew out my study plan and kept it till my first day in class. This is one lesson which I have ever learnt in my life. if you want to embark on a daunting task, starting with a plan is the best way to make it easy. I confirmed this in the speech of Abraham Lincoln:

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.”

I revisited the study plan every time while on campus. Visiting it reinforced my spirit. the very first thing I did after having my list of courses for that semester was followed my school academic calendar to plan for test and exam dates.

I started putting everything that worked for me into writing. I was conscious of everything I do.

It's not all about reading that makes you attain excellence at university but how you read and when you read it. My first-semester result was almost perfect with just a B and all A's.

Also, I got the inspiration for this book from my junior colleagues who kept asking me how I did it to such an extent in that "our Department of English".

It's God but with just a few things I was fortunate to know before my admission.

I started writing in 2018 and 2019 when I met Mustapha Lawal, who was a fellow scholar to let us do it together until during the global lockdown in 2020.

I spent more time on this book for about 9 months. We redrafted the old original plan for the chapters, and determined the styles and also objectives of each chapter. We arrived at about 15 chapters.

The plan looked so beautiful to me as if I had finished the book. It was becoming difficult to achieve and we almost wanted to forget about the book because of overwhelming school activities such as my undergraduate project and final exams.

In Jan 2022, we were almost done with the book chapters. New ideas kept coming and we must update them to make this book a comprehensive guide for our readers. we left no stone unturned.

In February, we started calling the best graduating students and scholars to share their experiences. We were so glad to receive several entries but only the best 6 that met the purpose of the book were selected. They were sieved and included in the manuscript.

From this moment, we keep revising the book till May when it was finally published on Amazon and Selar with the guides from Raheemah Odusote

We set a deadline for ourselves to complete his book chapters and for the glory of God, the Almighty, we achieved the target and now Mustapha Lawal and I are authors.