The author of the best-selling What the Best College Teachers Do is back with more humane, doable, and inspiring help, this time for students who want to get the most out of college—and every other educational enterprise, too.

The first thing they should do? Think beyond the transcript. The creative, successful people profiled in this book—college graduates who went on to change the world we live in—aimed higher than straight A’s. They used their four years to cultivate habits of thought that would enable them to grow and adapt throughout their lives.

Combining academic research on learning and motivation with insights drawn from interviews with people who have won Nobel Prizes, Emmys, fame, or the admiration of people in their field, Ken Bain identifies the key attitudes that distinguished the best college students from their peers. These individuals started out with the belief that intelligence and ability are expandable, not fixed. This led them to make connections across disciplines, to develop a “meta-cognitive” understanding of their own ways of thinking, and to find ways to negotiate ill-structured problems rather than simply looking for right answers. Intrinsically motivated by their own sense of purpose, they were not demoralized by failure nor overly impressed with conventional notions of success. These movers and shakers didn’t achieve success by making success their goal. For them, it was a byproduct of following their intellectual curiosity, solving useful problems, and taking risks in order to learn and grow.

“The ‘best’ students are curious risk-takers who make connections across disciplines. By following those instincts—rather than simply chasing ‘success’—the best students achieved it…A wonderful exploration of excellence.”—Fortune

“Skillfully weaves together some of the best research about effective learning strategies with moving stories about remarkable life-long learners. Some of them had great teachers. But most of them succeed because of what they did for themselves.”—Thomas Luxon, Dartmouth College

“We are always telling students to ‘find their passion.’ Now we have a book that looks at how that happens…Ken Bain can really tell a story…it is very rare for a book based upon research to be such a compelling read.”—José Antonio Bowen, Southern Methodist University

Combining academic research on learning and motivation with insights drawn from interviews with people who have won Nobel Prizes, Emmys, or otherwise led lives of meaning and accomplishment, Ken Bain identifies the key attitudes that distinguish the best college students from their peers. Most start out with a belief that intelligence and ability are expandable, not fixed. This leads them to make connections across disciplines and to find ways of reconceiving problems rather than simply looking for the right answer. Intrinsically motivated by their own sense of purpose, they are not overly impressed with conventional notions of success. The best students study in small bites, focus more on concept than procedure, and work collaboratively, getting friends to test them on their knowledge. They don’t achieve success by making success their goal—when it comes, it is a byproduct of following their intellectual curiosity, solving useful problems, and taking risks to learn and grow.

What makes a great teacher great? Who are the professors students remember long after graduation? This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators.

The short answer is—it’s not what teachers do, it’s what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out—but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn.

In stories both humorous and touching, Ken Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students’ discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.