From My Desk

Academic success isn’t some big mystery, and it’s not just for a special few. In   Academic Excellence: A Practical and Inspiring Guide for Students Pursuing Higher Education , I lay out an honest, step-by-step game plan for students who actually want to thrive at university; and well beyond. This isn’t just another list of study tips or exam tricks. It gets into the real stuff: your mindset, discipline, time management, emotional grit, money, communication, leadership, ethics, and getting career-ready. Every chapter is built to help you sharpen your skills, but also to shape the habits and character you’ll lean on for the rest of your life. Maybe you’re struggling to keep up, buried in stress, worried about your future, or just aiming to graduate on top. Either way, this book gives you straight answers and clear direction. You’ll learn how to build a growth mindset, actually study smarter, manage your time so it works for you, bounce back when things go sideways, and lay the groun...

  Photo: Daniel Dela Dunoo (Author, Ghostwriter, Editor, Publishing professional) When you hit forty-two, you begin to see that life isn’t this tidy, uphill march or a clear-cut story where everything makes sense. It’s messier; woven together with wins, losses, times when everything feels full, and moments that seem empty. Looking back as I turned forty-two, I tried to distill some of these thoughts into a short poem, “Reflections @ xlii.” But really, what’s behind those lines is this: life isn’t so much about arriving somewhere; it’s about always changing, always becoming. The poem kicks off with some honest contrasts: “The joys, however fleeting;   The anguish, however overwhelming;   The respites, however transient;   The toils, however unrelenting…” That’s just how life feels, isn’t it? Joy comes and goes. Pain likes to hang around a little too long. Rest slips away fast, but work and responsibility can feel endless. By forty-two, you’ve lived enough ...