If you feel rusty academically, you've come to the right place.

Maybe high school was a few years back. Maybe you were not a stellar academic performer in high school. Maybe you don't think you're ready for college.

Maybe you aren't . . . this week. But over the next two weeks, I will give you the study skills you need and the intellectual self-confidence you need to be a success in your first semester in college. I won't charge you a dime.

You will have to do some work. You will have to spend a few bucks on tools you need to survive academically. But getting up to speed academically is within your grasp.

Your goal isn't to earn a degree from Harvard. It's just to earn a degree from an accredited school. To earn that degree, you must survive the first semester. I can show you how to do this.

This is a unique course. It's not like any other how-to-study course. Here's why.

There are a lot of books on how to study. Each of them offers a few good ideas. But the books I have read share the same defect: they are not realistic. They are like diets that really do work if you follow them, but the food is so awful tasting and the portions so tiny that overweight people cannot follow them for long. This is why 95% of dieters who lose weight put it back on within five years. This fact creates a large market for new diets. It also creates despair in the minds of those who have failed to lose weight.

When I read most of the "how to study" books, I get angry. I don't think they are very helpful to most of the students who buy them. Page after page, recommendation after recommendation, I think: "Almost nobody actually does this." I earned a Ph.D. at a good university. I have never known any A-level student who has used more than a handful of the recommended techniques in these books. Scholars don't study this way.

I'm not saying that the books' recommended techniques don't work. I'm saying that great students don't use most of them, and good students didn't learn them from a book.

My course is different. It's real-world.

STOP WORRYING AND START WORKING SMARTER

Maybe you haven't had much success in school. Can you do significantly better? Yes. There is no question about it.

But WILL you do significantly better? The answer depends far more on what's in your heart than what's in your head.

In every required college class there are people who just don't care. They would never send an e- mail to receive a free course like this one. They are content with D's when they could make C's or even a few B's. Or they are content to make C's when they could make B's and a few A's.

You don't have to beat all the super-bright people in your classes. There are only a handful of people like that. You only have to beat the flakes. There are always flakes in class -- and life.

There is a story about two hikers who come across a huge grizzly bear. The bear rears up. They figure that the bear is going to make a run for them. One of them reaches down and laces up his shoes. "Why bother?" says the other hiker. "You can't outrun a bear!" The first guy says, "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you."

That's harsh. But let's face it: you have to go to class. You're facing the academic grizzly. You can't outrun a grizzly: a classroom genius. But you can outrun the students who just don't care.

If 10% of the students get A's, maybe you won't ever be among that elite group. So what? You don't have to be a straight-A student to be a success. (I say this as a successful person who was not a straight-A student in high school.)

If you follow through, you will be successful. But will you follow through?

TWO WEEKS TO SUCCESS

My goal is to restore your skills and your self-confidence. I think I can do this in 15 lessons, one per day.

The following lessons cover the basics. They are structured in a specific sequence. They are designed to be read one per day. It would be unwise for you to read them all at once. You might get overwhelmed.

If you have specific academic questions, join my site. I'll answer all of them.