Well, I may not be a top student, but I graduated dux of my high school and am going through uni on a academic scholarship with 75% minimum grade requirement.
I beat it into my brain. I am one of those people than can cram; I can study for 2-3 days solid, memorise the stuff, ace the exam and then forget it 15 minutes afterwards. Now, I'm not recommending that method, just saying that it works for me and so my comments are likely to be biased towards that method.
But I also understand concepts fairly easily. If I can picture how something works (visualising, I guess, is the current 'in' word) then I can usually remember it. More abstract stuff that I can't picture, I often struggle with. Formulas especially; I hate them. I like words and processes more than plugging in numbers to a formula that's so far removed from the physical process that spawned it that I can't work back to see what's actually happening (eg, pure maths).
Do stuff you're interested in. I make it so that even 8am lectures are something I look forward to -- the content only, though! Seeing how things fit together, and affect each other, and understand how things work -- that's what I like. Some people like using their minds to figure out more abstract stuff like philosophy; no 'real' answers there, just twisting words. Find what you love.
Figure out your learning style. I learn from written words, and diagrams and pictures, and asking lots and lots and lots of questions. Verbal back-and-forth learning is my best style, followed by verbal+visual, ie, gesturing or drawing out examples or diagrams. And I love teaching stuff to people, because it makes me verbalise it clearly and correctly. Some people learn in other ways that I don't know or understand well. One of my classmates didn't go to the lectures, he just read the textbooks and notes. I rarely read the textbooks, they put me to sleep because it takes me 2-3 hours for a single chapter.
Find your best learning times. I like mornings from about 9/10am onwards. If I start working and keep working I find that best for me; other people work better with lots of breaks. And I can get some of my best work done after 9pm, even if I haven't done much other work during the day.
And finally, something I'm currently working on; be prepared early. Find the textbooks or notes before the semester/year starts and at least glance over them. Get an idea of what's going to be covered. Get hold of everything you need so that it's not a rush before tests or assignments or exams -- things like printing out bunches of past exams, or sorting out textbook questions into topics, or organising your notes. My current plan is to prepare for next year (I'm in Australia, so next year starts in March) by getting all my textbooks and whatever else I can find and going over them during the summer break.
Hope any of that helps; I enjoyed typing it out, which is the major thing for me. Helped me put into words my own style!
Wolverine
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