Zen and the Art of Cramming

Cramming is a time-honored and revered academic tradition, tracing all the way back to ancient Greece. Aristotle is said to have stayed up for three straight years while preparing his thesis on Poetics, and students at the Lyceum are generally credited with inventing the first form of Vivarin.

While not generally the most effective way of assimilating information, cramming is a good short-term solution for an upcoming test. The idea is to jam your frontal lobes with as much relevant information as humanly possible, then vomit it all back up within a day or so. Those of you who have been down this road know what I’m talking about. The amount of raw data you can functionally retain for 24 hours is amazing.