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32 Now, over the years, I’ve discarded readings that students found too difficult to manage on their own. But despite the fact that the Discourse on Method is frustrating even for very good students, I still assign Descartes and probably always will. I do this because Discourse on Method really is a great welcome to college, and a great way to welcome you to something that really is enjoyable, interesting and important. And if you didn’t find it interesting and enjoyable, well maybe that’s because you don’t yet know how to read. “Of course I know how to read! I learned in Kindergarten.” Well, yes. But reading at the college level often means learning to read all over again. You see, up to this point, unless you were in accelerated classes, many, if not all, of your high school reading assignments were deliberately dumbed down. Textbook companies are under pressure to produce texts that require no more than an 8 th grade reading level, and so very rarely did you end up reading anything really challenging. But, from here on out, you won’t get much that’s dumbed down, and, for some of you, it’s time for a quantum leap in reading ability, and you’ll have to adopt different strategies than you usually used in high school. If you are struggling at this point, a good recipe for success is to adopt the PSQ5R strategy for approaching your readings. PSQ5R is an eight-step method that works well for most college-level books. Here’s how to use PSQ5R techniques in approaching Discourse on Method:  Purpose Why are you reading this?