The Sims 4 Academic Aspiration
If you want educated sims you should try the sims 4 academic aspiration.
This aspiration comes to your game with The Sims 4: Discover University and is a good one!
Your sim will need to apply to and graduate University to get this one done!
Quick Learner Reward Trait
When a sim starts their adult life with a knowledge aspiration they will get the quick learner bonus trait. This trait’s description tells you that it gives a skill boost gain to every skill which is so useful!
Best Traits for The Academic Aspiration
You should always be smart when creating your sims and choose traits that will be helpful. Here’s some good traits for this aspiration:
- Genius: Throughout this aspiration your sim will need to gain the research & debate skill and its ideal mood is focused and genius sims get focused moodlets more often.
- Practice Makes Perfect: The practice makes perfect trait is great because it eventually gives skill boosts to all skills and gives great focused moodlets too.
- Loner or Outgoing: This depends on where your sim lives, if you live in a house alone, choose loner, if you live in the dorms, choose outgoing. Sims who are in school and live alone are going to spend tons of time alone so loner can be helpful!
You can also add lot traits to your sim’s household to make the aspiration easier to finish:
- Study Spot: This is a must for this aspiration. The Study Spot lot trait is going to make your sims finish their homework faster, make them study longer without getting exhausted and gives skill boosts to all skills.
- Tiny Home Residential: If you have The Sims 4: Tiny Living Stuff you can torture yourself and force your sim to live in a lot with less than 32 tiles. Why? Well, these sims will get longer lasting focused moodlets, will gain skills faster and your bills are going to be lower!
Stages of the Aspiration
There are four stages of the sims 4 academic aspiration to play through. Your sim will start and finish a degree in this time and then have to get a grown up job with their degree!
Stage One: Freshman
Throughout this aspiration you are going to need to gain the research and debate skill. This is a skill that helps your sims throughout University because they’ll be able to finish their homework quicker and do better on their projects and papers.
To gain this skill you have three options, the first is to read skill books. You can purchase these books on any bookcase and there are three to choose from.
You’ll read the first book from level 1-3, the second book from 4-6 and the last book for levels 7-10.
If you have The Sims 4: Jungle Adventure you can add the peace and quiet lot trait which helps by making it so your sims gain skills faster with skill books.
Your next option is to use a Research Archive Machine. These are available in build mode or you can use one in public. You can find one at the library and both student centres at either University.
You can click on this machine and choose research and pick a topic. The best thing about this is that you gain both the research & debate skill as well as whatever other skill you choose. So, if you are researching good writing through feedback you’ll also gain the writing skill.
The final way you can gain the research and debate skill is by using the debate podium. You can purchase The Daring Debater Podium Set in build mode, you can also find one in the student centre at Britechester.
Once you have this item available to you, click on it and choose to debate a topic to gain the skill!
To do this aspiration you, of course, need to be in University! To enroll your sim you’ll first want to apply by clicking on a mailbox and choosing university > apply to Universities.
When you do this you’ll get a notification saying your application has been sent off and you’ll find out soon if you were accepted.
At 9 o’clock the next morning the mail will come and you’ll go collect it. A University Acceptance Letter will appear in your sim’s inventory and you’ll want to click on it and choose read.
This will open up a pop up that shows you what programs you were accepted to and then you’ll click on the mailbox and choose to enroll. A menu will appear and you’ll choose your school, and your degree.
You’ll be able to choose how many classes to take, four is the max. You’ll need 12 classes to graduate so taking 3 semesters of four classes is best if you want to finish this faster.
Then you’ll choose where you’ll live, you can live at home or choose University housing instead.
The final page shows a tuition page. This is how you’ll pay for your schooling either with household funds or with a student loan.
Once you finish the tuition page your sim will be enrolled and you’ll satisfy this need.
Stage Two: Bright-Eyed Student
For this stage of the aspiration your sim needs to continue gaining the research and debate skill. Keep reading those skill books or using the research archive machine to gain this skill even more.
Pro Tip: When choosing classes you can pick an elective, if you choose a research & debate elective your sim can gain the skill while they are in class!
To attend a guest lecture your sim needs to head to the University of their choice and click on the appropriate building to find it! This is the same building where your sim can tutor or go to skill classes.
These guest lectures are only an option between 5 and 7PM! Most people get frustrated because they can’t find them but its because they aren’t available all day.
Your sim will go into the building as a rabbit hole and it will satisfy this need when the lecture is complete.
Your next task is to finish one course with an A grade! This is easier than it seems, but you’ll need to put in quite a bit of work. There’s a few factors that go into your sim’s grade in a class:
- Their attendance in classes
- Their homework completion
- Their presentation, paper, or final exam
Each of these has different requirements, so let’s go into each! First, you want to make sure that your sim attends every single class they have. Missing class will make your sim do worse in class, plus you’re paying for it so why skip?
Each day before you go to class you must finish your coursework. When you enrolled in University your sim got a black and white composition notebook in their inventory, you can click on that to choose to do homework for each class.
You’ll need to do homework after every single time your sim goes to class! Don’t forget!
Finally, for each class you’ll have one large task to complete. You can see what task you have to do in the career panel at the bottom of each class section. You’ll either see a final paper, a presentation or a final exam.
If your sim has a final exam you don’t have much to do before the exam day that you can see in the career panel.
However, if you want to ensure your sim does great in that exam you’ll want to study for your final exam which you can do by clicking on a computer and choosing University > coursework > study and choosing that class specifically.
If you have a final paper you’ll click on a computer and choose University and choose to write a term paper.
Your sim will work on it and when they finish the first draft you’ll get a notification. This draft won’t be the end!
Your first draft is always going to be poor (maybe normal) quality and you should click that same University menu to edit the paper. Once it’s quality is outstanding you can submit it!
If you have a presentation to give you’ll get a presentation board in your sim’s inventory at the beginning of the semester.
You’ll drag this out of your sim’s inventory and click on it and choose to capture information.
This will be the first draft of your project when complete but it will have a poor quality rating. You’ll want to keep working on the project to make sure that your sim gets a good grade. Once the quality is outstanding you’ll want to also practice the presentation at least once.
At this point you are able to go do your presentation which is only available during the day on weekdays and your sim will go into a rabbit hole, so don’t do it when you have classes!
Another way to increase your grade is to get your sim to take notes in class. You can do this by clicking on them as they are in school and switching from “attend class normally” to “take notes” instead.
After your sim has written their final exam they’ll come home and have some free time without stress! Then, by the end of that day you’ll get your final grades and hopefully you’ll get an A!
Stage Three: Avid Academic
- Have a Term GPA of B or Higher
To get a term GPA of B or higher you’ll need your sim to do well in classes, like you did to get an A in the previous section. You’ll need the average of all your grades to be a B so you’ll need to spread the love between all of your sim’s classes to complete this.
To keep your grades up make sure you attend classes, do your homework, and submit high quality course work!
At any point throughout the semester you can use your phone to send an email asking about progress with your professors. Your professors will tell you some basics about how you’re doing but if you see exceptionally well you’re doing things right!
Since your sim is so smart they need to share the wealth, and earn some money in the process. Head over to the University campus and find the right building to tutor, they’re located in rabbit hole buildings in the quad.
Click on the building and choose tutor and your sim will enter and start tutoring for a few hours. They’ll even get paid!
Just do this the required amount of times and you’ll satisfy this easily. It’s best to do it on the weekend so you don’t accidentally miss classes.
Getting your sim to level 6 of the research and debate skill is easy! Just keep working on it by using the research archive machine, practicing debates on the podium or reading those skill books.
Gaining this skill is worth it because your sim will do better at projects and finish homework faster.
Stage Four: Senior Scholar
- Earn a Degree
To earn your degree you need to finish 12 classes in that degree. You’ll have to have taken 9 classes assigned to your degree at least, but you can take 3 classes as electives in random topics and it’ll count!
This is going to take a minimum of three semesters if you take four classes per semester, so you’ll be grinding for a while but it’s all worth it when you get a job with your degree and get a signing bonus and start higher in the career.
You can even have your sim attend graduation when they finish their degree so you can get cute screenshots in their robe.
- Contribute Knowledge on a Research Archive Machine
When your sim reaches level 6 of the research & debate skill they are going to be able to contribute knowledge on a research archive machine. What does this mean?
Well, click on the machine and choose contribute knowledge and choose a topic. Your sim will put all of their brain thoughts into the machine and they’ll get paid for it too!
When your sim is done contributing knowledge they’ll get a notification thanking them and telling you how much money they’re earned!
Just make sure you don’t do it too make times back to back. Why? Well, it can kill your sim! If you see a Dazed +40 moodlet that says Mentally Drained (From Contributing Too Much Knowledge) that is when you need to stop! If you continue your sim can die from overexertion, but the death is very funny!
Getting to level 7 of research & debate shouldn’t be too hard! By this point my sim had already maxed the skill because I was getting them to work on it any time they were free. Why? Because the higher the skill, the faster they do homework and the better quality their school work will be before edits!
To gain this skill keep using the Research Archive Machine, the Debate Podium or read those skill books!
Each degree has jobs that are related to it, here’s some examples:
- Culinary Arts Degree: Food Critic and Chef Careers
- Computer Science Degree: Criminal and Tech Guru Careers
- History Degree: Law, Military and Politician Careers
- Physics Degree: Astronaut, Mechanical Engineer and Scientist Careers
When your sim enrolled in school you would have seen the related careers you’d be able to go into on the page where you chose your degree.
Now that your sim has the degree, it’s time to join that related career. When you open the career menu you’ll see little green icons next to the careers that are considered related for your sim!
Your sim will need to join one of the careers that are related to their degree and get those bonuses! Your sim has the potential to get a signing bonus and will start the career further along than sims who don’t have a degree, so its worth it!
Once your sim has the job you’ll be able to finish this aspiration!
Higher Education Reward Trait
When a sim manages to finish the sims 4 academic aspiration they are going to get the higher education reward trait.
This trait’s description reads “Your sim has proven they have what it takes to excel at University. Along the way, they learned a lot, allowing them to gain more skill using the Electromagnetic Research Archive Machine and earn more money from publishing research papers and contributing knowledge.”
