Yes, all of the concepts here apply to academia. We only focused on language learning because it's a particular passion of Gabe (and the rest of us subsequently), and also because there aren't that many other fields where it's super important that you remember everything long term as many academic subjects are more a matter of memorizing short term to pass tests, after which you can (and will) forget most of what you've learned.
So, yes, you can use all of this stuff and it will increase your retention rate a lot. To do that we'd suggest adding Memory Palaces. They're really good for short term recall of large chunks of information. We've only used them a bit so if you want to get really in depth with them, we'd recommend Anthony Metivier's stuff: http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com
