Total honesty time: I was a slacker in high school. I don’t mean that in the sense that I got bad grades, or that I didn’t do extracurriculars. I mean that in the sense that I was the kid who got good grades without having to try, so I never did. Try, that is. This meant that when I got to college, I got a surprise: professors want you to actually study! Like, with the textbook and everything!
Needless to say, I had a rough time figuring out how to do this “studying” thing, and I know I’m probably not alone in this boat. The good thing is, I’ve figured this out, for the most part, so now you can learn from my mistakes.
- Assume every class is going to be your hardest, going in. The day you don’t assume you’re going to have to put in five hours minimum studying for the first real test in a class is the day you will really regret. Until you get a feel for a certain professor, treat it like it’s super hard.
- Schedule in studying time and STICK WITH IT. DO THIS. Or else you will end up like me, making friends with the other lone person who inhabits the study lounge at 1 am. Don’t be me, guys.
- Never underestimate the power of teaching others. Seriously, I definitely have kinda taken advantage of my classmates, because I’m the person who tries to explain stuff and writes out the impromptu study guides. By teaching them, though, I’m actually prepping MYSELF to wreck the curve. Basically, once you know it well enough to explain it to others, you’re golden.
- Do ALL the readings. The professor that assigns the most readings is also the professor who expects you to have learned the most from them, in my experience. Also, don’t just highlight stuff: write important points that you would want to highlight in your notes. Highlighting is just coloring for grownups – it’s fine, but it’s not going to help you learn. It’s just going to catch your eye later.
- Don’t judge a professor’s tests by their lecture style. Imagine: a sweet little 5 foot nothing professor, dressed to the nines every day and super kind to everyone. My professor who fits this description causes about a third of her students to retake her classes every year. Bigshot business guy with a ridiculously high consulting rate and a weird robe he always wears? 98% pass his classes. Focus on the material, not the prof.
- Save your homework assignments. It turns out that in college, homework is 95% of the times something that you can actually study from. Do it, do it well, then hang on to it.
- Know your preferred study habitats. Do you like to study around a lot of people or by yourself? Are windows a distraction or a necessity? Is the library great or just too far away to bother with? Keep an eye on when you study best and then try to replicate it later.
- Get rid of unnecessary distractions. Turn off your phone. Notifications are Bad for concentration. Close your email unless you absolutely need it. Have a drink and someone to nibble on if you use that as an excuse to avoid studying. Maybe avoid studying with that one person if you are distracted by existing near them.
- Plan out regular breaks. Tell yourself every half hour you can go on Facebook, or wander down the hall and talk to someone, or read a chapter of that thing you’ve been working on. Just have something planned out that you can actively work towards. Not just having an abyss of time to fill with studying can be really useful.
As for studying itself:
Notecards, re-writing notes in a different format, having someone quiz you, making study guides, and writing practice essays about stuff have all been super useful for me in some respect or another.
- Seven
- Study
- Moods
- Rain generator
- Coffee shop chatter
- How to Study
- How to Study pt. II
- Bullet journal guide
You’ve got this. We can study together.
what’s your study schedule? do you have any study tips, especially irt exams? i have a bunch of important ones coming up in may and you seem like a very smart person who gets good grades, so if it’s not too much trouble i’d really like to know!
hey hun! here are a few things that i’ve found helpful for studying:
- strict workflow – set the timer to 20 minutes for work and 10 minutes for a break, fill out the website blacklist with everything that might distract you, and let ‘er rip
- selfcontrol – same deal, but more effective blocking software. this is for when you absolutely need to get shit done. you can set the timer for up to 24 hours, but i think it’s more effective if you use it in 2-3 hour blocks, with half-hour breaks in between.
- habitrpg – i have struggled with procrastination all my life and this is the only thing that has ever actually worked – you plug in your to do list and the website treats completion of the to do list like a game, with you scoring points to buy armour and pets every time you complete a task. absolutely brilliant.
- i’m a social science major, so my go-to method for studying for exams is to re-read every assigned reading and take detailed notes, then re-read those notes, along with my lecture notes, the morning of the exam. this has worked for me for every writing-based exam i’ve ever taken.
- if it’s a theory-based exam – something like a political philosophy course – i’ll just read the material slowly and closely, and any notes i take will be very general.
- if it’s something where a lot of specific knowledge is required, my notes will be /incredibly/ detailed. like, i once took a public administration course where the textbook was pretty much just a lengthy explanation of how canadian bureaucracy works and which people in which offices do which things, and my entire study period was spent writing down names and offices and roles and memorizing them.
- i have much less experience with math exams but what works best for me is just doing as many practice problems as i possibly can, over and over and over again until the algorithm for solving the problem is second nature. and, like, feel free to use the textbook as a crutch at this stage, use whatever aids you want while you’re practicing. don’t, like, force yourself to work through a problem without looking at any instructions – use training wheels until you get the feel of it, and then take your bike out for a nice, long spin to make sure you’ve got the hang of it.
i hope that helped hun! best of luck, you’ll do great!