Happy Monday! Shannon and I are back with a second post in our college Series. This week on both of our blogs we are talking about study tips. I know the spring semester for most people is over or very close to being over but summer sessions are starting up in the coming weeks. We thought this post would be helpful to those taking summer classes, as well as to everyone when classes start in again in the fall. This study method below I used prior to being sent home because of the COVID-19. I tried to implement them in to my home studying but it wasn’t the same as it would have been at school.
Before I start with how I study I am going to start with how I take notes. For majority of my classes in my major the professors post the powerpoint the day before or hours before class. I take the powerpoint and copy it into a word document making the information from the powerpoint into an easy to follow outline. As I add the text from each slide I insert the important diagrams and pictures the professor included. Next, I make the word document size 12 Times New Roman font and narrow margins. This allows for optimal space for more text per page and images. Lastly I create a header like the one below, the lecture title and date of class.
When I get to class I pull up the word document that goes with that days powerpoint and add my notes as the professor lecture. As you can seeing in the images to the left I add my extra notes in a pink color. I always keep a blank notebook next to me so I have paper just incase I need it to draw a diagram or something that I can not do on the computer.
For some reason this past semester my professors only did midterms and finals. In my perfect world I would make a quizlet each week the goes with that weeks lecture. Some weeks that happens and sometimes it does not. I lightly review my notes each week so as the midterm and final exams approach I do not become to overwhelmed that week.
The Week leading up to exams!
I try to be proactive and study as the semester goes on but not until the week before do I really kick it in to high gear with my studying. My school lucky has private study rooms with floor to ceiling white boards. I book them every day for 4 hours each. Sometimes my friends book them for another 4 hours and we camp out there for 8 hours leading up to the exam. This past semester I would write out the big ideas and headings of each lecture on the whiteboards and then go back and filling in the information. After filling in the information I go back check to see if I was right and make a note of what I got wrong to review before I erase the white boards and start over. Lastly, I am a terrible speller so I create a spelling list for each exam and write the words over and over again in hope I learn the correct spelling, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. Spelling doesn’t come naturally to me so this tactic along with the spelling tab on quizlet allows me to get the spelling of a majority of the words I struggle with.This method earned me high grades on my exams this past semester.
Studying for the second half of this semester changed drastically but quizlet, outlines, talking things over with classmates, rewriting and labeling diagrams if needed.
Take breaks and get sleep. Once it hits 10 o’clock I can no longer study, I usually go to bed and wake up the next day refreshed and ready to study again. My biggest thing is if you feel that you know it stop studying, do not over study because in my experience it always leads to lower grades.
Check out Shannon’s blog for her approach to study! Any study tip is helpful!
Happy Studying hopefully on our college campus soon!
