College Tip 10: Studying

College Tip 10: Studying

So classes have started to pick up and you’re getting closer to that first week of exams. School is a ton of fun, right? There are lot of things I could tell you to help you prepare for exams, but I think I’ll just give you guys a couple of main points. If you’ve watched my earlier videos, you might remember me talking about that extra cushion of time to just study for exams. Well, hopefully you have stayed on top of your work and gotten it done a little early.

I’m just going to go straight into it – you should check your calendar and figure out when you have breaks. Breaks are a great way to get work done and study for exams if you have breaks before exams. This is time that you should utilize. Catching up on sleep is always very important because exam weeks really put a lot of stress on you. I know it’s a cliché thing, but sleep really does help when it comes to doing well in class and on tests.

My personal experience with exams has been pretty good so far, but as far as perfecting my time usage, it’s definitely a work in progress. Freshman year, I pretty much procrastinated until the two days before exams which left me really overwhelmed. I was rushed to get my homework done and studying for exams was more like a cram session designed by morons. Sophomore year, I started getting a little better and getting my work done early, but I ended up procrastinating again until about 4 days before my exams to start studying. With the courses I was taking, it wasn’t really realistic to study enough in that amount of time and get really good grades on my exams. Now, this probably doesn’t make you think it’s a good idea to listen to me, but I promise I’ve done decently well (Bs) on most of my exams even with these poor study habits. This year, I’m obviously trying to shoot for some As to boost my GPA, so I’m going to try these new tips with you guys and hopefully it pays off.

So, to start studying, I typically review notes or if you are given a study guide definitely go over that first. The more study materials your professors give you, the better. Since they are usually the ones that write the exams, if they hand you a study guide, it’s like they’re handing you a key to their minds. Make sure you know the things they want you to know. Next, it’s very likely that you know what you do and don’t know. If you don’t definitely do review problems or look over notes to pinpoint these topics. It’s really up to you to determine what works best for you but I like to start with the stuff that I don’t know. If you’re taking a math, physics, or some other subject that gifts you with partial credit, I recommend studying and doing practice problems for the stuff you don’t know until you get to the point where you either know 75% of it or you really just can’t learn it. I’m going to hope it’s the first one for you guys, but if you really don’t understand something ask your professor or graduate student instructor. If they can’t help you, then don’t worry because there’s still hope! You’ve probably used about 2/3 of your study time by now. This is when you go back and make sure you can ace the topics that you do know, or think you know. Really put your effort into doing this because getting this stuff 100% right after fucking up on the stuff you don’t know will give you a lot of confidence and relax you before your exams.

You can choose to quick cram just before your tests, but I recommend giving yourself about 30 minutes to an hour of just relaxing before your exams. I’ve found that some keys to test taking success don’t even deal with the material you’ve learned. A good night of sleep does more wonders than pushing yourself until 4AM to study because at 3-4AM you probably aren’t learning anything anyways. Always try to eat something before an exam as well because you’re mind works better with some food energy and it’s just nice to eat because it helps to calm any nerves you may still have. The more relaxed you go into an exam, the better because if you’re relaxed, you’ll be confident, and if you’re confident, you will think much more clearly than if you’re stressed and your mind is all over the place.

 
I know a lot of these tips may seem like common sense, but when you get into the middle of a busy schedule, you might not be thinking of the obvious. I hope you can do well on your exams! Good luck!