In life, you'll encounter four different types of students; whether it be on campus or at the pub, I can guarantee that the dude with pastel dreadlocks you met one time at an anime convention belongs to one of the following broad categories of student study habits:
- The Might-As-Well-Be-A-Dropout: full of enigma, this student is the one your tutor ends up skipping over during roll call as weeks of nonattendance begin to accumulate. They're the type who you sometimes feel anxious about (whilst they're probably sitting at home happily eating chips), asking yourself things like, "are they okay?", "what would their parents do if they found out their kid failed?", "why r u lyk diz?"
- The Lucky Bastard: this is the type of student we all hate. Not secretly, either. They're the students who, like the above, don't study, but unlike the above, still get HDs all 'round. It's probably down to being blessed with a great memory combined with laziness, but they are your worst enemies...
- The Unlucky Bastard: these students are hard-working and very much dedicated to study. However, their grades, unfortunately, say otherwise.
- The Hardworking Wonder: with a work ethic like no other, this student spends hours upon hours studying; only to be rewarded with exceptionally good grades and a stellar GPA to prove it. You're always left feeling like absolute shit whenever they say that they spent the entire weekend studying when all you did was angrily scream at your cat for tipping over your glass of water.
I, for one, certainly belong in the final two categories. However, more recently, I'm beginning to fall more and more into the "Hardworking Wonder" category; something I'm very proud of. Although I still have a lot to learn in terms of being able to adhere to a study schedule every single day, my grades have definitely improved since beginning university in 2016.
Anyway, I decided to write up this post because I'm currently "enjoying" my mid semester break where I'll be "studying" when really, I'm watching TV shows (this is a joke, I'm actually studying for real); so I thought, what would be more appropriate than sharing my study tips/study habits? Alright, so before I delve into my current method of study, allow me to first share with you my old study habits and why I think that style didn't work. Let's begin...
Thankfully, by my first year of university, I had abandoned my proclivity to binge-watch certain TV shows instead of studying for any test/exam. In fact, I must recall the days leading up to my end of year chem exam where, instead of studying, I decided to start watching Scandal and you can only guess where that led me: in a perpetual state of continuously clicking "next episode" to satisfy my desire to know more and more about the ever so enrapturing relationship shared between Fitz and Liv.
To be fair, I started to care less about chemistry as I knew I wouldn't obtain a satisfying score even if I had truly tried. I have a hatred for chemistry that runs deep within my soul and I believe it is so because I never once had any inspiring teachers who believed in the content in which they were teaching was any more interesting than growing pea seeds in a cup.
In retrospect, I do believe had I taken seriously the whole study thing throughout Year 12, I would have scored higher than I already did. You see, back then, I had a tendency to not study until a couple of days (sometimes up to a week if I really wanted to) before a test. My grades, though still above average, would have shown a different story had I bothered to push myself to adhere to a routine of regular study. But alas, the past is the past and I've indeed learned from such rookie mistakes.
In my first year of university, I was complacent. Much like my final year of high school, I didn't crack down on study until I was weeks away from exams. However, I was always up to date with my lectures and never submitted an assignment mere seconds before the due date (my anxiety would fly through the roof if ever I left an assignment so last minute).
This habit of barely studying, except when I absolutely needed to, resulted in me getting, not terrible grades, but grades I'm not proud of. I mean, I got D's and HD's but I also got a few CRs which completely screws with your GPA. This is a horrible habit to have especially when you're looking towards med school. In fact, I'm absolutely appalled by myself for ever doing such a thing but hey, you move on and you learn from those mistakes. Which is why I'm getting the grades that I want now.
Realising that it was absolutely crucial for me to step up my studying game in order to achieve my goal in life (i.e. to become a physician) was a huge wake up call in terms of my previous study habits. I realised that no, I'm not the "Lucky Bastard" type so I needed to put in the effort that would reward me with brilliant results.
I suppose the first step is to realise your goal/s. Always keep in mind where you want to be versus where you are now. However, you mustn't only think about how you're going to get there, you must also implement a plan of action in order to actually achieve it. It's easy to become wrapped up in imagining your future, but you have to be realistic in that you're nowhere near close, so it's best not to dwindle on the future for too long. As with those who maybe don't have a long-term goal in mind, create one. It doesn't have to be a long-term thing like mine is, it can be short-term, too.
I like to categorise my goals/achievements into three groups:
- Short- and Long-Term Goals: where a short-term goal for me is to finish this semester with at least two HDs and a long-term goal is to finish a semester of third year (next year) with a full set of HDs.
- Topic-based Goals: these are related (and are important) to particular aspects of your life i.e. mine is to volunteer for a children's hospital.
- Focus Goal (AKA Big Hairy Audacious Goal in the business world): this is the goal that will pretty much drive almost every decision you make. It's personal and generally a very big goal. For example, my BHAG is to become a physician.
Before I move on, I must preface all of what I'm about to say with that studying is such a dynamic thing and is incredibly unique to individuals. What works for me might not work for you and fair enough because we all operate differently. I'm only sharing my method of study in hopes of inspiring others to go on their own, personal quest to find their particular method of study because in the end, it's down to you, and only you, when it comes to achieving your goals.
I think it'll be easier to just list every single thing that I do and go into detail where need be, otherwise this post will just go on forever, but anyway once you have a goal in mind, you can finally set objectives in place. Now, objectives are more specific than goals are in that they aid in the achievement process. So for example, my short-term goal is to finish with two HDs this semester. The goal itself doesn't tell me how I'm going to achieve it, so I need to set objectives in order to guide the way i.e. to reach that goal, I should probably read through Chapter 8 of my Physiology textbook to know how on earth skeletal muscle contracts.
With goals and objectives now in mind, I'll just share the basics of how I set the "studying scene":
- Clean your desk: my desk seems to be in a perpetual state of clutter and chaos so when I finally cleaned it, I was left with a space that has since enabled me to properly get in "the zone" of study. A clean space makes it easier for you to concentrate so go and hang up that parka you just threw on your desk and chuck those empty bottles of water in the bin.
- Create a study schedule: creating a study schedule (here's a beautiful template by EmmaStudies that I use religiously) will help you focus tremendously as it enables you to prioritise which subjects are more important than others etc. Plus, planning out a study schedule is just so helpful in that you can see where you are in terms of progress. I also recommend buying a diary or journal so that you can organise your life in general; I honestly cannot live without this one from kikki.k.
- Gather your materials: sort of a no-brainer, but this includes having your laptop, textbooks, notebooks and stationery within reach of your study space. What I think studyblrs fail to articulate is the fact that you don't need to splurge on all these pretty pens and washi tape in order to succeed. Sometimes, we ain't got time to even go out to buy (or afford) a $3 pen!
- Sit in a quiet place: also a no-brainer. You don't want to be distracted by your sibling who suddenly bursts out in song to Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You".
- Play some music: anything jazzy or on the classical front is always my go-to study music. I also love me some coffee shop music and lofi hiphop, just anything that has little to no words is perfect. Btw, don't blast the music through your speakers, just have it softly playing in the background as you study.
- Alternatively, put on a favourite TV show: okay, this might sound counter-intuitive considering my track record with TV shows and study, but hear me out on this one! Scandal was a show I had never seen before so of course I was engrossed in its contents, however, if I put on something like Grey's Anatomy, a show in which I've seen over and over again, I can easily have it as background noise to study to. The sad thing is that whenever I re-watch Grey's, I can never go past season 9 simply because I hate the new interns.
I don't really care if you're the type of person who needs absolute silence to study, I mean, good for you, but this is what I personally do so...yay now that all the basics have been covered (I hope), let's see what I actually do in terms of effective (what I think is effective for me anyway) study.
This is my current uni timetable:
Instead, draw up a timetable by first writing down when your classes are, when you have to go to work/do extracurriculars, just anything unrelated to study. After doing so, only then can you plan out when you can study but make sure to always have breaks in between. For instance, after each day of uni, I go home and catch up on work, work on assignments and/or if I have time, review topics learned that day. That lasts from about 3 pm to when I go to bed at 10 pm, but of course I chuck in plenty of breaks say after every 1-2 hours of work.
Realistically, you don't have a lot of time to actually study the content as this is university we're speaking about here and it completely wants to screw with your life, but I always try to fit in solid study whenever I can. Solid studying, to me, means that I sit down and review my notes; I cross-reference them with multiple sources (websites, textbooks, journal articles) and rewrite them until I nail it down to concise notes. I'm a visual learner so using colour (highlighters, pens) and visual stimuli (colourful pictures found on Google) really helps in the learning process.
But how do I take notes down in the first place? Well, during lectures, I used to bring a spiral notebook to take down notes in, by hand, but nowadays I find that typing out my notes (whether I'm watching a live lecture or a recorded one) is far more efficient as for me, I seem to digest the information a lot better that way. I'm very meticulous (ha, blog title reference) when it comes to note-taking, where I can show you a sample of how I take down my notes below:
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| Example of my lecture notes from one of my physiology lectures. |
And it helps because I know where most chunks of information lie and whatnot. Anyway, at the end of each week, I'll sit down and take out the textbook or any other resource in order to supplement what I've learned in the past week's lectures. Reading from textbooks definitely helps to clarify and perhaps solidify the stuff that was once complete gibberish to you. Basically, I just do a lot of research because if I don't know something, or if the textbook didn't quite help me understand a topic from the lecture I didn't quite get, GOOGLE IT. After searching it up, I'll write/type out the explanation only to then paraphrase it in my own words.
In addition to my typed notes, I'll also write pages of notes but only for topics I didn't understand. I'll also write out/create mnemonics if the subject calls for me to do so. However, you can't solely rely on mnemonics as you need to be able to understand what you actually memorised, too. Understanding the content is far more important than being able to simply recall it. Understanding what you've learned means to be able to apply your knowledge to not only the single concept, but to others, too. And besides, in most cases, if you understand one thing, you'll be able to connect the dots, shout Eureka! as you begin to understand another, easily.
As for how I actually absorb the information, I've made it a habit to study consistently. Since the beginning of this year, I've gotten into the routine of being able to put my head down and actually read whatever I wrote during lectures. This will help as the semester progresses, eventually leading to the weeks before exams. It's better to do this instead of leaving everything on the back burner only to go back to your notes one week before exams, thus killing yourself trying to cram everything in the space of a couple of days. I get that we don't all have time, but dedicating at least one hour a day to solid study would be sufficient.
Now, I don't have an eidetic memory (obviously), so I can't just flick through my notes and have in mind a detailed image of what I just saw so instead, I just reread over and over again each and every one of my resources. I then extrapolate the important bits of information (as I tend to overestimate how much I need to know during the information supplementation process) by writing/drawing/scribbling it down, in my own way. Basically, effective study is about getting into the habit of consistency and being able to actually dedicate time to properly focus on your work.
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This is definitely hard work as it requires a certain amount of patience, persistence and dedication, but if you put your mind to it, I'm sure you'll be fine. As per the opening image, "you're doing great!" Anyway, I do hope I haven't missed anything out in my "current study habits" section however, the only thing I really need to add is a link to this wonderful person, Emma, who has compiled a spectacular list of things one needs to know before starting school of any grade/kind.
Another point in which I must share with you is that if you find yourself in a bit of rut, which will be inevitable (and rather frequent for the matter), one way in which I deal with this is by having a warm shower. Odd, I know. But instead of trying to force myself into immediately approach the problem from a different angle, I allow myself to momentarily forget about it by moving on to something else. A lot of the times when I have a shower, I find myself ruminating on problems I've yet to overcome and suddenly come up with an alternate perspective or a seemingly out-of-the-blue resolution to the problem at hand. I don't know what it is about shower thoughts, but damn are they helpful.
If that doesn't work out for you, it's okay to ask around. After each lab session I have for physiology, I have to submit an accompanying worksheet by the end of the lab week. Despite it only being two pages long, the questions asked are often ambiguous or far too general and the content itself is rather difficult to understand so to remedy this, after exhausting all my resources (i.e. my own approach using what I know and my friends), only then will I email my tutor. I sometimes feel sorry for my tutor because I think I bombard him with questions but then I think, hey, it's his job!
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I know I said it before, but I want to say it again: study habits are completely unique to individuals. For instance, despite being a visual learner, I don't use mind maps or flash cards simply because I find them a waste of time (as I spend ages just trying to perfect the title as I'll 100% be writing it in a pretty font) and just not my cup of tea, whereas other visual learners may write amazing flash cards because they find it to be incredibly useful for them. I can't tell you how to study, however, I can inspire you to do so which, hopefully, this blog post has achieved.
It'll be a long, shitty process but being able to stick to the end will ensure that you will reap all of its benefits and ultimately, you'll hopefully achieve your BHAG.
Slowly dying inside so please wish me luck on the rest of semester and by extension, my end-of-year exams,
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