The new college year has recently started or it is about to start for most of us. Whether you are a freshman looking for advice on how to succeed in college or an older student who has set goals and resolutions for this year in college, I am here to offer some advices for success. However, if you have severe problems with studying, it might be more helpful for you to see a counsellor or any other advising person at your department.
First of all, it is important that you do something you like. If you like the topics covered in your courses, or at least the majority of them, you will become intrinsically motivated, which means you are learning for the sake of learning, rather than that you are learning to have a good grade on your final (= extrinsically motivated). However, if you have chosen a course you happen to strongly dislike for the bigger part of it, I would recommend to orient on switching majors or courses.
Academic rock is a new music genre that will be popular this fall. It includes the contents of textbooks as lyrics being put on the music of the hottest artists and bands. This way, studying your statistical formulas, anatomy, economical models or international treaties becomes much more fun. Okay, I initially meant this to be a joke with the title of today's post, but it has been said that singing the boring stuff to the melodies of your favourite songs actually helps you remember the stuff better.
And that was only the beginning of studying tips you may or may not have expected. Another one is to change locations while studying. According to experts, your brain matches the incoming information with the context and physical surroundings. The necessary variation can be created by switching between studying on your own and studying with friends; studying inside and outside; studying with or without background noises, and even by changing seats during lectures and other classes. So, do not take the same seat in the same wing in the same building every day.
As I told you before, I always have text markers in my pencil case. If you have them, why not use them? Marking the important lines in a text makes you read with more attention, so that you can mark the important sentences afterwards. Using a different colour for each subject will help you remember everything better.
Pretend you are the teacher and read your textbooks aloud. Also try to explain your subject matters in your own words. Many of my teachers have actually recommended this method, although I feel my throat getting strained when reading aloud too much. However, I do try to explain stuff in my own words if I am not sure I understood the paragraph and it makes the not-so-well-understood stuff simpler for me.
As with skin care, I can also recommend it here: living healthy! Call me a health-nut, but I really function much better if I sleep at least 8 hours per night; get enough vitamins and minerals, aka eat and drink healthy; do at least 30 minutes of moderate exercising (including moving to and from the lecture room), and go outside for the same amount of time. I also have the window of my room opened all day long if the weather allows it and since my desk is next to it, I catch a nice deal of fresh air, keeping my mind fresh. Feeling physically and mentally well is almost a condition that must be met before you can start studying well.
One of the more well-known advices is that you should not cram all studying for an exam into the one night before the exams. It is better to spread your studying sessions for an exam over a week (if possible) and to do one subject in the morning and another in the afternoon. In order to make this possible, it is important that you keep up with reading for your lectures and practical classes. Stick with the schedule your teacher hands out or make your own schedule; either way, it is necessary to make sure you do not have to read all stuff the night before your 9 AM final.
I think I have now mentioned the funniest and best tips. Feel free to comment if you have additional advices and tips, or if you have a funny experience with any of these tips. If you have actually written your statistical formulas or whatever on lyrics to a certain song, I love to read these! I am always fond of song parodies!
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