At this point in the semester you might be starting to notice that the study habits you carried over from high school might not be as effective as they once were. This could be signified by a decrease in the grades you once had, finding yourself not knowing where to even start studying, or a general feeling of being overwhelmed. If this is you, then I implore you to keep reading for Kaleb Atkinson’s Top 5 Study Tips for Academic Success.

1. Recognize That College is HARD!!

For me, this was the hardest step. I’ll be the first to tell you that the adjustment from high school to college was rough. I came into Centenary thinking that it would be a breeze, just like highschool. I could not have been more wrong. However, instead of trying to buckle down I just suffered in silence. I refused to be the one to admit that college was actually hard and that I was actually having to struggle to understand the things in my classes. It wasn’t until I talked to my friends, professors, and Learning Commons mentors that I realized everyone was having the same issue. I could have saved myself weeks of meaningless struggles if I had just admitted to myself that college was hard, and that I needed to ask for help. 

2. Find Your Study Niche

Another common problem that I faced during the early days of college stemmed from not knowing when to study, or what to study at what time. I would get so caught up in going to classes and trying to do everything at once that I ended up spinning my wheels and accomplishing nothing. I wouldn’t realize I had study time until it suddenly appeared in my lap and, having not planned for it, I would waste this time on trivial things. I thought I was being productive, only to find that I had spent 2 hours staring at old pictures in the choir room while my TREK readings sat neglected and cellular respiration remained unstudied. After a couple disappointing quiz grades and unsuccessful discussion posts, I had to turn to scheduling to solve my issue. I had to make an exhaustive schedule of everything I was doing from 8 A.M. to 11 P.M. I would input classes, when I would be studying, what I wanted to study during those times, and, whenever I could afford it, social time. I took this schedule as law, even going so far as to send it to my friends so that they knew when to approach me to hangout. This worked for me, but might not work for you. If scheduling to this degree is something you find heinous, maybe the next tip will be your best friend. 

3. List It, Don’t Miss It

Upon discovering that my friends thought it was insane that I scheduled everything out, I asked what they did instead. They gave varying answers of “I just remember it” to “If it isn’t important enough to stand out then it isn’t important enough to do,” but the most memorable answer recommended a list. Upon further inspection, what is a list but a schedule without dedicated times? It still had everything I needed/wanted to do, but it was less daunting than looking at a full week’s tasks all at once. I tried this a couple of times, and discovered something even more intriguing. By using a list, I was getting more done and felt more motivated to continue working. I was able to physically see the fruits of my labor in a way that offered instant gratification: crossing them off. With each item that I crossed off, I got more excited, seeking the next thing to do. Instead of dreading what was coming next in my schedule, I was actually happy to be doing something, the tiny bursts of serotonin fueling me throughout the day. The schedule helped me stay on top of when I had time to do things, and the list kept me motivated to continue doing things. By combining both of these techniques I was able to reclaim several hours of time I would have otherwise considered lost or wasted. 

4. Take Good Notes

The fundamental step behind every single tip above is taking good notes. You can’t study effectively if your notes aren’t well organized and, if they aren’t, then your studying probably isn’t as effective as you think it is. My first notes in college were absolutely horrendous. I walked to class with 1 pencil, 1 notebook, and no idea what I was getting myself into. I started taking notes in this long, block format, no space breaks, no formatting, just one continuous thought straight down the page. I felt like I was taking great notes. I was getting all of the information down and I wasn’t missing a single slide that we went through. Little did I know that trying to go back and study my notes in this format would be one of the most torturous things I’ve ever had to do. Everything was the same color, and the only dimension was square. The letters blended together, the information made no sense, and I ended up forgetting everything about the subject. In fact, the only reason I remember even taking these notes is because they were so awful to work through. I quickly figured out that a better way to take notes, at least for me, is to use different colored pens throughout the lecture, switching colors as we swapped topics. For me, the colors had no significant meaning and only represented that a topic change was occurring, but for others each color held a different meaning. Red for definitions, yellow for formulas, green for concepts, and blue for exam questions. The possibilities are as endless as your own imagination, you just need to know what works for you.  

5. Know Yourself

You never truly know how to study until you know yourself as a person. For instance, I know that I can make it through 45 pages of Biology notes in about an hour, but reading 45 pages for my Literature class will take me closer to an hour and a half. Some of my peers read faster than I do, but take longer to decode their notes that they took. In order for me to schedule my time appropriately, study effectively, and be successful I had to take some time and truly discover who I was as a student. Yes, this meant timing myself as I studied for this class and did homework for another, but pretty soon I was able to see what subjects took me the longest, how much mental energy I had to dedicate to those subjects, and how to best layout my day to the most effective that I could. Often, this meant doing my Chemistry homework (which took most of my energy for the day), taking a 30 minute nap to recharge, and then jumping into studying for Biology or reading for TREK. This skill wasn’t earned easily, but was instead a culmination of everything that I had been doing all semester (IE I didn’t figure it out until the 4th or 5th week of classes). Learning to study takes time, and, ironically, studying about studying. I had to study other people in order to learn how I wanted to study, and even then I had to mix and match habits until I found the way that worked for me. Not everyone will study in the same way, and that’s okay. Everyone is a different person and, as such, will have different things that work for them.

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