25 Insanely Important Things I've Learned in College:
Download a computer application to block social networking while studying. I promise it will be one of the best decisions of your life – it’s amazing how long you can stay on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. A few that I know of are:
Date all notes, handouts, and etcetera. There are a few reasons I say this: 1) if you have a professor that’s terrible at taking attendance, you can prove your presence on whatever day you were marked absent. 2) You never know when you might have to go back and review a specific area of information. 3) If your papers somehow get jumbled up, it’s easier to put them back in order if they’re already labeled by date
Color Coding is KEY! It’s much easier to skim notes and sections in your textbook when you have the important parts highlighted. I also write my notes in different colors, have my books tabbed with specific colors, and write in my planner with specific colors. Anything the professor specifically points out that will be on the test or any important dates are red, questioned items that I feel I need to bring up in class or during office hours are blue, information that might be on the test that seems important is yellow, etc.
By all means, PAY ATTENTION TO THE SYLLABUS! One of my biggest self-taught lessons was this. Your syllabus is full of due dates, test dates, allowed number of absences, credit hour information, office hours, contact information – it’s IMPORTANT! Just think of it as an owner’s manual for your professor and their class, but instead of putting it in the junk drawer, read it!
If you’re going to procrastinate, productively procrastinate. Yes, there is such thing as productive procrastination. I don’t encourage procrastination, but we all do it! Go running, organize your desk and room, run errands, do something other than Pinterest for 2 hours, cook a bowl of Ramen, and take a nap.
GO TO CLASS! Even if it’s 8am, pouring down rain, you have a cold, and you were up until 2. You’re the little engine that could, baby, and you can do it!
Professors have office hours for a reason. You don’t pay all that money for school to fail – I promise that’s not their intentions. If you’re confused about something, have a question, or just need help, stop by! They’re always willing to work something out with you.
Sleep, Breakfast, Positive Attitude - GO! These are three extremely important things that you need for the rest of your life. Get your allotted amount of sleep every night if possible, eat your breakfast – not a Pop Tart, not a cereal bar, eat a good breakfast; and DEFINITELY have a positive attitude – even if everything sucks!
Do NOT get into credit card debt! You don’t need that 50” flat screen 3D television, you don’t need a brand new BMW with $800/month payments, and you don’t need to go out to eat or drinking every night and buy for everyone in your group or the bar. You need to work, buy a few things here and there and pay your bills on time, and put your money in savings. You’ll have enough school debt when you graduate, why add on?
On that note, have an emergency fund. Your fund should always have enough money in it that if you were out of a job for 2 months, you could still survive. If you only spend $500 a month on bills, groceries, transportation, and miscellaneous things, then you only need $1,000 in your savings account, but if you spend more like $5,000 a month – it’ll be more. Once you get your savings, don’t touch it. If anything add to it, but never take out unless it’s a dire emergency.
For you ladies: “High Heels & High Standards”. This applies to every aspect of life; high standards for men/women, high standards for your grades, high standards for your goals in life, high standards for the way you present yourself to others, etc. If you don’t like that saying, same concept but “Don’t settle for anything less than the best.”
Bribe yourself. Allot yourself small rewards for each completed task. I’ve seen people put gummy bears at the end of sections in books so when they read to that point, they can eat it. I’ve seen other people say “if I finish these two term papers by Friday, I get a new pair of shoes. If I finish by Thursday, I’m splurging on a whole outfit.” Whatever will work for you, stick to it!
Set specific times to read/answer emails, get on social networking sites, post things, edit pictures, etc. It’s important that these tasks don’t keep you busy for most of your day.
Create a tri-hierarchy task list. This meaning write down a list of your tasks for the day or week, order them by most important to least important, divide them by 3. Take a sticky note and write down the top 3. When those are done, go to the next 3. So on and so forth until they’re complete. The ones toward the bottom of the list aren’t as important, so if they have to transfer to the next day it’s okay.
Utilize your handy dandy planner! Write down anything that MUST be done today, any important dates your professors give, and important dates from any syllabus, etc. If you have a large planner like mine, I like to write my daily schedule down. Any classes I have get written down in their blocks, if my niece, nephew, godson, or younger cousins have events I want to attend, I write those down as well. The key to the schedule part is sticking to it. Sometimes it gets rough, but you have to remember to stick to your allotted times to get everything accomplished.
Along with number fifteen: Set a time every week to schedule and stick to it! You can’t stick to a nonexistent schedule. I take time every Friday to schedule out my next week and make sure everything is transferred from my planner to my calendar and my calendar to my planner and from my planner to my task list and my task list to my planner, so on and so forth. I take time to make sure everything matches up and is accurate and detailed.
Read, note, practice! Here are a few study tips all jumbled together: Write out everything you know you’ll be tested on. Divvy up studying into days or hours. A little at a time with breaks in between is a good routine. Make a study guide for the information and read over it and test yourself. Highlighters are your friend in all cases. Flash cards are extremely helpful, but can be tedious – struggle and suffer anyway, you’ll be thankful in the end. Review notes before and after class. Write down lecture notes in your own words so you’ll understand later. Make diagrams and doodles of situations being discussed if it’ll help. Cornell note-taking system – haven’t tried it, but I will! Reread your notes and color code. Spaced repetition will help! Take breaks! Study in places free of distraction. Keep a positive attitude. Outline and rewrite notes.
MOVE! Study in different places; it’s been proven to strengthen your memory of information. Exercise is good to lower stress and keep you healthy, also.
Green tea, meditation, yoga, aromatherapy, and music. Sometimes these things just relax us and help us. That’s okay – find your niche and enjoy it.I’m definitely a big supporter of all of these.
Get your homework done! I like to get all of my work done on Friday and Saturday if possible. These days I don’t have school and then Sunday I can go to church and relax before my busy week.
STAY ORGANIZED! I can’t think of anything worse than wanting to study and not having what I need or looking for a certain paper and seeming to not be able to find it. These things really push my buttons. My system includes my Franklin Covey Classic Size 7-hole refillable binder planner with 2-page-per-day inserts, notebooks of all different sizes, shapes, and papers, pads of paper, sticky nots, pens, highlighters, pencils, and binders. Everything is color-coded: The subject with the purple binder also has a purple notebook and purple sticky notes and all information jotted into my planner or highlighted in my planner for that subject is in purple. I keep a copy of my class schedule at the beginning of my planner. I have graph, lined, and black loose leaf and notebook paper. I keep various sized sketchbooks handy for doodling. Each subject binder has loose leaf paper, a corresponding notebook, and dividers that separate important notes, study guides, the course syllabus, outlines, etc.
Know your learning style. Are you visual? Auditory? Kinesthetic? This is important. By knowing how you learn, you can teach yourself how to study better. For example, I’m visual. I try to relate information to personal experiences, events, and pictures. It makes everything easier.
Read efficiently and strategically for fun, not just for school. Reading will help build your grammar skills, your ability to read, your vocabulary, and so much more. Find books you enjoy!
Learn to write well. This is an important skill to have that I still haven’t mastered. You’re going to need it for the next 1-900 years that you’re in school and working, so you might as well try to master it. The University of Richmond’s Writer’s Web and Purdue University’s OWL are great!
BUILD CONFIDENCE! You’re going to have to do public speaking, you’re going to talk to people that seem scary at first, and you’re going to have to do things without holding anyone’s hand. Get over it and believe in yourself! You’ve got this.
Here’s some more information might find useful:
Minute Physics on YouTube or Podcasts
Google “site: edu [subject] exam” EXAMPLE: site: edu psychology exam — it will bring up sample tests of your subject
iStudiezPro, Remember the Milk, Quizlet, DropBox, Planner Plus, and LoseIt are all great apps, but some may be Apple only
Courses: coursera.org, ureddit.com, udacity.com, edx.org
Language Learning: duolingo.com, memrise.com, bbc.co.uk/languages, livemocha.com, busuu.com, verbling.com
Video: khanacademy.org, TED.com, academicearth.org, unplugthetv.com, thenewboston.org/tutorials.php, youtube.com/user/CGPGrey
Books: gutenburg.org, librivox.org, bartleby.com, poemhunter.com
Programming: Code Academy, LearnCodeTheHardWay, HTML Dog, Trypython.org, RubyMonk, CodingBat
Music: JustinGuitar MusicTheory.net, Teoria.com
Documentaries: TopDocumentaryFilms.com, DocumenryHeaven.com
Random Knowledge: mentalfloss.com, fuckinghomepage.com, snopes, nowiknow.com, badassoftheweek.com, sparkle
Math: wolframalpha.com, projecteuler.net, mathrun.net
