Sorry for not updating, it's been quite a while hasn't it? It's just that I've been rather busy settling into the new university semester, after three months of part-time study followed by a couple weeks of glorious freedom.
The first few weeks of university are usually an exciting, but also quite stressful time. Everybody starts off the new semester believing that they'll be able to get to all of their 8am lectures, that they'll take notes during every class, never fall behind, use the library like their home during their long breaks, right?
So here's some tips to stay motivated after the first few weeks of enthusiasm wear off:
1. Count how many lectures you have each week and divide them across days so they are easier to manage
For example, I personally have 4 subjects, which each have 3 lectures a week. This means that altogether, I have 12 lectures a week. Like most students, I'm going to assume that you don't have beautifully evenly spread lectures across your timetables; which means some days you get bogged down with the ridiculous amount of work and other days you have no work. To minimise this on/off variation, it's better to actually spread the work across days. For me, this means 2 lectures a day on weekdays, and 1 lecture a day on weekends. This is a much easier thing to do than trying to cover 5 lectures in one day (an extremely stressful task which will probably result in a half-assed job).
2. Learn how to say no
If you have an ugly timetable like I do, on some days you have breaks that can last up to 4 or 5 hours. During these, if you're as studious as you should be if you're trying to get into medicine or if you are going to do medicine, then you should create some kind of timetable to say when, or at least how long, you are going to go to the library during your break; and stick with it. Your friends might decide one day that they want to go to the city for lunch instead of staying on campus; learn how to say no, especially if you're already behind in lectures. That isn't to say that you can't socialize... it's more about knowing how much you should socialize, and sometimes limiting yourself. If your friends are like mine, lunch in the city leads to shopping in the city or pool or karaoke or who knows what else, which will end up eating up your entire break or possibly even eating into your lecture time (at which point you might decide to not even turn up to your lecture, which is definitely not the way you want to go).
3. Adjust lecture speeds with different lecturers
Some lecturers will speak at ridiculously fast rates, while others will speak so slowly that you fall asleep in between each word. Either way, if you have lecture recordings available, go through those lectures again (because it is unlikely that you will have absorbed information from both these types of lecturers). When doing so, speed up the slow guy using a program such as VLC, and utilise the pause button frequently when listening to the fast guy, so that you can write down important information (I wouldn't recommend slowing him down because slowed down audio sounds extremely distorted).
4. Study with friends
Studying with friends, if done right, is an extremely helpful way of learning. If you can get a bunch of friends together to act as a study group (NOT like the show Community, as amazing as that show is), then the group can quiz each other to consolidate their knowledge base. It is also helpful if your friends are studious, because their behaviour will definitely have a positive impact on your studies. If you're competitive, use it to your advantage; try to beat all of your friends in assessments and in GPA (don't tell them you're trying to do it though, or they might think you're over competitive or they may even begin to hate you). Even if you're not competitive, having friends with high GPAs will probably encourage you to achieve at least an adequate GPA (otherwise you risk looking like a fool).
That's all I can think of for now, I'll probably write some more when I can think of some. Feel free to reply or question me if you like.
