what, like it's hard?

melanie | 26 | usa // nyc | class of 2023 | she/her Established 03.21.16, Archived 2025 I follow back as staystrange I track #positivitystudies Mobile Links: [ main blog ]

[positivity-studies]

Hi everyone!

I am no longer a student (in fact, I haven't been a student in over two years - where did the time go?) so I am officially archiving this blog as of October 2025. I'm leaving the blog up as a bit of a time capsule of sorts for myself, but I will no longer be actively posting here.

If you'd like to keep in touch, feel free to follow me over at my main blog staystrange.

Thank you for all of the support you've all given me over the years : )

[staystrange]

hi everyone!! it’s been a very long time since i’ve been online here and i’ve really missed you all!! i had so many plans for all three of my blogs when i started grad school last fall and then i ended up working two jobs in addition to being a full-time student and haven’t had a real break in a long time and it turns out that’s really exhausting lol. i still have one more semester left but for now i’m on winter break and my schedule’s a little lighter so i want to try and add tumblr/fanfic/writing/reviewing back into my life again. it’s probably going to be a slow process so i don’t immediately burn myself out, but i’m looking forward to catching up on everything i’ve missed and creating some new content for y’all soon. feel free to let me know if there’s anything specific you want to see from me! as always, thanks for your patience - i hope you all are doing well and that you’re having a lovely holiday season, however you celebrate (or not) :)

[study-ela]

31.10.21

This week has been exhausting. First I had like 3 exams this week and I am just having time to breath. I gave myself a free day yesterday (30.10.21) and just enjoyed spending time with my grandparents and living the young adult life hahaha.

Today I just want to give you a reminder that, not everything is studying and if you are feeling like you can't anymore just take a break. It is ok to give yourself a study free day, and just enjoy watching TV shows, movies, reading, or doing whatever you enjoy doing.

[greyskystudies]

9/100 days of productivity ~ coffee and considering job applications [9/27/21]

[sapphic-poets-society]

~~Studyblr (Re)introduction~~

About me

Hi, you can call me Sapphoe, (after the Lesbian Greek poet- Sappho). My pronouns are they/them. I'm 19 y/o (24th May). I'm in First-year college doing a B.Tech in Computer Science (Hons.) with specialization in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

I've have this studyblr for more than an year now but i never did an Intro post so since im gonna be starting college this week, i figured i'd do one now.

My main Account is @fandom-ed and that is the one i'm gonna be following everyone from.

I will be tracking the tag #sapphstudies.

I also have a studygram by the same name.

Interests

COffee.

I love to draw and paint. my fav mediums are pencils, watercolor and digital.

I also play the Ukulele and Keyboard and sing a little.

im learning to skate at the moment with not much avail.

I am a baby witch. That means i'm learning witchraft.

I love making playlists. so you can expect fun playlists every now and then shared here.

i love literally all aesthetics and i keep switching between them. so if i ever post with inconsistence editing/vibes, that's the reason

About my Blog + What to expect

Sapphic-Poets-Society is a variation of the name of the movie Dead poets society which is one of my all time favourite movies.

i will post general study stuff

life updates

playlists

calligraphy/art quotes

wallpapers/templates etc

Notion updates

Updates about my Witchcraft

lots of coffee posts

and lots of follower interactions

My Study Buddies:

@studycore @cloud-kore @positivity-studies @acidaminophen @theorganisedkat @hyperchemblr @idlestudy @lou @sapphicstemstudies @vintage-lattes @multilingue @theoctoberscholar @apricitystudies @coffeecodeblr @un-interactive-introvert

[emmastudies]

Hi, I was wondering how you colour code your notes. Because your notes are gorgeous and I love the colors highlighting specific words or phrases.

Hello! Thank you so much. My colour coding system is:

Black for notes

Light blue for terms

Dark blue for names, businesses, legislation

Red for headings or subtitles

Light green for spare information, cases

Dark green for people’s names, quotes

Purple for reports

Pink for statistics

Orange for examples

I use this for highlighting as well! I try to only colour code the most important so I’m not wasting loads of time changing pens. Thank you again x

[emmastudies]

How to take notes from a textbook

Knowing what to and what not to write down from a textbook is a often an issue when studying. Should I include this or is that completely necessary? Hopefully these few tips will help anyone struggle to use their textbook!

Read the textbook prior to taking notes - This helps give you a solid understanding of the material so you can summarise and shorten your notes. Have a good understanding is great to help shorten your notes, since you can avoid copying the menial information.

Highlight some key points, terms and concepts before taking notes - Remember not to over-highlight, keep it brief and minimal; key words, facts, and statistics!

Have a colour coding system - This helps to visualise your notes when trying to memorise information and also makes your notes more effective material to learn from. Making sure you’re using the same colours for highlighting your textbook and writing your notes. My colour coding system can be found here.

Use the layout of the textbook to organise your notes - I found copying the headings and subheadings really helped simplify and ensure I was learning each section. It’s much easy to find information when you’re skimming through notes. This also ensures that you can remember what topic areas relate to others, meaning you can add more into your essays under exam conditions!

Include different ways to show the information - Use mindmaps, bullet points, graphs, flow chats, and post-it notes to help visualise the content. Breaking up your notes with graphics is a good way to avoid full pages of writing and great for memorising statistics or key elements of a topic.

Supplement your notes - Use other textbooks and your own research to expand the depth of your notes. This is highly important for subjects that can require evidence, statistics and evaluations. Making sure this information is embedded into your notes is great for writing essays.

Add your own personal touch - Add doodles, acronyms, and abbreviations to help your study. Little things that make important information unique and standout will help you recall it later!

Summarise each chapter - Make a final summary of each chapter using sticky notes or flash cards. Once you’ve read your textbook, you’ll have a collection of chapter summaries ready to study from.

Each of these tips have helped me recreate notes that are well-rounded and full of brief but useful information. I hope this information helps. Let me know if it does! 

[emmastudies]

Hi! Any advice for studying a different language? 🙂

Here are a few things that might help:

things to remember when learning a language

how to learn foreign languages

10 tips for studying a language

tips and tricks for learning a language

how to study languages in four easy steps

language learning: tips and resources

how to learn a new language

language learning masterpost

different ways to learn a language

I also made two language-specific printable packs which you can download for free which might be helpful! Xx

[emmastudies]

2 Free Language Study Printable Packs

I’ve been meaning to make this pack for ages but as someone who hasn’t learnt a language in years I was unsure on what would be best - but thanks to your suggestions I’ve made this 16-page pack with lots of things that you can use (as featured in the image) and an additional 8-page pack with blank headers for your customisation.

Some pages are similar but hopefully will cater to most languages and study methods :-) You can delete and duplicate the files once downloaded if there are some you don’t need! All 16 pages come in the single file, and the 8 pages in another - it may take a moment to load the preview of all pages, but once downloaded they will all appear. You can download it from the link below:

Download link here (to both packs)

You can see other free printables here :-)

I hope you enjoy using and customising these printables! If you upload a photo featuring it, I’d love to see. Please tag me on Tumblr with #emmastudies or on Instagram with @emmastudiess. You can see other people using my printables by visiting the #esprintables tag on my blog! Please remember, these printables are for personal use only and should not be redistributed as your own.

If you want to find more organisational printable and support me, please check out my Etsy shop with lots of downloads dedicated to students. You can use ‘student10′ to get 10% off any purchase! :-)

Other posts | Printables | Instagram | Youtube | Pinterest | Etsy Shop

[briellestudies]

college note taking 101: how i take notes and use them to study for exams

in lecture:

i like to take quick/shorthand notes because i think learning to discriminate between what is and isn’t important material is a good skill to have so i’m not drowning in useless information when it’s time to study for a midterm or final.

i like to bring my ipad and use the notability app. it’s easier for me to just carry an ipad mini and stylus than it is for me to lug around a heavy notebook/binder and several pens/pencils.

if the professor makes lecture slides available to students online (via a class website), i like to download them onto notability and annotate them as the professor goes along. that way, i can focus more on what the professor is saying and less on merely writing everything down.

if lecture slides aren’t available, i type out my notes as i find it faster than handwriting them.

at home:

once i’m home, i take out my ipad and copy down my lecture notes into a specified notebook for that class, explain everything more thoroughly, make them neater, and organize them in a way that makes more sense to me (as opposed to copying them down exactly as how they were presented in lecture).

i like to use lots of colors, highlighters, and etc. and make them as pretty as possible so i actually want to use them to study from in the future.

integrating reading notes:

normally, what professors will do is assign reading from a textbook and base their lectures around the reading (or have the reading be based on the lectures). usually exams/tests will rely mostly on what was said in lecture instead of in the reading and this is partly because they overlap so much. what the professor says in lecture, you should consider the “important points” in your reading. sometimes, though, there are things in the reading that seem important and weren’t mentioned in lecture.

what i’ll do if this is the case is take post-its, write the piece of information down, and stick the post-it in my notebook in the corresponding section (i.e. where it fits best with my notes)

i like this method as opposed to taking notes directly in my textbook or having a separate notebook for only reading notes because 1) i’ve consistently found that reading material is not as heavily focused on in tests as lecture material and 2) i like to have all of my information in one place

using my notes to study:

when an exam is coming up, what i like to do is take all of the information in my notebook and condense it into a study guide that i can use to study from.

the format of my study guide varies depending on the class and which type of study guide and method of studying i think will help me best. my study guides range from flash cards to mind maps to sheets of paper with a bunch of condensed information.

if i come across a concept on my study guide that i can’t completely explain to myself/don’t fully understand, that’s when i’ll look back in my notebook for a better and fuller explanation of it.

i also like to give myself some time before an exam to completely read through my notebook and look at all the notes i’ve taken (not just what i have on my study guide) because i think it’s a good refresher of all of the lecture and reading material and all of the information will be brought forward in my mind.

[* a few of you have asked me for a advice on note taking: how i take notes, methods i use, how i study from them, and etc. i hope this post was helpful to you! feel free to message me if you have any other questions. happy studying! ^_^]

[studylittleliongirl-blog]

*RIPS OFF SHIRT*

I AM A STUDYBLR AND I HATE TAKING NOTES.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN BE A STUDYBLR, HATE TAKING NOTES, AND ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS.

[hippocraticoats]

Oct 1, 2021

Hi friends, long time no see!

So much has happened since my last post - I moved to a new city and started med school! I’ve crammed so much learning into my brain, met lots of lovely people in my class, passed my first test, interviewed my first standardized patient, and had my first anatomy labs.

I’ve decided I want to get back into logging studying here because it’s really nice to look back on. So to keep me accountable, I’ve decided to try @myhoneststudyblr ‘s autumn studying challenge!

1st October - What is your favourite thing about autumn?

Summer is probably my favourite season so autumn can be a bit bittersweet, but I love crocheting & knitting under a cosy blanket, baking pumpkin & apple spice treats, and going for walks when the air is crisp, the sun is shining, and the leaves are changing colours

[academiix]

How I got a 4.0 first year in college | academiix

Watch the video version on Youtube. 

View my other tips and masterposts.

[positivity-studies]

[ 10 01 2021 ]

It’s honestly wild to me that over three weeks have passed since my first class of the semester - it feels like yesterday that I posted about preparing for my first day!! I basically spent every second of that time trudging through readings for class… I’m mostly kidding lol, I’ve gotten to do a lot of really fun things: • Saw Lauren Marcus live at my first age restricted-venue (I turned 21 in quarantine, so I haven’t had many opportunities for that yet) • Saw Waitress starring Sara Bareilles!! • Went to the Museum of Ice Cream and the Potions Bar with my friend for her birthday • Celebrated the reopening of Broadway at a weekend-long free event in Times Square (and may or may not have randomly seen JVN???) • Went to a show called Drunk Shakespeare for another friend’s birthday, which is exactly what it sounds like, and was an absolute blast (even completely sober - I can’t drink for medical reasons) As for my classes themselves, I’ve never been as excited to participate in class discussions as I am here in this program, and it’s honestly a really wonderful feeling. I have so many exciting things happening in October (starting as soon as tomorrow!! ahhhh!!), but first - time to get some homework done : )

Talk to y’all soon, sending good vibes and motivation!! These are photos of two of my planner weekly spreads from the last few weeks!! 

[positivity-studies]

i’m looking through my tag for my original posts and i’m laughing so hard at how many of them are like “i’m back!!!!” because i’ve had to write those posts so many times ghfjdk thank you all for putting up with me staying around : )

[positivity-studies]

[ 09 07 2021 ]

Hi everyone!! It’s been a while, and I’ve missed this community so much. A lot has happened since I was last here - I got into my top choice grad school, turned 22, finished my thesis project, graduated from undergrad, and moved to NYC!! I start classes for my masters program in Performing Arts Administration tomorrow, which is both terrifying and very exciting, especially because my classes are in person for the first time since March 2020 (everyone’s vaccinated at my university, and we still have to wear masks anyway). I had some reading to get done in preparation for my first class, so here’s a bit of my notes from that reading - it’s from a book about how to approach reading, writing, analysis, and research in grad school, hence the titles and categories. I’m not going to jinx myself by saying anything about how often I’ll be online here because every time I do, I never actually follow through on my promise. So instead I’ll just say, I’m excited for a fresh start in a new program at a new school, and I hope I’ll be able to bring some of that energy into my studyblr as well : )

I certainly have a lot to update in my blog bio, so maybe I’ll write a new intro post to reintroduce this blog as a gradblr?

Anyway, as always, please feel free to send me an ask about literally anything studyblr-related; I’m happy to help with anything I can : )

[myhoneststudyblr]

25|07|2021

☀️ Day 25 of My 2021 Summer Studying Challenge! ☀️

25th July - Daytime or nighttime – what’s your favourite time during summer?

can i kinda cheat and say evening? (this is my challenge anyway so i’m going to allow it lol) i think that’s because in the evening it’s cooled right down from the heat of the day so i like that. but you don’t have to sleep which usually i don’t like in the summer because it’s always still too warm to comfortably sleep at night