extremely extremely stressed about prelims 😔😞☹️

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@studious-capybara
extremely extremely stressed about prelims 😔😞☹️
And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed - incapable of doing anything.
Always remember to put the glass down.
Tips and Advice for University Freshmen
Hello everyone! I’m writing this as I’ve finally finished freshmen year and I thought I’d share some of the things that I wish I’d known before actually starting university. You do not have to follow the advice, this is just what I believe from my experiences during freshman year.
1. Your syllabus is your lifeline. For me, the syllabus is one of the most important things I receive from my professors because:
Your syllabus is likely to have reading/assignment schedule that you need to follow and you can transfer it into your calendar/ bullet journal on the first day and not worry every week about what it is you’re supposed to be doing for class.
It has policies the professor follows for things like tardiness and absences and this could literally make the difference in your grade. Every professor follows a different policy: some are okay with you missing three classes and some are anal about you being even 1 second late to class. (for example, I took a class with a professor that took off 5% of your final grade each time you were late).
It will have a breakdown of what your final grade includes and this can help you figure out what you need to prioritize working on, so for example, if your quizzes are only worth 5% while your presentation is worth 15%, you should definitely pay more attention to your presentation.
2. ALWAYS do your readings. I can not emphasize enough how important your readings are (despite what some upperclassmen might say). If you do your readings before class, you will feel more prepared for class and you will have a better idea of what the professor is talking about. It also means that you have a chance to ask extra questions about what you’ve read rather than trying to come up with ones while the professor is lecturing (sometimes it’s difficult to come up with questions when you’re being bombarded with information). The one major thing I would say is that when you do your readings you have a better grip on the material and it helps a lot when it comes to exams/essays; contrary to people who didn’t do their readings the first time and have to go back and do all of it again before the exam. It might suck to have to do 50 pages worth of /boring/ readings but it will be beneficial in the long term.
3. Use the resources available to you. Oh my god do I wish somebody made sure I did this. If your university offers something like a tuition/help center, GO WHENEVER YOU’RE STUCK. Use the books at your library or online databases you have access to. If your professors & TAs offer office hours, go speak to them whenever you have any questions. It might be scary but it will literally help so much plus it will help you make connections with people around you.
4. Ask about professors and courses. This is perhaps the most important thing on this list because it can make all the difference when it comes to your GPA. When you’re picking courses for your next semester, ask around about the best professors and courses if you’re looking for a challenging course or ask about easy A classes if you’re looking to keep your GPA up. You should also try to balance what courses you take each semester so that they’re not all super hard and they’re not all super easy (believe me, you will get bored and depressed if they are). If worse comes to worse and you’re stuck taking cores first few semesters-which is likely if you’re a freshman- then try your best to organize your time so that it doesn’t become stressful for you.
5. Speak to your academic dean/advisor. During your first week, you should try to visit your academic dean (if you have one) so that they can help you out. Here’s a list of things they can help you with:
They can help you make a graduation plan which is important if you want to take extra classes or if you have a minor you want to take etc.
They can transfer in your high school extra credit which can exempt you from some of the core requirements or count as extra free electives.
They can teach you how to use the university system if you’re confused when it comes to registering for classes and other administration stuff.
They can offer you support if you just want someone to talk to and/or ask for advice from.
6. You don’t have to join a club. This one might sound very peculiar but here’s my reasoning for this. If you want to make sure you do well in your first year academic-wise, it might be necessary for you not to overload your schedule with club work if you cant handle both at the same time. Club work is rewarding so I encourage you to join clubs when you can but it’s okay for you to get a better grip on how things work in your university first.
And that’s all I can come up with for now, if you have any specific questions, don’t hesitate to send me a message! Good luck to all you incoming freshmen.
My favourite motivation wallpapers. Stay strong. Study for yourself. Be brave
The 'No Excuses' Study System to Get That A
I School Days
1. Show up to class a little early. It’ll give you time to set up, read over some old notes, put your water bottle/thermos on your desk, fill out your planner if you couldn’t in the previous period(s), check your planner to see if you have something on that day etc.
2. Sit in the front or second row. I’m serious, you will definitely benefit. Write detailed class notes. Pick whatever system works for you. I usually write my titles in red pen, notes in black pen, underline points that are repeated/emphasised, highlight keywords at home
3. If you have time at school, do as much homework as you can. If you know you have commitments that day, please for the love of your education do your homework at lunch. I know you might feel awkward, but your friends will understand.
4. When you get home, first list down all the homework received that day on a q card (cross off as you go). Then write the same tasks in your bullet journal, but as a daily spread. Use stayfocusd or self control for mac + leave phone in a different room. FINISH ALL OF YOUR HOMEWORK. If for some reason you couldn’t complete a homework task, write it on a sticky note and place it on your wall. After homework is done, write your revision notes (flashcard the info as well). Place the notes in your accordion folder/binder. If you have some loose sheets at any point, place them in a ‘To Be Filed’ box. Sort that out when you’re packing your bag for the next day.
5. Go through the flashcards made that day and the flashcards made on the previous days. List out all assignments/assessments on another q card with their due dates. This will come in handy later.
6. Pack your bag the night before. Remember your accordion folder + make sure your ‘To Be Filed’ box is empty. Put water bottle in the fridge and make meals for the next day.
7. The next day, wake up early, complete any unfinished homework, go through flashcards again, read through revision notes, make lunch for the day, put laptop in bag, put food + water in bag, exercise (esp if you have commitments after school), shower, change, blah blah blah. Only do this if your schedule is packed, and in my case, this is a must.
II Weekends
1. On Friday nights, first off, do homework. You will thank yourself for it. Whip out that list of assessments/assignments and allocate half days to knock off at least two of these little assholes. Work ahead, you will feel much better.
2. Do your readings. For English, knock off some wider reading novels, for HSIE, knock off some textbook unit readings (two units ahead), for science, knock off some more textbook readings. Write summaries of each page. Type these summaries. Print these summaries. Place in accordion folder/binder. Flashcard the info. Spend like half a day doing this lmao.
3. Spend 1-2 hours going through the flashcards you made that week for each subject. This counts as studying my friend.
III Weekends When You Actually Have Assessments
1. Due to your working ahead, homework completion and readings, you shouldn’t be panicking too much. Get those revision notes and slot in the textbook readings notes. Highlight, annotate, read aloud, go through flashcards and get someone to test you on the content. Make sure you know all terms, formulae, key concepts, vocabulary etc etc
2. As for assignments, again due to your working ahead just print them out and heavily edit those little asshats. Then type the edits into the doc. Repeat this process four times. Then get someone to read it. Make sure all your assignments are on your USB + email them to yourself because you never fucking know tbh.
3. You’ll probs have to sacrifice your reading time but that’s chill because the teacher/prof will probably be focusing on prepping you for the actual assessment + you gotta do what you gotta do.
SUMMARY
Seriously, just do your homework the day you receive it, write revision notes, do your readings, write notes on those readings, make flashcards, knock out assignments as soon as you know they actually exist, read every wider reading novel (analyse these novels), read your required readings (analyse this too), go over flashcards every morning/afternoon, make use of spare time in class, do homework at lunch if needed, stick to your schedule, buy coffee/hot chocolate in the mornings and put it in a thermos, keep a necessities pouch in your bag, keep your P.E shoes in your locker, use a planner, track your spending, wash your hair, brush your hair, go to commitments, attend school events, attend events you’re invited to, go shopping, watch movies, be kind to yourself, take bubble baths, light candles, listen to music, SLEEP, get that A and most importantly be proud of yourself.
Some tips about how to get good grades without going crazy !
I wrote this article for a blog I had a few month ago. I figured it fits here, on my studyblr, so here it is :) !! I hope it helps !
Dealing with school, social life and sleep (and also eventually finding some time just for you) is not always easy - it’s the least we can say. I also, sometimes, struggle with it. However, now that I finished high school a few years ago, I think I got the trick on some stuff. Until today, I never failed an exam, but I did got better and worse grades, and better and worse state of mind depending on how I dealt with my time and classes. I thus decided to share my experience with you. Keep in mind that these are based on my life, my classes and that what works to me, may not be good for you. For the record, I’m in law school. I also have to mention I’m dealing with terrible attention issues, so maybe these tips are not relevant for people with a high attention-ratio.
Nb : our school system, in Belgium, is not at all the same than in the US. I have read a few “school advice” posts from american and english bloggers, and I figured these advices could nonetheless be useful ;-) )
1. Attending all the classes is not mandatory
I know almost everyone will tell you the opposite, but I disagree. Of course, if you have a good auditive memory, you should go to class. For the others, when you go to class but your mind is not there, or when the teacher just read the textbook…what is your presence in the classroom good for ? You would make a best use of your time working at your desk/the library, or drinking coffee (or something else) with your friends.
I say that out of experience : since have a low attention ratio, and it happens a lot that I drive all the way to the university for nothing, because I don’t pay attention at all to what the teacher says. It often happens that after 2 - 3 times, I notice that it will always be that way for one class, and that I actually have notes for this class, and then I decide simply not to go.
The tricky thing is that if you do that, you cannot let yourself forget this class actually exists. I always find a special time in my schedule to work on that specific class, and the thing is : since I know I’m not going there, I actually work better (because of the “stress”), and the only time I ended up with a bad grade for the classes I decided to miss was before I came up with that technique ;-P
2. Taking free-time to relax and have fun is mandatory
I know sometimes it is hard, and you feel guilty when you know you still have 3000 things to do and you decide to do something else instead, or you have “free time” you could spend studying, doing something “more” for a class and you just sit and watch stupid videos instead. Listen to me carefully : you shouldn’t feel guilty.
Classes can really soon become overwhelming. You sit in front of those hundreds of pages and you feel like you would actually need to sleep 2hours per night to get through all of this, so can you really think about doing something else than work-related stuff ?! The answer is yes. When you start seeing nothing else in your life than study-related stuff, it’s when you start hating school, feeling bad, and when you start doing always more, but not better. You should take free time, because…
1) it’s good for you, your health and your mind 2) you only have one life 3) you will come back to your classes with a fresh look at them 4) having less time will push you to make better decisions about how you study 5) if you don’t, things will always look worse, and you’ll have the feeling no matter what you give up, it’s never enough. The thing is : it’s already too much. You’re giving up on yourself.
For instance, I put two stops every single day. First, I never work after 9PM, even if I’m only half-way to the end of what I should have done (well, of course, if I only have half a page left, I’ll go on until 21h10 ;-)). The second stop is in the afternoon. Sometimes, I only have class on the morning, and I have nothing planned in the afternoon and a thousand things to achieve. Well, I always take a break at 3PM, until most of the time 4PM : I make myself a coffee and watch a tv-show or talk with a friend or do something else, totally unrelated with school. You can also go and meet with someone or do some shopping, but the thing is : I live in a little village with just one supermarket and almost only old people ;-) I go to school by car every day. So, it’s unfortunately not an option for me :-(. Sometimes, I take a whole day off - or a night off - and sometimes I work a lot for school, but I ALWAYS stick to the 9PM & 3PM rule.
3. Don’t try to get as comprehensive notes as you can. Try to get useful ones.
Trust me on this one : you definitely don’t want to end up with 300 pages long notes when there are 3 days left before the super big huge test you absolutely have to pass. Most certainly, you spent hours and hours of your time trying to make them as amazing as they can be : you do have all the dates, “important” details, the exact name of the person the teacher mentioned when he gave the example. Great. Maybe you could sell them as a textbook for people who will take this class next year (I actually did that). But the thing is : all the really important stuff is drawn in these pages, and you’ll have to get through them in 3 freaking days. It is a bad idea.
The thing is : don’t spend so much time trying to make outstanding notes, because you’ll end up using all your time making them and there will be no left to actually work the material. Instead of making comprehensive notes, make some which will actually help you get that good grade : small notes, with every important thing and some stuff to help you understand what was going on. Some details can be important, but not every tiny little things are. It is quite hard at the beginning, but ask yourself : if I had to summarize and explain this to a friend, would I talk about this ? If the answer is no, just don’t put it in your notes.
4. The mantra is : don’t learn the material by heart. Understand it.
This goes hand in hand with my previous advice. I personally am perfectly unable to learn stuff by heart, and sometimes it can become a real problem (when you have conditions to learn or stuff like that). It also kinda became something good as I was forced to learn another strategy pretty soon in my schooling, and I have seen that this is what works better in college. Please just don’t go through those pages without trying to understand what things you learn imply.
Always try to put it in a real-life example, to rewrite what you learn in your own words, to explain it to someone else and to ask yourself questions about what those things really mean (and if you don’t have the answer, ask to someone else). If there are exercises, try to do them or at least to see if you understand how it goes (and not just the day before the exam. Do that instead of looking for the date of birth of the woman from the example the teacher gave you in class ;-) - cf the previous advice). The thing is, once you understand the material, it is much easier to “study”. It goes faster. So if you think you’re losing time by doing this, you’re wrong. Thankfully, I was here to tell you that ! ;-)
5. Study the table of content of the course
Maybe not the one the teacher gave you, but another one you made yourself. Making a table of content is actually something that really helps me (I know if I remember what was going on under this entry or if I have to check it up), and studying it is the best advice I could give you : knowing which things were in which chapter is super important, but it goes beyond that…
1) It helps you when the teacher asks to compare two things 2) You can see brighter the differences between elements that can be easily mixed up 3) It is a big summarize of the course, so if you put enough sub-elements in the table of contents, it’s useful for a last-minute revision 4) The teachers like that you have a global vision of the entire course. Even if you studied “less” some of the chapters, you will always have something to say, so it won’t look like you didn’t give a crap about their class. 5) It actually already happened to me that a teacher asked a question to which the answer was actually a piece of the table of contents of his book…
6. Never ever compare yourself to others
It’s not because they work every single day and re-read the class that you also have to. It’s not because they have 300pages and you 250pages that your notes are worth. And it’s not because they have a rule of “never skipping a class” or “always reading the class ahead” that you also have to. It might be an inspiration - and then it’s ok. But you shouldn’t try to do exactly what others do without questioning yourself : “does it actually works for me ?” “am I not losing my time doing it ?”. We are all different. Don’t listen to a person saying their way of working is better than yours, because it’s bullshit. Do it your own way, you’ll make mistakes and you’ll learn from them.
Also, don’t compare your results to the ones other have had. Their life is not yours, and both your priorities are not the same. Maybe they just knew better the answer to that one question, or maybe they are really passionate, or they just spend their whole life studying. And if you are the one with better grades, please don’t be a show off. You’re not better than others just because of that. You can offer your help, but don’t make them feel bad or stupid.
Of course, all the other tips you can find on the internet are good (make a study schedule, keep track with to do lists, study on a regular basis, keep your workspace neat - this one is actually one I really struggle with ;-) - take a look at the syllabus, etc etc. I tried to give you advices I don’t think I see enough on the net, based on my reality rather than on some ideal situation in which your days are 48hours long :-P ! I might, someday, make a post about how I schedule my time because it’s something I like to talk about, and maybe another one about how I work on a daily basis. If you’re interested in reading about it, let me know, I’d be glad to help ! :-)
these are +A tips - the foundation is understanding and being present in your education, not learning like a mindless robot!
1:39 AM | April 3, 2016
Not really a productive day but I already started with my Economics notes :) The I’d have to review German for tomorrow because I’m already so behind in class.
You never lose
A quick picture of my math notes from last week!
a past week’s spread.
APRIL 16TH 2016 • finished an essay!!!! All thanks to the ‘Forest’ app! Hehe I have a lovely tree garden because of my productivity & I feel really motivated to complete the last remaining essay way before the end of semester 💭✍🏼
eleven little self care tips for students
Get enough sleep. Your brain needs it. Set yourself a ‘bed time’ and fall into the routine of going to bed and waking up at the same times each day.
Drink water and lots of it. Aim for 2 litres a day. This one’s easy, you can do it. Ditch the juices and carbonated beverages, just add a slice of lemon to your water if you feel like something fancy.
Allow yourself to switch off. Don’t be afraid to read books that have nothing to do with your studies. Go to the cinema. Work out. Take your mind away from your workload.
Take care of your skin. Wash your face every morning and night. Moisturise after every shower and bath. Don’t go to bed with your make-up on, no matter how tired you are.
Talk to your friends and family about something other than school. Don’t let your studies detach you from the things going on around you.
Work out. Even just once a week, or whenever you can. Go for a walk or a run, maybe just for 15 minutes. Follow along with a YouTube exercise video from the comfort of your own home or try out some yoga moves.
Make time for your hobbies. Studying is your full time job, but there’s plenty of hours left in the day. Don’t neglect the things you love.
Cook. Sometimes all we have time for is microwave noodles, but don’t fall into the habit of relying on the basics. You’ll feel the difference.
Don’t forget to laugh. Watch a hilarious film. See a comedian at a local venue. Watch funny videos on YouTube. Reminisce with friends. It’ll do you good.
Ditch the caffeine. Don’t rely on Starbucks. It’s delicious but you don’t need it. Save up all the money you’d usually spend on coffee and treat yourself to something instead.
Make your bed every morning. You’ll be grateful at the end of a long day when you can get into a cosy bed that doesn’t look like you just rolled out of it.
take care of yourself today and every day :)
hoping my new desk will make homework a little more enjoyable 💭
18 / 100 /// took two pictures today because i really love my shirt with the emoticons on it. and it’s a rare sunny day, and i just love the lighting in the stairs.
scheduled my reading in my planner with unrealistic times, but this is what happens when you don’t read the syllabus and find out the book makes so much sense and you have a midterm tomorrow, so yes, it’s “study micro like there’s no tomorrow”
4•3 Started the day right and ended up in muji. It’s my only day off this week and I’m so tired….and grumpy. Need to plan a project I’m behind on, do my laundry and then sleep forever.
that’s my work space, you can find: a lot of plants, some hand made boxes, succulent shaped candles, my kindle paperwhite, an ikea alarm clock, winsor & newton watercolors, my moleskine and my pencil case.
that’s what happens when you put your desk next to your library.