Study Tips that Helped Me in College
It upsets me always seeing students so beyond stressed out about finals and other exams that they’re making themselves unwell mentally and physically, so I wanted to share my own personal study methods that got me through college with minimal stress and a 4.0 GPA, in the hopes that someone out there will benefit from it.
No method is guaranteed to work for everyone, but these are the things that have worked for me and might be worth a shot for others too.
Tip #1: TAKE GOOD NOTES—DON’T JUST HIGHLIGHT
Let me repeat that—DO NOT JUST HIGHLIGHT. Get your textbook. Get a piece of paper or a computer. As you’re reading the text, write/type your notes out in your own words.Good notes is truly where it starts if you want less stress at exam time. If you’re going to follow one tip in this post, make it this one.
Also, figure out a good method of note-taking that works for you. I used to do something like this:
I) Main Topic
A) Sub-Topic
1) Important Info
a) Details/Definition/Examples
b) Details/Definition/Examples
2) Important Info
3) Important Info
B) Sub-Topic
II) Main Topic
A) Sub-Topic
And here’s an example of some actual notes I took in college:
If you’re completely new to this method of note-taking, typing your notes might be a better option since you can go back and rearrange things until you get the hang of it.
My method wasn’t exact, but it helped me to make sure I understood everything, that everything was grouped together accordingly, and that I only had the important points written down (plus examples or details or direct quotes from the text as needed). And it made it easy to study later. Being able to study well starts with taking good, organized, comprehensive notes.
Tip #2: DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE NIGHT BEFORE YOUR EXAM TO START STUDYING
I’m sure you’ve heard that before, but I promise it’s good advice. As soon as class starts, every night, right before you go to sleep, read over your notes. You don’t need to read notes for every class every night. Maybe read the notes for Class A on Monday, for Class B on Tuesday, etc. And you don’t have to STUDY the notes and try to memorize things—just read them. That’s it. And then go to sleep. Because while you sleep, your brain consolidates information. So everything you just read will remain in your thoughts, getting committed to memory. Once exam time comes around, you might be surprised by how much you already know.
Tip #3: IF YOU PROCRASTINATED, USE MY MODIFIED CRAM METHOD
Let’s say you didn’t take my advice to start studying weeks before your exam. Now it’s the night before the exam, and you know NOTHING. That’s ok. I got you.
Divide your notes up into parts. Start by studying the first part. Get it memorized. Then go take a half hour nap. Wake up, read over your notes from the first part, make sure you do in fact have that memorized. If not, keep working on it. If so, move onto the next section of your notes. Memorize that. Take another half hour nap. Keep doing this until you’ve gotten through all the notes and think you have them all memorized. Then read through everything one last time, and go to sleep for real.
This method worked better for me than trying to cram all night long. I’m not sure if it’s because of the whole memory consolidation while you sleep thing, or if it’s just because this method allowed me to stay refreshed and give my brain little breaks, or it’s because it allowed my brain to process the information in smaller chunks, but it worked.
Tip #4: WRITE OUT THE ANSWERS TO ESSAY QUESTIONS
This tip only works if you know ahead of time what the essay questions will be. And here’s the tip: write/type out the answers. Multiple times. However many times you have to. Start by copying directly from your notes and work your way up to getting it memorized. Actually writing or typing out the information makes a big difference as opposed to just reading your notes or imagining the answer in your head. It always helped me absorb the information more.
Tip #5: TRY STUDYING WITH YOUR NOTES IN ORDER
You always hear advice to quiz yourself on things out of order so that you won’t get tripped up during a test when the questions are out of order. But my brain had this way of remembering where information was on the page, which page it was on, what other info it was near, etc. It wasn’t something I purposely remembered, but it turned out to be helpful. Sometimes, just by remembering where a certain piece of information was in my notes, I’d be able to remember the actual information. But do make sure to eventually study things out of order as well.
Tip #6: READ OVER YOUR NOTES RIGHT BEFORE THE EXAM
When you get to class, read over your notes one last time. Or, if there was anything you didn’t have the time to get to, read over that. You might not remember everything, but you’ll have a much higher chance of getting the answer right if you just saw it in your notes vs. if you’ve never even heard of the word.
TIP #7: FIGURE OUT WHAT WORKS FOR EACH CLASS
Every class is different and requires a different method and a different amount of effort. For some classes, you might not need to read the textbook at all if you take notes in class. For others, your teacher might be awful at teaching, and your time in class would be better spent studying for something else or just reading the textbook. For some classes, you might not need to study at all. For others, studying all night before the exam might actually be your best bet. It’s going to be different for every person and every class, and the best thing you can do is figure out what works best for your classes.
That’s all I got. That was how I got good grades on exams throughout high school and college without getting too stressed out. Again, the same things won’t work for everyone, but hopefully this will be helpful to someone out there!
