Jan 15, 2025
that academic journal article you're reading for research or a class was most likely ghostwritten by an underpaid grad student. btw
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that academic journal article you're reading for research or a class was most likely ghostwritten by an underpaid grad student. btw
some things i’ve learned while studying in quarantine
drink more water instead of more coffee.
weekly goals are bullshit. set yourself 3-day goals. you’ll be less laid-back.
don’t just mindlessly stare at words. before you start studying, know your approach to it. have a plan.
summarizing the concept in your own words is the key part of taking notes. don’t just copy things down, convert them into your own way of talking, your own vocabulary, no matter how dumb and unprofessional it sounds.
don’t let the “studyblr aesthetic” fool you. studying doesn’t have to be pretty. summaries and notes can be messy as long as they’re comprehensible. you can always rewrite and reorganize them later. (honestly, you better do. and you better keep them.)
don’t throw away the papers you’ve solved your problems in. staple them to the fucking textbook. you need to see them constantly. cause you’ll need reminders of how far you’ve came, when you’re feeling discouraged.
don’t be an armchair analyst for your issues. if you have an idea then act on it.
remember: the exact point where it becomes difficult, is where your growth begins. take a deep breath, and try to focus on the paragraph in front of you.
get off your high horse and understand that if you’re a zero, you won’t go to 100 in a couple of days. first, you’ll need to reach 30, then from 30 to 60, and then from 60 to 90. nobody is 100 everyday. that happens very rarely.
you need to have fun everyday. you need to have peaceful time every single day. even on exam night. especially on exam night, actually. so make sure you’ve studied enough so you can have some time to yourself.
once you’re on a roll and in need of some challenge to stay on track, start writing down your studying hours. tell yourself you’re not allowed to do less than 80% of what you did yesterday. whatever the hell it was, even just one hour. so if yesterday you really studied for like, say 8 hours, today your goal is to study for at least 6 and a half hours. if you can’t keep up with that, make it 70%, or 60%.
be forgiving of yourself. be kind to yourself. even if you bounced back and lost your streak. start again. as slowly as you did before. take your time. it’s okay, you were there once you can get there again.
sunday, august 16th, 2020 - day 13/100
little page of notes before dinner~
In history theses and dissertations there's this thing where your advisor comes at you at the eleventh hour to demand a bunch of elaboration and clarification which pushes you past your breaking point. At which point you fall into a mindset of malicious compliance pendanticness and produce what I call "evil footnotes"
academia things that genuinely make me happy
large textbooks filled with extra papers which hold the answers to the problems you thought were too brilliant to be thrown away, or the simple short summary of a part you were struggling to understand before
having your textbook absolutely ruined by highlighters and sticky notes all over it, those little tips and ideas you picked up from the lesson. anyone who opens that book immediately knows that you’ve studied the crap out of it and know the concept by heart. “this is the most annotated book i’ve ever seen” is literally the highest form of compliment for me.
solving math or chemistry problems to a soundtrack album or ambient sounds, extra points if it’s in afternoon lol
when you’re so focused and keen on getting to the final answer that your hand physically can’t keep up with your eagerness so you end up with the most incoherent solution. but you’ve finally got the answer right!
being self-taught in a subject or a few chapters of the textbook, and still smashing the quizzes and the exams
coming up with a new solution to the problem, or seeing the problem from a new perspective, and finally being able to solve it because of just that.
confidently walking out of the exam room. 0 doubt in your mind that you crushed it!
actually feeling how you’ve grown academically, and how much more knowledgeable you are compared to the beginning of the semester
casually and confidently having conversations with a professor about your studies, exchanging ideas and discussing the existing theories, methods, on-going research and all
all of this is everything i want in life- god
cute lil study tip
i think your main goal for making a study plan, or any kind of productivity plan really, should be “how much can i do to be proud of myself”. that’s all. don’t stop until you’re proud of yourself.
i practiced math for only about an hour today. i was in a shit mood. that was all i could do today. i could do math for 3-4 hours on my better days, but today wasn’t one of them, and that’s okay. but i am proud that i did an hour of math, despite feeling really fucking down. i didn’t abandon my studies, i still made that tiny bit of progress that i’m sure is gonna pay off later.
you don’t need an 8-hour study plan, you need a plan that is considerate and in touch with your mental state and the capability of it at this moment. i may need to push and try not to give up until i feel content with the day’s progress, cause i definitely don’t wanna feel like a total failure when i’m trying to sleep at night.
thinking about unfollowing the academia hashtags cause all y’all wanna do is thirst after classic lit and brag about listening to classical music (looking at you, dark academia). it’s becoming less and less about academia and more about strolling the halls of your ancient imaginary university. not to mention that there is little to no recognition or appreciation for math, chemistry, biology, physics, pharmacology, medicine, toxicology, virology, physiology, anatomy, genetics, and basically anything that doesn’t involve jerking off some random yearning-for-my-lover-uwu 19th century poet. scientific academia basically doesn’t exist on tumblr.
y’all are boring. and don’t really wanna study. just like the aesthetic of it. that’s all.