hi, I’ll be a psych major next year, do you have any tips for studying? or do you have a masterpost where I can look for studying tips and such? thank you so much in advance!
I think I have a masterpost tag, but this is kind of hard to answer since I don’t know your specific classes. However, a lot of psych is learning different theories and concepts, so I’ve used flashcards in the past and also marking up textbooks (there are a lot of benefits to buying a used version, such as being able to mark it up). I actually don’t find taking notes as effective for psych for some reason, because I think it breaks up the flow of the reading/what I’m learning, but I typically do put together a study guide before a test.
For some reason, I’m very lucky that psychology is one subject that comes fairly easily to me, so I’ve actually found that simply reading the textbook is enough for me to understand -- but for people who need a little bit more (trust me, this is the only subject I have ever been able to read and internalize instantly), I definitely recommend rereading notes from lecture, making flashcards, reading the textbook, and making a study guide of all your notes. Most people don’t use the textbook unless absolutely necessary in college, or won’t bother buying it, but I will say that it’s come in handy many times when I either missed a class or my professor was extremely confusing. Sometimes my professor explains it better than the book, sometimes they don’t.
Another tip if you really feel proactive and your professor is teaching from the textbook: if you can, read the chapter the night before class! Skim it or only read the vocabulary/main concepts, but it’s a lot easier to follow along in lecture if you have a vague idea of what’s going on already. And it can be less overwhelming to learn new material if you can be like “wait I recognize that term!” even if you don’t totally understand it yet.
Hope that helps! If you ever have specific questions about classes I can definitely share my specific study methods for each subject :)