things I learned, habits I adapted going back to uni after a gap year
in 2020, I took the year off, mostly due to how my parents were worried about me attending classes in my old uni as one of the buildings we have our classes at is connected to the hospital and my brothers are at high risk with getting inflicted by covid. And the August of 2021, after a long debate with myself and family about going back to studying respiratory therapy, I have decided to continue on with my major in a different university.
There were several habits and routines I have adapted, going back to uni, some started from my gap year from studying Korean and a bit of Japanese and I kind of just want to share with you all the top 5 I've been doing up until now :)
i'm not very consistent with this one since i tend to prioritize this the least (exams, tasks, notes, advance) but as i was able to advance study during my gap year, it helped me a lot in becoming an active student in class. i used to be a very passive student, only reciting upon being called, but now i've been aiming for at least a recitation per class (+ points for someone who used to be extremely anxious with recitations)
2. taking notes during lectures
if you have noticed, i have several posts with a legal paper filled with barely understandable notes. those are actually the notes i take during lectures, and since majority of the things my professors share during class, though sometimes on a different topic, broadens our knowledge as they are related to their medical practices and are good to know notes for when i start practicing as a healthcare provider.
3. making notes after class, or within the week of the lecture
usually when there's not much to do, or there's still time left for the class after being dismissed, I like to make my notes at that time for the class I just had. i noticed doing this really helps with memory retention since (1) i heard the lecture, (2) took down additional lecture notes, (3) am now writing it by hand, (4) i'll be highlighting the notes I just made. with that, I have already repeated the topic 4x. though when I can't do it after the class or on the same day, I make it a point to make the notes as soon as I can, before exam week comes in since it's difficult for me to make 2-4 weeks worth of notes at just a week and I tend to forget a lot of things by then.
in short for this, ig, diligence and repetition is key for memory retention
4. taking note of professor's teaching style + how they give their quizzes and exams
this helped me a lot with gauging how extensive my studying should be for an upcoming quiz or exam. some won't need much time and you could just study with one reference or just what was taught during the lecture and some would need a lot of time to be studied, having several references for the quizzes and exams (just like in my fundamentals class, our prof includes things from the youtube videos we watch (that's why as of typing this post up, I'm taking a break from making notes and transcription for review) and he uses 3+ books as reference, mostly from just 2 books. whilst in microbiology, we can use our short and long quizzes as our primary reference for exams, which is easier to study)
5. do what you can do as early as you can
this helped me from a lot of stress this first semester. i actually started doing this during my first year, but i was very inconsistent, only really working on building this as a habit during second semester and since then, i've been napping all the free time i have :)
this one could quickly become toxic though. make sure you set a limit of what you do in a day. i usually do tasks as early as it's given and pass it once i'm done with it but there were times that i've just been sitting on my desk literally the whole day, sometimes forgetting to eat because i may or may not overdo some of my to do lists, hehe
well, i just thought i'd share something that might be helpful in discovering different ways to lessen stress and rest more, but at the same time being able to keep up with most of class tasks (or as a reminder if you forget to do these, because i do forget these kind of things often until i see my planner) before the year ends !!
happy holidays and wishing everyone a healthy and a prosperous 2022. enjoy the new year with your friends and loved ones but please don't forget to protect them and yourselves from the ever-so-frustrating covid-19. thank you for 2021, it's been a little bit more bearable than 2020 with this community and really good friends i was able to make through this platform 🤍💫
instagram | studytok | ko-fi
