General Study Tips

Summary of General Study Tips 

Start of the Semester:

• Review syllabuses before classes start to understand course content and key dates.

• Create a master Google Calendar for class schedules, assignments, and exams, allowing flexibility for date changes.

Using Notebooks and Tablets:

• Use scrap notebooks for practice problems, especially for STEM and math-based courses.

• Consider using an iPad for taking notes and storing textbooks, making note-taking more efficient and lightening your backpack.

• Apps like OneNote allow organizing separate notebooks, and platforms like Bookshelves offer digital textbooks.

Managing Workload:

• As the semester progresses, the workload increases, so keep the calendar updated.

• Prioritize tasks by their importance and time consumption to balance workload and enjoy free time.

Final Exam and Project Preparation:

• Develop a study and project schedule two weeks before finals to prioritize work effectively.

• Use a general notes app for non-school-related tasks to avoid constant academic reminders during downtime.

Class Scheduling:

• Spread out difficult classes across semesters if possible to manage workload.

• Take lighter credit loads during semesters with challenging subjects like Calculus or Fluid Dynamics.

Exam Preparation:

• Know your weak points: Identify gaps in knowledge by reviewing homework mistakes or making summaries.

• If unsure of what you don't know, create a list based on homework errors and exam topics to start with the most challenging areas.

• Exams are often cumulative and weigh heavily on your final grade, so plan accordingly.

Understanding Professors:

• Get familiar with how professors set up exams, as some may include tricky or briefly covered topics.

• Learning how professors design exams comes with practice and experience.

Study Methods:

• For textbook-heavy courses, try reading before class, attending lectures, and completing homework.

• For those bad at reading, attending class, taking notes, and using YouTube for additional explanations may be more efficient.

• Practice solving problems by pausing videos and attempting solutions before reviewing the answers.

Non-STEM Courses:

• Vocabulary-heavy subjects may require methods like flashcards or Quizlet, cycling through content until mastery.

• Apply these strategies to classes like anatomy or history that involve memorization rather than problem-solving.

Consistency and Patience:

• Studying requires time and patience, particularly with practice problems in STEM courses.

General Study Tips 

Studying in college can be a burden and a big learning curve when you first start out. The workload is different from high school and it most certainly takes more time. Studying can be incredibly stressful as well and even more burdensome during midterms and finals week. 

Start of the Semester:

I will start with the start of the semester. I suggest before classes start looking and reading the syllabuses. This allows you to know what's in the class and the professor usually provides you with a class schedule. This is nice so then you can make a general plan of when assignments are due and when exams are. However, the schedule almost never stays on track. So, it's good to make a master Google Calendar for when your classes are and when assignments and exams are to plan your days. Google Calendar also allows you to edit dates and move things around very easily when the dates do change. The Calendar is there for you to get a feel for the semester. It will give you the general scope of the semester and prepare you for the bad weeks.

Using Notebooks and Tablets:

The next thing I recommend is to get a scrap notebook that you can use to do a ton of practice problems. This is what works best for STEM majors and other math-based classes. So, you will have your own in-class notebook and then another scrapbook for studying. If I were to do it over again, I would have an iPad for notes and then still use a scrap notebook for studying. The iPad will save you time in taking notes if there is an example problem, you can just take a photo of the problem statement and follow along with the professor. It does make for a lighter backpack too instead of having a big binder or multiple notebooks to carry. You could also use the iPad as your scrapbook. You can have separate notebooks in apps like OneNote. Also, college is moving to all online textbooks. They do this by using apps like bookshelves. Then you can either rent or buy the textbook in the app. So, it will be more beneficial for the use of an iPad or equivalent tablet in college than general notebooks.

Managing Workload:

As you get farther into the semester you will get increasingly comfortable with the classes but the workload will be more. To handle this, it will be important to keep your calendar up to date. But you should list your assignments and tasks in two categories. The most time-consuming and the most important. This will help you with vetting out what needs to get done and what can wait so you can still enjoy your free time.

Final Exam and Project Preparation:

Towards the end of the semester, there will be final projects and final exams all hitting you. So, it will be especially important to have a study and a project schedule made for two weeks before the end of finals week to use your time effectively. Starting with what is the biggest priority/what you know the least. But the project due date and exam date will affect when you work on the project and study as well. In turn, it's important to plan. Another app I recommend is just a general notes app on your phone for nonrelated school stuff. So, you don't get reminded of school when you're doing something else or spending the day off doing classwork. Since it's hard to escape school since there will always be something for you to work on or get better at. It won't be until the semester is fully over that you will not have things to do. Applying this early on will help you during finals week. 

Class Scheduling:

Another way to indirectly help your studying outcomes is how you load your class schedule. If you're able to spread the hard classes out more than all in one semester. That would be ideal and is something to think about. However, this cannot always be done. Especially if you don't come in with college credits. This is unfortunate and it sucks that college is not a fully clean slate like going into high school is. I would not suggest taking Calculus One in the first semester if you have not taken a good amount of trigonometry and algebra because you need all this in conjunction with learning Calculus. When you do take Calculus for the first time, I would suggest taking 14 to 16 credits that semester and not the full 18 credits. Since there will be a considerable time consumption on learning Calculus that semester. There are some other classes like this like fluid dynamics that you may want a little lighter class load to study smart and obtain the information you are learning. Since you will need to know this stuff again for the FE exam if you are an engineering major. It's better to just learn it right the first time. Instead of just getting by. 

Exam Preparation:

For some people it is easy for them to recognize what they don't know, others not so much. So, it is important to know where you fall on this scale because it will help streamline what the next step is to study. If you know what you don't know then start reviewing some of the notes and skimming through them and make a summary sheet of all the chapters in the exam. Like a compiled list and highlight the topics you don't know. But if you don't know what you don't know. This is a little bit harder and I suggest looking at what you did wrong on your homework assignments, making a list of that and then also making a list of everything on the exam. Then you should start with your biggest problem area and study that first. 

The theory of this is you're trying to average out everything so you can get a good score on all the aspects they could test you on. Since many times, the professor does. That's another big jump from High School. College many times also has cumulative finals on top of that as well. So, it is particularly important to have a plan with how you attack each exam and get the points you can outside of exams to help buffer you. Unfortunately, many times, especially later in college, homework is worth less and less and exams are worth almost all of the grade. Sometimes the final is worth 30% of your grade depending on the professor.

Understanding Professors:

Unfortunately, some of the studying is learning how the professor sets up his exam. So many times, if it is a new professor for you the first exam will be the hardest to study for. But also, usually has the easiest content. Also, a lot of professors will put in a problem that was just briefly covered in class to try and trip people up so it's important to at least study some of every topic. I had a professor put only the homework problems the class was the worst at so, again learn the professor. Another way you get better at exams is just seat time. The more exams you take the better you will be at exams.

Study Methods:

The way most professors suggest learning content in their courses is to start by reading the textbook on the chapters that will be covered in class then attending class and recalling what you have learned. From there you will then do homework assignments to fully cement the topics covered. Finally, you just do some studying before the exam to prepare yourself. Seems like an effective way to go about it. However, I did not do this and if you are bad at reading like me, I suggest a different method. 

My method is to start by just attending the class and taking notes so you know what is covered in the chapters. Then with the notes you do have and YouTube, you can figure your way through the homework. Worst case you can talk to classmates about how to go about the homework. Then once you have completed the assignments and the exam is coming up. I will go back and identify your weak points by making the list I said earlier. After this found someone on YouTube that can explain the topic. Which you should take notes on. Hopefully, they do example problems that you can fully write out. If not understand the basics of the topic from YouTube, then find problems that someone on the platform solves for more examples to study from. But do not just have them solve the problem and you take notes. Pause the video after writing the problem out and try to solve it. Do this a couple of times until you have it, then go about writing out and solving problems from your textbook until you feel comfortable with the material. Just keep repeating this for each topic you don't understand. 

Non-STEM Courses:

For me, it was more efficient and then it also provided comfort that I had a plan to figure out the material no matter how difficult the topic was. However, if you are not taking STEM-based courses. A different plan of attack may be in order. for the process of how to learn the material. If your class is very vocabulary-heavy or has a lot of different items you must remember instead of a method of solving a problem. Then exposing yourself earlier and a lot to the content in the class is the way to go. 

For example, if you're studying all the muscles in the human body and their function. First, I would make flashcards or a Quizlet of all the muscles. The cards or the Quizlet would have the name of the muscle on the front and the function on the back. Once done just keep cycling through them until you know all of them at a good pace. It is easier said than done. But keep in mind you can go through some of the cards as you walk to class or make dinner. Whenever and wherever you want. This will also work in history-type classes and many other classes that are not math-based.

This is why I think people think math-based classes are hard because studying is not as intuitive. But once you do it is easier than other types of classes. I remember having to take a class that was half vocabulary and half math based my junior year and the vocabulary was a struggle to study for. I didn't start early enough and it was an old way of studying that I left behind because everything I was doing in my degree was all math-based. But by the middle end of the class, I understood how to study both parts and I ended up with one of the best grades in the class. I did end up with the best grade in the final. I did this by using both methods I explained above. The last thing I would like to leave you with Is studying will take time but be patient and keep at the practice problems. Every piece of material is learnable. Lastly, if you want more content consider applying to the email list to get a reminder. I will be covering a lot of different topics and even example problems for math, science, and other subjects. 

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