Study Tips

I’ll never forget my first college Literature class. I thought it would be like the classes I had in high school and early grades. I imagined there would be a few short stories collected in an anthology. So when I got the reading list full of individual novels from the college bookstore, I didn’t worry too much. I decided we would probably use a chapter or two for each. It seemed wasteful for me to buy a whole book for that, but I didn’t complain.  When the professor said on Monday, “On Friday we will discuss the first novel” I raised my hand like any good student and asked, “Which chapters?”  Boy did my world fall apart when he replied, “All of them.”  I realized to get my degree not only was I going to have to do a lot of reading, I was going to have to do it fast.  It was in that class that I learned the key to speed reading.

Speed reading for your degree course will be one of the most helpful things you can do.  It’s not a hard skill to pick up. It’s just a matter of training your eyes.  First, you must read by sight alone. If you have the habit of saying words softly as you read, you’ll have to learn not to do that. Speech takes more time than sight.  Your eyes should be able to recognize words as pictures and pick up their meaning very quickly.  The next technique is sight portion.  Don’t just look at each word and go to the next. Scan one sentence at a time and recognize the important words. You don’t need to pick up all the “ands, ifs or haves” just pick up the major words and thoughts in the sentence.

 The final technique involves eye sweep. When going across the page, your eyes will come to the end of the reading line. If you “sweep” your eyes back across the page to the next line, they will pick up stray words from all over the page and the message will become confused.  When reading for your college degree course, you will want to get thoughts, not jumbled messages you can’t remember.  Better is to learn that when you finish with one sentence your eyes will automatically start and at the beginning of the next line. This will keep the message clear and the process flowing.

Trained eyes know how to pick up word meanings automatically. As you learn to skip the surroundings and pick out important words then reduce your eye sweep so they become clear thoughts your reading speed will increase. There will be a time for lazy summer days looking at every word of a book for pleasure. You can read like that after you get your college degree.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people will say, “I don’t like to read.”  My first thought, that I am usually lucky enough to stop before it comes out of my mouth is, “then how did you get through college?”  College degrees are nothing but classes made of subjects made of reading.  Even the math classes involve some amount of text comprehension.  Reading for a degree course isn’t an option. It’s a requirement.  For each type of subject there are different types of reading that can be used.

College classes with high volumes of textual reading (from text books) can best be served by speed reading.  Speed reading is the art of controlling your eyes in such a way they pick up more of the content without spending time on the nuances of writing such as the articles or adverbs.  Speed reading trains you eyes to skim over material picking out important words and leaving the rest behind.  For history book chapters or long essays on philosophy, speed reading is best.

Critical reading is much slower. It takes every word, setting and phrase into account to make more meaning about the text being read.  Critical reading will be used in most of your upper division courses you take getting your degree. Classes involving poetry, case studies, statistics or analysis of any kind will likely require critical readings.

Comprehensive reading means you take in the whole text and use it to understand the whole of what you’re reading.  A comprehensive ready doesn’t get just the facts like a speed reader and doesn’t have to know all the why’s like a critical reader. A comprehensive reader just takes in all the material at face value and creates an understanding from it.  Classes where you read novels, theories or instructional documents are a good place for comprehensive reading.

In the in course of obtaining a full college degree, you will do many types of reading for different classes and when its all done and your diploma is framed on your wall, then you can go back to your life as you knew where reading was for pleasure and only something you wanted to do.

I love reading. I read Stephen King stories, Margaret Atwood novels, and of course, Harry Potter books with great passion. I can shoot through one of those things in a weekend. When I was in college reading wasn’t always so fun. I enjoyed Modern Literature when I got to read Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, but really got bogged down about halfway through The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is tragic because the Roman Empire was a really cool topic. Key to my ability to get a degree was the ability to learn to read quickly and move forward through information.

The hard part about reading for a degree course is the fact that you aren’t reading what you choose; you are reading what they choose. There are some good survival skills you can use to get through the longer tomes of assigned reading faster. Skimming is one way to get through it. If you know the material somewhat you can always skim the chapter, which means to a surface reading picking out just a few important ideas or phrases. Some textbooks are written for skimmers and put the important ideas like vocabulary words or key thoughts in bold on the page or in a list at the end of the chapter called, “key concepts”. Remember, skimming won’t give you detailed information but will should give you enough of an overview to participate in your class discussion.

Another reading technique is headlining. Many textbooks for college courses write their information in short paragraphs with headlines about each section that describes the next few paragraphs. Read the headline and the first paragraph of each section where the topic sentence is usually located. If you feel you understand the concept and facts well enough, then go to the next section. Again, like skimming it might not tell you everything you need to know, but it will prepare you with enough background material to know what people are talking about when the discussion gets started.

Reading for pleasure is a fun and life-giving activity. Reading for grades is not, but it is a necessary part of your educational journey.

I have a reasonably good memory. At least, I think I do until I want to remember something specific or need to remember something under pressure, and then my crystal clear recall fades into a blurry sorta-half-right-kinda remembrance that does no good for anyone else and makes me look like I’ve had too much sugar for one day. The only way for me to survive college and get good grades was to develop a keen system of note taking. No matter how carefully you listen in class or review a text, note taking will help you get the most of your lessons and achieve good grades in your college degree program.

When note taking for a degree course, write the class, date, and topic of the lecture on the top of the page. If the lecture corresponds with a chapter in the book, then write that in the top corner also. When its time to study and you want to look up information the top of your pages will become a handy index to locate the quote or fact you are looking to find. After the header, write down anything your professor writes down, particularly if it’s a date, chart or statistics. Professors don’t usually write something out unless they want you to know it. Write down any specific phrase or idea that is a main point of the lecture. Finally, if the professor mentions a page or paragraph in the textbook make a note of it as well to review of any exams that may contain it. The best rule of note taking for a college degree class is: if it’s important to the professor, it’s important to you.

Note taking from a text is a different kind of system. Many people simply highlight their book or write notes in the margins. The problem with that is when you need quick access to the information; you end up thumbing through the book to find it. A better way is to get a small notebook that goes with your textbook. When you highlight, write down the page number and topic or item you pointed out. That will help you locate the information in a timely manner.

We know that writing reinforces memory, and while you’re pursuing your college degree a good memory and a great set of notes can be your best friends.

For most young nerds like me, high school was a magical time. I watched a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek re-runs, played on the chess team and spent my time hanging out with friends and hastily turning in assignments that got me good enough grades to stay out of trouble and earn me more movie privileges.  I didn’t have to study, and I didn’t have to worry.  Then I went to college and boy was I in for a shock.  My professor didn’t care if I had a chess tournament or I was watching a Twilight Zone marathon. He didn’t even care that I had 4 other classes.  My nerdish glasses and reputation were not earning me any points and I discovered my only hope of surviving long enough to get a college degree was improving my study skills.

Study skills are conscious decisions you make about your time, your homework and your attitude. Improving them means first taking stock of where you lack discipline or ability. Look at the subjects you are taking in the term. Is there one that is harder or requires more work? Put it at the top of the list of things to do so you can devote as much time to it as possible. If you are bad in math but good with language, do your math homework first and double check it. Language will wait for you.  Set aside a schedule of work and play. If you know you have a paper do on Friday, spend one to two hours a day on it Monday through Friday so nothing overwhelms you. That also helps if you get deep into a topic and discover it will require more time than you had planned.  There’s nothing worse for your grades than to discover at 3:00 AM the night before it’s due that you need a lot more research. 

Part of the habit change that comes with getting a college degree is learning to discern what is most important. A chapter must be read before a report can be written. You have to put the information in your head before you can refresh it before the test. In other words, cramming words and phrases in your short-term memory thirty minutes before the test is not good enough and really doesn’t work.  Improving your study skills is a matter of setting your priorities and following through with them. Remember, study hard for your test on Thursday morning, and you can then watch Star Wars without worry all Friday night.

I grew up hearing the expression, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” But the reverse is also true. “All play and no work makes Jack unemployed.” Since the whole point of getting a college degree in part is to get a lifework that is fulfilling to you, its fitting that college teaches you how to balance leisure and study. The key to that is really about perspective. College is a time for both leisure and study. To balance that time is critical to getting your degree.

When we look back at our time in school we aren’t just filling time or getting a college degree. We are making memories. Leisure activities help us to do that. We can spend time with friends, go to sporting events, dance or make music and keep those memories as part of the treasured collection of our experiences in college. We also need to study, to learn the skills, ideas and habits to help us in our future. In college, going to class is where we receive information. It’s the act of studying afterward where we really learn it and learn how to use it. Each is important in the balance of a healthy life.

Perspective is the best way to balance leisure and study. First, know what you need to learn and what time frame you need to learn it in. If you have 3 days to read a chapter, get it out of the way. For every hour of reading, promise yourself an hour of play at another time. It’s sort of like investing. For an hour of college work, you get an hour later of play. Use the weekends or time in between assignments to cash in those play hours. It’s best in college to put the study hours in first. Somehow, when we measure life by the leisure hours, it’s too easy for the study ones to stay in the bank!

The goal of college is to get the degree. But with a perspective that recognizes study is important but needs to be balanced with times of leisure, you can have both work and play and get your college degree along the way.

There is a famous Chinese saying about when the journey of a thousand miles begins. For me it begins when I start complaining about having to get out of bed. I am a creature of comfort. I like my food hot, my coffee fast and my work load to be light. Imagine what a shock it was when I entered college and saw the required reading list, including summer texts.  It seemed like my thousand miles just added 3000 more steps.  Managing the reading required for a degree course makes all the difference between having a rewarding college experience or making the hardest walk of your life.

College degrees require a high volume of reading in almost every class. Professors do not care if you have 4 or 5 classes. Their job is to see that you learn what you are required to in their class.  The volume of the assignments and variety of reading required will make you an accomplished juggler in no time.  First get the syllabus from each of your professors and write down on a calendar when things are due. The soonest due gets the highest priority.  If you have a novel to read, look at the number of chapters and split it evenly between the numbers of days until the day before it has to be finished (that way you get an extra day in case of emergency). If you get absorbed in the novel (it could happen) you can read over your allotment, but if it’s a struggle at least you get it done.

For each day’s required reading, put the hardest reading first. Anything that requires strong concentration and critical reading should be your first thing to tackle in your study session. Material you are going to speed read or skim can go last because you won’t need that much concentrative energy to go through it.  Finally, after a reading break to clear your head, review any class notes or related material. That will make your reading time more efficient.

No matter how much you whine, the ancient wisdom is still correct. The journey through your required reading begins when you open the book.

Realizing that being in dorm rooms with 3 other girls was not always conducive to good study habits or quiet time; my college had placed study areas all over the university grounds.  There where study carols in the library, tables in the commons, a study hall in the union and private rooms in the dorms.  I could always tell where a study area was, because it was always empty.  People simply don’t know how to study.  However, for success in pursuing your college degree finding the best method of study is going to be a life-saver.

If you really do live in a dorm with other loud people, you may want to take advantage of your college’s study areas. If not, the best way to study is devising your own study area. Get a desk with space to write (your computer desk will be fine as long as it has space for books too) and keep a jar of pens, highlighters and other necessities.  Once your mind connects that place as a study place it will help you get in the mindset to study.  Concentration is the key to effective study time.  Efficiency experts have said that every time your concentration is broken it can take up to 8 minutes of time to get refocused.  So turn off the TV, and don’t study in an area where people will talk to you intermittently.

Many people cannot study in silence because our culture simply isn’t used to quiet anymore.  The best thing to do is play music, particularly classical music, in the background.  It becomes a kind of “white noise” which blocks out distractions and gives you the ability to think more clearly.  Have a goal in mind for what you want to accomplish in the session and set a milestone.  If your goal is to read two chapters, don’t get until you have done so.  If you are working on a paper, don’t leave until you have 3 pages written. Decide for yourself a reasonable goal and stick to it.

Every person is unique and has unique study habits.  Find the method that works best for you, and stick with it and your college degree will be done before you know it.

If your study habit is open your history book in front of a television blaring the latest reality show while you eat pizza and text a friend, you are not studying. You are playing in the presence of your homework. I know at home it’s difficult to find a time and method away from distractions to study even when your family understands hoe important it is to get your college degree. It’s not like you can tell your parents, sister or grandmother who is very interested in your life to be quiet and leave you alone. Well, I guess you could ask, but you might as well ask for a magic carpet to go with it.  There are good measures you can use to study from home.

If possible, find a private space (other than the bathroom) for you to set out your books and concentrate.  Time management is often a factor in maintaining a shield of silence for your studies.  Tell your family that you are going to study for 2 hours, then after that time you will be available to talk or make dinner or go to a movie. People tend to give you spaces of alone time as long as they know you have a plan to be with them later. Particularly children, who need to look forward to things.  It also helps them feel like they are helping you get your degree.  It’s good to take study breaks after a certain period of time anyway. Your brain has only so much energy and attention so giving it a rest every 2 hours or so is important to its overall care and your learning capability.

Using your computer to take notes or do online research can also be a helpful study aid. We are trained to stare and interact with computers intently and focus on the glowing screen.  You can’t blame that on your college degree, a lifetime of television has done that to us.  Make sure you are not instant messaging or distracted by non-study content.  Make sure to take occasional stand and stretch breaks to give your body and mind a time to rejuvenate. 

The keys to studying at home are really communication, cooperation and discipline. Setting aside the time, and letting your family know its important to you and you future to get this degree will help pave the way to good study habits, even at home.

Have you ever looked at the toys kids have these days and thought, “wow, where was that when I was growing up?” I do. I see kids with Lego sets that build Star Wars spaceships with all the perfectly shaped parts and remember that when I was a kid all I had were the blocks that came in primary colors and were just squares. All you could really build were block houses, block trees and block people to sit on a block bench. I don’t just feel that way about toys, I feel that way about school too. I went to college to get my degree before the personal computer was on everyone’s desk and I marvel at how much easier it is to write papers and research when you study online.

Gone are the days of trudging to the college library, looking for the same book as the other 30 people in your class and hoping it has everything you need to know because you don’t have time to look for others. Getting a college degree is much easier today. With online resources, you can access almost any knowledge you need from journals (now liberated from being in the forbidden reference section where you had to put your watch on deposit to borrow a book) to maps and pictures. Most colleges even have online links to their special collections for students so you can all access the material at the same time and get the information you need.

Not only does the ability to study online give you the chance to get all your facts and research done quickly, it also allows you to get assignments from professors and communicate with them on a personal basis. In the Stone Age when I was in college, that was done by making an appointment during office hours. Now you can send an email at your leisure to clarify an assignment and your professor can answer at his or her convenience.

Getting a college degree will still require effort and study, but the increased speed, accessibility and communication all enhance your efforts to complete your tasks. Then, you’ll have time to play with some of those really cool Lego sets.