Study Tips

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.

My childhood was full of critical thinking.  “Look at the way you made your bed! It looks like 3 chickens are hiding from Colonel Sanders under that bedspread!  When was the last time you cleaned your room? If the lion, the witch and the wardrobe were all in this room, you’d never know because you couldn’t find them.  When you got dressed this morning, did you stop by a mirror and even think about matching your clothes?” It was only when I got into college that I realized that wasn’t critical thinking. That was criticism.  Critical thinking has nothing do with tearing something down. It’s all about analysis and building arguments up.

Critical thinking skills are higher level thought processes that are very important to develop as you pursue your college degree. They involve things like the ability to think independently of other people, suspend judgment and listen to things fairly whether they match your belief system or not, evaluation the credibility of sources of information, establishing a set of standards for a thought to meet before it’s validated (Is it true? Is it reliable? Is it proven?), and analyzing the consequences of actions.  As a college student you will be required to develop your critical thinking skills to get along in the academic setting.

College teaches you a lot more than facts or numbers. You will have professors that challenge your thinking and world views. That mark of someone with a college degree is the ability to hear something you disagree with and listen politely, then display your own opinion with grace and courtesy.  You will be required to analyze sources of information and decide what is valid. A person with a college degree knows better than to use Wikipedia as their only source of information.  You will have to learn to think independently and make up your own mind about facts in evidence. Meaning, if all your friends jumped off a cliff, you wouldn’t. 

Develop a sense of high mindedness so you can embrace the academic environment and all the challenges it represents.

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.

Anyone getting a college degree will come across a professor or two that will change their life. I certainly had a few and one of them that I remember most was a Speech and English teacher pulling out her hair trying to get a bunch of students to learn how to write an academic report. One day, when all of her other sayings and hints had seemed to fail and the reports were still unfocused piles of words poured out on pages she said the following memorable analogy. “In writing, organization is like your underwear. No one wants to see it, but everyone wants to know you have some on.” Finally we got the point. We needed a definable organized pattern to follow.

Writing an academic report for a college degree is the essence of organized thought. Once you have a topic and researched it taking notes and creating a bibliography, an outline will help you lay out a pattern for the report. An academic report should have a title page, small introductory section that contains your thesis statement or the main point of your report, a section for background and information, and a section for discussing the thesis, and a conclusion that clearly reiterates what point is contained in the paper. Finally, endnotes (if applicable) and a bibliography are placed at the end of the report.

Academic reports are considered technical writing, not creative writing. The purpose is to impart information in a cogent and clear manner. You are getting a college degree, not writing the novel of the ages. Language should reflect the vocabulary of the topic of the report and concise sentences are a must. All thoughts should focus on be centered on the main thesis and reflect a general knowledge and direction for the ideas to flow. The conclusion should replay the information in one two sentences designed for closure and understanding.

Academic reports that you write while getting your college education are truly a time for your logical thinking to shine. Follow the model of organization and not only will your degree will progress smoothly, but people will always think you are wearing underwear.

I spend my entire freshman year in college getting over phobia.  It wasn’t fear of spiders, or fear of high places or even fear that I would never get a date in time for homecoming. It was a fear much deeper than those things. It was the fear of a blank page. Every time I would look at a syllabus and see to the words, “Write an essay about…” I would break out in a sweat. Another essay! Another blank page staring at me; daring me to start something.  Finally, with time and practice, I learned the formula to writing a degree essay. 

The most common college essay is the 5 paragraph essay. Look into the topic you were assigned and develop one main point you wish to make with 3 facets of thought to go with it. Make the first paragraph an introduction to the topic, the next three paragraphs show the three points of thought you have for the topic (one point each paragraph) and the final paragraph a conclusion.  This logical flow enables the reader a fast overview of your thought process, gives them supporting material for your point of view, and concludes the thought for a well rounded essay. The 5 point essay will be a critical component in getting your college degree. 

For example: I am assigned to write an essay about dogs.  I decide to write about beagles and three advantages to having one. I start my essay with an overview of beagles and why they are great.  Paragraph two informs the reader that if you have beagles you will never have to worry about leftover food. Paragraph three remarks that you will never need an alarm clock because they will wake you up every morning for breakfast and a walk, and I tell them in paragraph four about how you never feel alone or unloved when a beagle is around. Finally for the conclusion I explain beagles simply make life better. It becomes a college essay with five paragraphs, but one thought. 

The blank page never wins. Eventually when you realize your college degree means more to you than the intimidation of that silly piece of paper, you’ll get your thoughts down one paragraph at a time.

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.

When you think about it, we do critical writing almost every day. When I see a movie my habit is to email a friend of mine in another city and tell them exactly what I thought of it. She gets to hear all about whether the characters in the story acted the in a realistic manner, or what I thought of the ending. That is the essence of critical writing. It’s the ability to analyze some piece of information and created conclusions based on reasonable assumptions, argumentation and facts. Almost every class you take in your college degree will put you through the same exercise in thought and communication.

Critical writing first involves critical thinking. You have to be able to take an experience, art work, essay or event and analyze it with precision. Your writing should not be, “that story made me happy”, but rather, “what it was about that story that made me happy.” In the 5 W’s of writing (who, what, when, where and why) it’s the “why” that makes your criticism valuable. College level writing is about meaning making and sustaining your opinion with examples, reasons and rational. It is never enough to say, “That book was stupid.” What a critical writer would do is talk about why the characters didn’t act like most people would, and how the plot deviated from an intelligent point of view into a hopelessly jumbled resolution. Analysis and explanation are the bones of critical writing.

Critical writing is also technical in nature and follows an organized thought flow and pattern. A critical essay sets out the thesis of the thought clearly in the first paragraph then uses the rest of the essay to develop supporting ideas and evidence to support the thesis. The sign of someone with a college degree is their ability to reason and use reasonable judgments in the determinations that person makes. Every time you review a new song with a friend or write a letter about meaning in relationship, art or faith you are engaging in a critical enterprise. Learn to do it well and with this skill and your college degree you can write your own ticket to anywhere you want to go.

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.

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.