Unfortunately, I've always had terrible study habits (even for my more difficult upper-level major courses). I'm the kind of person that if the topic interests me, it just sticks. The down side is, if it's not interesting, I can barely remember it after studying for an hour.
So my advice:
- GET A PLANNER, USE THE PLANNER, LIVE BY THE PLANNER!! I scheduled everything (and still do), meetings, classes, study times, work hours, fun activities, time to spend w/ friends, "me" time, etc.
- Make sure you have time to study alone.. as much as your friends want to help, sometimes they can just distract you. The library is good for this (better than a dorm room where people come in at all hours looking for fun). Make sure you tuck yourself away, though. If you sit 10 feet from the main entrance, you're going to see lots of your friends and not get much done
- Study groups. (I know, I just said to study alone, but you have find how each method benefits you and then balance the two). You will find that, the more difficult the class, the more people in it will want to get together and study, especially for big exams and midterms. I was a communications major, and group projects were a popular thing among our profs, and many study groups evolved from these projects. There are some tests that I know I did better on because someone taught me a different way to understand or remember a theory.
- Balance. Make time to study and for classes. But also make sure you are making time to relax a bit and have fun, enjoy college. Your mind needs to rest sometimes, too. (There was 1 semester that I had a full course load and 3 jobs, and I still managed to hang out with my friends AND keep the GPA up).
- Stay health, drink lots of OJ. This sounds weird. But especially if you live in the dorms (where sickness attacks an entire floor), try your best to stay healthy. It can hurt to miss too much class. And being sick makes it harder for you to focus. I was a fiend about drinking OJ w/every meal. (Even though my friend, a nursing major, told me that it doesn't really keep you healthy, your body just gets rid of the excess Vitamin C). I was sick once my freshamn year, and after that I started eating better and exercising more. And, even though the nursing prof said that OJ keeping you healthy is an old wives' tale, I never got sick once the next 3 years at school
I wish I would have done better at following some of my own advice, especially my 1st year
------------------
SilverTurtle@greekchat.com
Phi Beta Fraternity
Phi chapter
[This message has been edited by SilverTurtle (edited August 04, 2000).]