As someone who has only been a Queen’s Life Sciences student for a semester and a half, I’m sure I still have a lot to learn in terms of how to up my study game. However, I’ve come up with a few things I find super helpful to stay on top of schoolwork and minimize stress. If you’re new to the university student game, or you’re starting in the fall, consider trying these tips!
1. Make a weekly list Every weekend, I write out everything I have to get done that week, course by course. I like to do this on paper (because I find that it’s oh-so-satisfying to physically cross things off as you go along) but using an online checklist would work great too! This is something I started doing in the first few weeks of school and it has really helped me stay on top of my work and make sure I don’t miss one of the dozens of little assignments I have each week. As an added bonus, you can compare lists with friends each week to make sure you’re all staying on track and not missing deadlines.
2. Don’t rewrite your notes!! In high school, one of my most-used methods of studying was copying out all of the notes I had taken throughout the semester. This worked for me then, but I always found myself scrambling to make time to finish writing them and then studying using them all. As a university student, you’ll likely have even less time to designate to each course, so copying out your notes is probably not the best way to get the grades you’re looking for. I recommend making cue cards (again, I love physical copies, but a lot of my friends swear by Quizlet and Anki) as a way to effectively study, using active recall to really make sure you understand the concepts you’re learning. Plus, quizzing your friends (and vice versa) is a great way to spice up your studying!
3. Figure out the note-taking method that works best for you - you don’t necessarily need an iPad :) When I went to my first lecture, I intended to write my notes for all my classes on paper - just as I had in high school. However, I realized that this was not the best strategy for me, since lectures are fairly fast-paced and I couldn’t keep up with the professor. I found that annotating the lecture slides was a far more efficient way to take notes in class without missing anything. When I started school here at Queen’s, I noticed that a lot of people had iPads or tablets that they used to take class notes, but I personally don’t regret not having one – my laptop does the job just fine. Then, after class, I go through my annotated slides and write a condensed version of them with key takeaways from the lesson (formulas, key concepts, et cetera). That way, when I’m studying, I can look through the short notes I made to easily find information on concepts I learned throughout the semester, and if I need to extend my knowledge even further, I know which lecture slides to look through to find what I’m looking for. I’ve found that this helps me to organize my studying, because it really helps me see what concepts I understand and which ones need work, without having to look through weeks (and probably thousands) of lecture slides to find the specific information I’m looking for.
4. Learn to budget your time and don’t leave everything to the last minute! As a university student, I have weekly labs for almost all of my classes, and many of these take a considerable amount of time to complete. Having a weekly list definitely helps me see what I
have to get done each week, but I’d also recommend picking a few of the most urgent things to do each day and making a mini daily to-do list. This list shouldn’t include things without deadlines or things not due for a while - like practice problems and textbook readings for the coming weeks - just the stuff that has. To. Get. Done. This includes assignments and readings for classes coming up. Make sure this list is reasonable and that you aren’t stretching yourself out too thin! This helps you make sure you are focusing on the important things, and if you have any spare time each day, this is when you should be working on things due later or practice problems. This might seem obvious, but so many people have a tendency to really overestimate the amount of time they’ll need to complete larger assignments. When you do this, chances are that you’ll take more time completing the assignment because you’ve told yourself you need x amount of hours to complete it. If you give yourself a reasonable estimate for the things you can accomplish each day, you’re already one step closer to getting it all done!
These are all things I’ve learned recently, and they’ve been working great for me! These are all
things you can easily incorporate into your study time. These all work great for me and my work
style, but everyone is different, and university really is the time for learning both course content
and how to be a better learner. Consider trying these out, but don’t pressure yourself to feel like
you have to study a certain way to succeed - it’s about figuring out what works best for you!