As finals season rapidly approaches, it’s important to utilize your time wisely, as time can be limited if you have multiple exams lined up in the same week. Here are some study strategies that you can employ during the upcoming exam season:
- Plan It Out!
Rather than cramming all the material you need to study into one study session, plan it out and conquer the material in several short sessions instead. This will help you better retain the material better and may be more effective than doing longer study sessions where you may lose your concentration. If you plan out short and active study sessions on your calendar for every day, the content will be more approachable and better learned!
- Prioritize Your Priorities
During finals, it can be easy to get overwhelmed with balancing your social and academic commitments. However, it is important to put your well-being first, which may mean that you will need to make some sacrifices. This could mean cutting down on events that you wanted to attend or rescheduling outings with friends in order to give yourself enough time to prioritize important activities. Though it may be hard to make some decisions, the result should be worth it!
- Know Yourself
Understand your strengths and weaknesses, and use them to your advantage. If you know that you are an early bird, make sure to use those hours to make the best of your time. If you also know if you work better in a particular environment (like a silent library over a busy cafe), use that to your advantage as well.
And similarly, it may help to give yourself an incentive! For example, if you study for 30 minutes, you can take a break for 5 minutes before continuing.
- Conquer Your Study Strategies
Different classes may require different study approaches! If you are working on content that is application-based and are having trouble with a particular type of problem, it can help to break the concepts down, understand how they are being used and re-work the question until you can get it right. If your final is based on a project, be sure to fully understand the different components of the rubric and plan out how you will conquer it from there!
Overall, it is not about studying hard, but rather studying smart, which can be done with good planning and an understanding of your study preferences. I hope that these study tips will help you better plan and study, and I wish you all the best for the upcoming finals season!