Growing up, I was always one of the “gifted” kids. You know the type: the ones that were in the fastest classes, answered every single question in class, and were revered because they spent their time reading instead of watching TV. Throughout elementary, middle school, and high school I kept up this “gifted” status. I was blessed to have a brain that easily understood concepts like math and English, so, for the most part, I breezed through school. I never really had to put much effort in. Without trying, I easily got straight A’s for my entire school career.
And then I met my match: UCLA on the quarter system.
Turns out, the number one public university in the nation is actually academically challenging. Who knew, right?
I’m an English major, so luckily, most of my classes aren’t the rigorous STEM-type. But, last quarter, I made a grave mistake. I took “Mathematics for Life Scientists” in order to fulfill a GE requirement.
I can’t explain what I was thinking, I just know that I probably wasn’t. And it wasn’t until well into Week Five that I realized how grave my mistake was. I knew that I could pass the class, but not with the straight A’s that I had grown so accustomed to. Not unless I put in some work, and fast.
The only problem was that I had never learned how to study. Whoops.
I wasn’t used to diligent textbook reading or setting aside hours in a library to pore over course material. And, for many of us freshmen here at UCLA, this seems to be the case. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us (myself included) got a huge wakeup call our first quarter.
Luckily, I was able to find some techniques that worked for me. Here’s what I found:
1. Do practice Tests
For me, reading a textbook isn’t going to do much. I’m a hands-on learner, and the best way for me to learn is to do the problems that I’m going to see. The thing that helped me the most last quarter was doing every single practice test that was offered. That way, I got real experience with what I’d see on the actual exam (and some of the problems were literally the exact same as the ones I’d already seen).
For classes that don’t offer practice tests, have a friend quiz you. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent on call with my girlfriend practicing phonetics. Having to recall the information yourself helps you do the same in a test environment.
2. Study in intervals
For a lot of people, studying is daunting. Being holed up in a library for hours sounds… less than appealing. But there’s an easy fix to that: study in intervals and reward yourself with doing something fun in your breaks. You can make them however long or short you want (but I find the study interval should be at least twice as long as the break). For me, I found that an hour of studying pieced between 30-minute breaks works the best. I can sandwich as many of those as I want throughout my day and emerge with more knowledge without feeling drained.
3. Study with friends
Turns out, when people say “we should study together” they actually mean it! If you study with friends (even ones that aren’t in your course), you can hold each other accountable.
Be warned, though. This only works if you’re actually dedicated to studying. If you get distracted by other people there, studying alone is the way to go.
Using these tactics last quarter, I was able to finally study in a way that worked for me. This kind of work was new to me, and it was hard to set my mind to at first. But it paid off with a first quarter of A’s! So, my fellow former gifted and talented students, try studying in a way that works for you. I promise it’ll pay off.