It is getting to the point in the semester when things really start to get stressful. The first few weeks always feel like a breeze. But then comes the first few exams of the semester and you remember why you were so stressed last semester. Maybe you haven’t been able to get the grades you wanted recently or you’re cramming for exams and not doing well as a result. Either way, I want to provide some advice to help you hone in on your studying skills and get the score you want on your next exam.
Before you take any advice from me, you probably want to know what makes me qualified to speak on this subject. After all you don’t want to take studying advice from someone with a 1.0 GPA. I am currently a third-year health science major and I have gotten through classes like General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physiology, etc. While I won’t share my exact grades, I will say the lowest I have ever gotten on an exam thus far is a 75, so you can trust I am not just making stuff up here.
My first piece of advice is to not procrastinate. I know I know, you have heard this a million times. I also know it is much easier said than done. However, your future self and your GPA will thank you. Especially if you are taking any kind of STEM class, it is imperative to keep up with the material you are learning in class. Even if you do not find the lectures beneficial or the professor good at teaching, I always force myself to go to class and try to understand the topic they are covering. At the very least, set aside a couple of hours a week for your class to review the material you learned the previous week. Or if you want to really be on top of it, review the material you are learning in the upcoming week. If you do this, it might surprise you how much more beneficial lectures can be. I know it is hard to hear, but it is so important to not get behind on material. It is so much easier to learn complex topics piece by piece, in the order they are made to be learned, rather than all at once the day before the exam.
Now that you are going to start studying more frequently, another piece of advice is the importance of being intentional about studying. Your studying sessions cannot be interrupted by your phone every ten minutes or at your friend’s house while you watch “The Bachelor” at the same time you convince yourself you understand what’s happening in Orgo 2. Locking in is no joke. Give yourself 2 to 4 hours a week to genuinely lock in on a topic and digest it without any major distractions. Obviously, it’s important to take breaks, but something like the Pomodoro Method is much better than looking at your phone every time you get a notification. Additionally, it is so important to hang out with friends and I am not saying you can’t. I am saying that you need to find quiet times that are not continuously interrupted by conversation. If you are interrupted every five minutes, you will have to start over in the learning process every time you take a break, ultimately making your studying session pointless. Having clear blocks of studying times as well as friends or time on TikTok is key.
Using a calendar effectively can really change the way you study and what you are able to get out of studying. Get in a routine of studying for an hour every week after class or on Sundays for a few hours. Pick whatever day and time works best for you and commit yourself to showing up for yourself every week. After a couple of weeks, it will start to feel a little less painful.
When it comes to actually studying and the method you use, that depends. I can’t give you clear cut advice on which method will guarantee you an A in all your classes. That is up to you to decide. What I can give advice on is, whatever method you choose to use, please study to understand and not to memorize. It is infinitely easier to recall information on exams or adapt to a question you’ve never seen if you understand the content and do not just have every word from the lecture slides memorized. There may be some classes where this is all you need to do well, but for many of the big weed-out classes, memorizing won’t cut it. Even if it seems much more painful this way, I think it makes school so much more enjoyable. After all, I am not here to stuff a bunch of random information in my head, but rather to critically think and understand the world on a much deeper level than I did when I started here. For example, in chemistry classes, I have found it fascinating to understand the complex chemical reactions we are learning and how they apply to our world and our bodies. It has made me extremely interested in chemistry, even deciding to add a minor in the subject. If you approach your classes with an open mind and genuine curiosity, studying won’t seem so bad.
Finally, my most important piece of advice and the trick that has gotten me thus far is as simple as repetition. Repetition is so important to succeeding in your STEM classes. Most of the time, you are presented with a lot of complex information that cannot possibly be processed after your first time looking at it. This is why it is so important to contact the material as frequently as you can and in different ways. This is why I like to attend lectures to get my first pass at the material, watch the lecture again or something like Study Edge to further reinforce it and then try some practice questions to put what you have learned to the test. If you have trouble getting through practice questions, take that time to fully understand what you are doing wrong and the concepts behind the correct way to do things. This should all be done prior to studying for the exam. I like to use this method in small increments over the course of a few weeks to allow myself time to properly learn each topic presented. Then once the test rolls around, I like to put all the pieces together and solve problems that cover a variety of topics all at once. At this point, you should be somewhat familiar with how to solve individual, less complex problems, so you should be able to bring those skills into the harder questions once again fully understanding why you got something right or wrong. By encountering the material multiple times in this fashion, studying for the exam is much less daunting and you can make good use out of lectures because you are clueless about what is being taught. Repetition makes the subject much less daunting and even enjoyable at times.
Often people put so much pressure on themselves to get good grades, but it can be hard to translate this pressure into productive studying habits. I have luckily figured out my way around studying, and it has helped me get to where I am now. Do not be scared to change what you are doing, especially if it is not working and try something new. Once you have a solid study plan and schedule, trust it. It is so important to trust your studying and the time you have put into a class. If you feel comfortable on practice exams or doing flashcards, then you have a good grasp on the material. Allow that understanding to show through on the exam. If you put in the work and change the way you study, you should have the full confidence to kill your next exam!