School hacks / Study tips

This is pretty good

>"Take notes" as if you'll ever fucking look at shitty notes
Taking notes is useful if you try solving a problem faster than your professor can talk. If you get caught up you'll have to sync with the professor by stopping where you're at and leaving a hole behind. These holes represent your weaknesses at and you should patch them as many as you can and as soon as possible (by e.g. asking your professor during break time or by reviewing your notes as soon as you can (preferably the same day)). Basically the less you have to pay attention to the lecture and the more you can do yourself while keeping up the pace the better you understand the subject.

If you just copy what's being said it means you're either doing it wrong or you don't understand anything at all.
In that case you're better off just paying attention to what's being taught than distracting yourself with pointless scrawling you won't be able to read in the future anyway.

It depends. Of a professor is defining something, you better believe I'm writing that shit down. But writing down EVERYTHING is ridiculous.

You people are the real mvps.
It's my first time on sci and I already learned something new.

Op here. I also always make sure gobble 3 dicks per night to boost my IQ by .25 pts

I'm not being that much of a fag jeez

This post is too retarded.

user who is lurking over here, if you can't grasp any advice and want its explanation to be spoonfed to you, you are too retarded to understand anything at all.

>Taking 5 minute breaks
idk about as much as that, but i've heard taking a couple of minutes every half hour or so to get some water or do whatever, is beneficial; at least with this you can come back to your work with a clear mind. similarly if you've been revising for hours and aren't getting anywhere, you're better off taking a walk and coming back to it rather than struggling through.
i imagine learning the same thing in different languages or scripts keeps it in your head better as well, since you're probably thinking about the material more by translating back and forth

i think the most important things are actually understanding the material, and doing a lot of exercises -- so you are familiar with the tricks and methods that might be used in exams

Thank you so much :D

A few general bits and bobs (STEM related obviously) from my own experience. I imagine most people here can study reasonably well, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to see how others do it, or just get a kick up the arse about knuckling down. Lots of bits are similar to - Have a clean, designated work area. Cleaning it helps to remove any distractions which is half of the battle. Set out everything you need in advance - derailing a study session to pick out a book can be enough to lead to full on procrastination.

- 'Motivation' does not exist. It's a stupid, whimsical thing. Don't rely on magically waking up with the desire to change your life. You need discipline. There is nothing physically stopping you from sitting at your desk and working other than your unwillingness to do it. If your plan is to simply wait for the 'motivation', then you'll be in the same situation two months from now.

- Have a realistic schedule. Anyone can make a timetable that has 10 hours of study with colour coding; it's tougher to make something meaningful and realistic that you'll actually stick to. I'd advise getting your studying done first thing, otherwise it's harder to get started. I'd usually work from 10 - 2, then take a few hours off. Then, in the evening, I'd have a bit of a review session, no more than an hour.

- Further to the above point, doing a few hours regularly for a couple of months > than trying to do 10 hours a day in the two weeks before the exam.

- Find a method. Some people like to make lots of notes. Some people like cue cards. Some people learn best by solving problems. My preferred method is thus:

1) Go through a section to try to understand the concepts (and necessary mathematical details). I would also recommend reading the relevant section from the suggested course textbook in parallel. Consult the internet/office hours/other textbooks/lecture recording when you don't understand stuff.
2) Write a neat, condensed set of notes on LaTeX covering the concept in my own words. Any time you have an epiphany about a concept, get it down on 'paper'.
3) When I'm happy that I have a good grasp of the ideas, I confront the problems. I use my notes as a reference. If I am missing a crucial concept or if I gain some new insight from doing the problem then I add it to my notes. Use the notes to help the problems and the problems to help your notes.
4) When I'm happy with a section and feel that I have a good summary, then I move on. By the time I have finished, I have a short LaTeX document covering everything that I need. This is something that I continuously review in my evenings.
5) When I have a lot of material under my belt, I move onto the past papers and questions from other textbooks.

- Find a set of timings that work for you. Pomodoro never really worked for me, because I was too busy clock watching and would rather just power through. I found that even short breaks made it hard to get restarted. On the other hand, it can be hard to concentrate for a long time. Find your own methodology.

- In addition, be honest with friends about your goals. It's hard to concentrate when your clanmates are messaging you about a potential raid. Request radio silence between certain hours.

- Add some additional passive revision. Put a set of heavily condensed notes (no more than a couple of sides - maybe a section or two of your LaTeX stuff) in your bathroom and take a look every time you use the toilet. Watch relevant Youtube videos/lecture recording whilst eating.

- Pretend to teach someone (or actually teach someone if you have a receptive friend). It really clarifies what you don't know as soon as you try to teach it. Make sure that you can confidently cover every facet - don't settle for fuzzy explanations.

- Ask the tough questions. If a professor's notes leave a proof as an exercise to the reader, then actually do it. Ask about the edge cases, the unique scenarios and unusual hypotheticals. Ask yourself whether you really understand the material or whether you're just agreeing because you can't articulate a criticism.

- Do problems! Ultimately this is what your exam is going to be. Do past papers wherever you can find them. Make notes on how to do problems - what are the tricks? Can you exploit symmetries? Are certain terms guaranteed to cancel?

- Don't look at the answers as soon as you get stuck! Struggle and agonise over problems. If necessary, put them aside and come back the following day. I guarantee that if you actually toil at a problem, you'll remember how to do it when the exam comes around. Otherwise, you'll glance at the solutions, think to yourself that you could probably do it if you saw a similar problem again and give it no more thought. You won't retain anything. Looking at the first line of the solution for a hint is fine, just don't give up.

- Run out of problems? Find textbooks at your library; consult Youtube and the wider internet. It's one thing to be able to do the handful of problems that your professor sets, but quite another to be able to tackle problems in a wide variety of styles.

- If you're procrastinating, be honest with yourself. Did you really do 6 hours of work, or did you spend at least half of it organising folders, watching LaTeX tutorials, fetching snacks, cleaning etc.? Take drastic steps if necessary:

1) Browsers have plugins that disable access to certain websites over specified hours. There are apps that disable access to programs (e.g. Steam) too. Give your games console to a friend/relative with orders on the times when it is to be available.
2) Go work on your kitchen table, or the library, or somewhere away from distractions. I printed out a whole slew of past papers, packed my textbooks and headed to my grandparents' house because I couldn't focus at home. Their internet was garbage and I had no video games, so distractions were limited; plus, they cooked for me and were thrilled to see their grandson. Another great tactic was swapping desks with my housemate - we both went into each other's rooms and had far fewer distractions as a result.
3) Have a friend/relative police you. You need someone to be objective about how much work you're actually doing.

- Be good to yourself. I find that snacks are a procrastination tool, but make sure that you have meals that you look forward to. Binge eating sweets to give your brain the pleasure it craves isn't helpful, but a bit of comfort food is essential. Set aside time to do stuff that you enjoy uninterrupted. Take the afternoon off to watch your sports team; line up a marathon of your favourite tv show for the evening; organise a gaming session with friends.

- Try to get some exercise and get outside. It's great stress relief and your health can really suffer if you shut yourself away for months at a time.

how strict do you make your timetables?
do you list out set times that you must do things by or do you just say do 1 hour of A and 2 hours of B etc. by the end of the day/week?

I was approaching it from a perspective of revision time between the end of lectures and exams when you're on holiday but should be studying for finals.

Typically I'd make a timetable on a day to day basis. I'd set aside a work session for a specific lecture course e.g. fluid mechanics and timetable that in. In addition, I'd try to make a realistic assessment of how much I could get done, so I'd note down something like chapters 1&2 of notes or pages 34-70 of the textbook + problem sets 1&2, but these are flexible.

I'd then timetable additional sessions devoted to past exams when the course was complete. As I'd get more courses under my belt, I'd throw in the odd day where I'd do past papers from those courses to keep them fresh.

Generally I'd also set objectives for each week. Whilst it's hard to set goals day to day, it's easier to set a large goal like 10 chapters over the course of a week. If I'm struggling for time, I do a little more work; if I'm on track, I try to press ahead.

I definitely think that you should be 'exact' with your timetable just so that you don't procrastinate choosing a subject. Set clear goals and make sure that you have the time to cover what you need to. But don't be completely inflexible.

If you're doing it whilst the lecture courses are going on, I'd generally say that you can follow your timetable. Essentially, each week you want to be familiar with all of the content that you have been taught for that week. So you have set time (say between lectures or on weekends/evenings) where you timetable 'studying' and then you allocate the time according to how difficult the courses are. Usually, after the first 2-3 weeks you'll gain an idea of how much time you have to spend on each. This is a very ambitious goal, but you should at least try to keep up with the problems, even if you don't know it inside out.

Say you had five weeks for revision and four lecture courses, I'd set out with something like this:

Week 1:
Days 1-4: 1/4 of the course per day + a few relevant problems
Day 5: Lots of problems + any additional concepts
Day 6: Past papers
Day 7: 'Rest day' or overflow with a general review

Then I'd repeat for the next three weeks with the same thing. On the last week, I'd mix problems from all of the courses or use it as overflow.

Each week would have a goal of revising the entirety of a lecture course and I'd do enough hours to accomplish that - if I need 5 or 6 hours then I take that many. Obviously the earlier parts of the course are easier, so the first 1/4 takes less time than the last 1/4. You can then divide this work by chapters so you set a specific set of chapters or pages of course notes as your goal.

Also, this is 'revision' assuming that you have actually done work during the term - it's a much sterner task to learn a lecture course from scratch in a single week.

> Be good to yourself
definitely an underrated tip. i think a lot of people neglect themselves when it comes to revising -- i know i often forget to eat and lose lots of weight. it probably doesn't seem major but once it comes to the exam you're not in the best health and mindset, which definitely affects exam performance regardless of how much revision you did
thank you. and thanks for taking the time typing out your previous posts it was an interesting read.

I watched a TED talk ("what top students do" or something) where they suggested making a timetable of only activities that you want to do, and the rest is unorganized study time. Maybe not the best, but good for ADHD undisciplined people like me

Wish I had that problem

Seriously? If you can't pay attention for more than an hour then you've got a mental deficiency

lmao wtf. thats a waste of time

My study method is pretty simple. I just print out notes, sequester myself from the internet and phone, and then read the notes over and over again every hour of every day I have free. I did this for 3 months before taking the Biology GRE subject test and scored in the 97th percentile despite not having studied biology for 3 years since graduating undergrad. I also recommend doing aerobic exercise every day, meditating for 20 minutes every day, drinking lots of water, and sleeping 9 hours every night.

>studies bio
>spends all day memorizing
wowsers

I just keep a table of contents in the front of my notebook...