bare basics study tips
for when you just canât be fucked and your life is more than studying
disclaimer: these are based on what worked for me in my university degree studying education. these will not really work for maths/science/languages based subjects which require a lot more practice, but will be useful for subjects with a lot of essays/assignments rather than quizzes/tests.
going to lectures is great but I also know that sometimes your tute is cancelled and it takes an hour or more to get to uni and itâs just not worth waking up for that one 10am lecture. thatâs fine! give yourself a sleep in! notes and textbooks and recordings are always there for you!
keep track of which concepts and terms were learnt each week - if you skip a lecture, at least check what the lecture is about! skim through the notes, maybe list down any new vocab for later. put this on a sticky note on your unit of study outline! youâll be able to refer to this later when it comes to assignments. this takes five minutes! no excuses!
during a lecture, make notes! a lot of people on studyblr are saying that you should make sure youâre listening and not just copying down the slides/whatever your lecturer is saying, but thatâs not for everyone! try to listen, of course, but sometimes it takes more than the three minutes they devote to a concept to understand it, and itâs much easier to revise that in written form at home than trying to understand it during the time the lecturer has already moved on to something else. sometimes your lecturerâs notes are good, but most of the time they at least need annotating to get everything down.
read over your notes after the lecture -Â maybe on the train home, as youâre waiting for your coffee, whenever, just make sure you can read the words you scribbled down. put a star or highlight anything youâll need to revise later for handwriting or content reasons.
donât bother recording the lecture - first of all, a lot of universities either provide recordings or prohibit them. secondly, as if youâre going to be bothered to listen to that again. itâs boring and you already sat through it once, donât kid yourself. if thereâs a concept or something specific you kind of missed/donât understand in your notes/want to go over again - use your lecturerâs email address or office hours!! thatâs what theyâre there for. chances are, if you didnât understand it hearing it once or reading notes on it, hearing it again isnât going to be what helps. get them to explain it to you differently, or provide more examples. theyâre there to help, youâre not alone in this.
essays donât require all that much information - this sounds a bit nuts but hear me out, essays usually are assigned to test your understanding of content from 2-3 weeks of lectures, as well as your essay writing/argument and research skills. look at your unit of study outline about two weeks out from the due date. figure out which weeks the content is from - look at key words. go back to your notes from those weeks - this is the time to ask classmates for clarification and email your lecturer about anything you have highlighted/starred, as well as actually make an effort to revise the notes for the classes you missed. Iâd mention in your email that youâre asking because it had come up as youâre preparing to write your essay - this will encourage them to frame their answer in a way thatâs helpful and relevant to your assignment.
then, look at the readings for those weeks (probably for the first time, am I right?). read the abstract (if there is one), the introduction and the conclusion. make some dot points in a notebook/wherever under the authorâs name, so you can easily reference which reading is which.Â
thatâs usually more than enough information for you to be able to draw up a thesis and start formulating an argument. outline your essay and then send it to your lecturer! ask if it looks like youâre on the right track! thatâs what theyâre there for! try to do this about a week before the deadline. then itâs just the painful matter of getting quotes from those readings (and any others you found that support your argument - google scholar is your friend) and fleshing it out.
this got longer than I expected but anyway - itâs okay not to study all the time! itâs okay to spend more time on a concept heavy subject like maths or science and let content heavy humanities subjects drop by the wayside! youâre not alone and you can still get good marks without rewriting your notes and doing mindmaps every day! enjoy your uni life outside of class!
