Hello everyone!
I hope you're doing great. Personally, finals are starting to loom over my head and despite the fact that I've been working my butt off a lot throughout the year to finish Sophomore year in the best way possible, I always get a little stressed just thinking about finals. One of the things that usually helps me stress a little less is preparing myself for them in the best way I can: sleeping, studying outside, listening to music - etc.
Because finals are basically all I've been thinking about for the past week, I decided to compile the best study tips and study techniques I've used and others have told me to try for all of you. I've given this study tips to my residents as well, and they've been very helpful to me during my college career!
- Don't cram: I do this every time I forget to study, and it's so counter productive. Instead of having a night before the exam where you don't sleep and you feel very overwhelmed, try studying a little every day for a whole week. I promise it makes a difference. Cramming only makes you crabby and it usually won't give you the best results you want in your exams. Students I know who use the studying a little for a whole week get in general better results than those that cram the night before and show to the exams sleep deprived
(coughcough...me) - Your syllabus is your best friend: Look at your syllabus, and look at all the material you've covered throughout the semester that you believe may appear in the exam. If it's cummulative, make sure that you think about the topics that you've seen coming up in class the most, and if it's not, look at everything that you've discussed in the second half of the semester and make sure you know it. Also, don't be afraid to look at how much your final might be worth if you're too overwhelmed about studying for many finals and you've been doing well in class. Knowing how much a final counts for my grade has usually helped me to prioritize for which final I will start studying first.
- Talk to other students in your class: Study groups are life saviors. When I had a religion final last semester, I felt like I wasn't going to do that well because I didn't know much about the topic previously. However, having a support network that provided me with notes to look at other than mines, and that explained to me the little things that I didn't get was super helpful. Also, talk to your teacher too if you're worried you might not do very well - they want to see you succeed and will try their best to help you.
- Make summaries of what you're studying: I'm a Political Science major, so summaries of what we've done in class and of my own notes have usually helped me do my best during exams. Whenever I feel like I have to learn too many concepts at the same time, I make little sheets with all the concepts and then review them night after night. Flash cards are a great option as well when you're studying diagrams or concepts, as you don't get to see the answer until you flip them. However, if you're a day away from your final and you have to cover 24 chapters - don't do a summary. It's really time consuming and you might not be able to read everything before the exam otherwise.
- Take some time to relax and breathe: I will be the first to admit I always fail at this one. I get too caught up on my nervousness and anxiousness before an exam, and tend to study for hours in a row. I know it's bad, so whenever I can, I let somebody know that I'll be studying in X or Y place on campus and try to get them to take me out on a walk so I'm obliged to get out. Get some tea (or coffee), grab a snack, lay on the floor, stretch, go on walks, go to the gym - but don't stay in and stress yourself studying when information is just not being processed by your brain.
- Go to bed early during that week: To me, this is one of the most important. If you show up to your final and you're tired, it doesn't help you at all. Whenever I'm tired, I feel like my brain really doesn't want to collaborate and I forget my words, my concepts, I even forget to look like I woke up more than 20 minutes ago. Whenever I go to bed early-ish before exams, I wake up and I feel ready to take on the world, and I can wake up earlier than I usually do to do a quick review of everything that's on the exam.
- Build playlists for studying and post-studying: I need music when I'm studying. I can't sit down in a library full of people and be completely silent, and I really can't concentrate when there's chit chat around. Because of this, I always build playlists that help me study, or use pre-made ones that I enjoy. A really cool one is lite pop relaxation by Songza, but I also enjoy listening to rainy mood or other type of white noises while I study. Spotify is a great source for post-studying music - at least to me, because I like to listen to particular songs after studying - and I tend to make my own playlists. The most recent one is this.
- Avoid all type of distractions: If you know all your friends are going to be 'studying' in a certain spot of the library, go to a different building, because that won't help you at all. If you know that having your phone around you will distract you, turn it off. If you know that having wifi is going to distract you and you will procrastinate, download Stayfocusd. This Chrome extension has been SUCH a lifesaver for me because I tend to procrastinate a lot. Okay, not a lot, more than a lot. Whenever I feel myself drifting and I need to focus, I enable it and it blocks all my favourite websites so I don't get distracted. You can put a timer so you will know for how long you want to work undistracted, and then take a break! If your procrastination levels are higher than mine, ForceDraft is for you - it won't let you use your computer (literally, it blocks EVERYTHING) until you finish that paper you've been dragging your feet about. You can select for how many minutes or words it will be active, and then nothing will get in between you and your paper.
- Put the date of your exam somewhere you will see it constantly so you know how many days you have left: trust me, you don't want to think "oh, I have so much time to do this" to then realize your exam is in 3 days.
- Have a good meal before your exam: I've learnt this the bad way too - whenever I woke up too late for an exam (any exam) and I haven't had breakfast, I am not performing as well as I'd like to. Whenever I wake up early and I have a good breakfast, I feel like I can take on any exam because my stomach won't be hosting a free concert during my exam. Just sayin'.
- Dress for success: To me, this means "Wear whatever you feel comfortable in and you know you'll be a happy comfy camper". If you want to put make up for your exam, put make up. If you don't, don't. Being comfortable during an exam is crucial. I always put my hair up in a bun because that's how I feel the most comfortable.
Now for the actual studying, here's what I do:
- After you make summaries (if you decide to do that) color code what you believe is the most important to the least important, and then make flashcards out of the most important things you see in your summaries.
- If there's a concept you have been struggling with, and even if people explain it to you you still don't get it, YouTube it! As I rode the struggle bus with statistics, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube, and just listening to other people's way of thinking about the concept really helped me!
- Read before you go to bed and after you wake up in order to keep the concepts fresh in your head. This has usually helped me whenever there's multiple choice exams.
- Drink loads of water (not tea, not coffee, but water) while you study so you keep hydrated. Keeping my camelback nearby when I study helps me stay focused as I don't get thirsty mid-reviewing and have to go to the water fountain every 20 minutes.
- Whenever there's a concept that's complex or a piece of information that's complex, I tend to make a song about it or tend to make a sentence with all the letters of the concept in order to remember it during the exam. Say I'm learning 'Hola' (Hello in Spanish). In order to remember Hola, I might make up he obviously lives ambitiously. When I say that phrase in my head during the exam, I will remember about hola.
- Reinforce concepts you already know and perfect them. I try not to waste time learning new concepts because I know I might forget them during the exam, so I scan through them but not very thoroughly if I'm running out of time.
However, this is what works for me. I'm not saying this might work for everybody, but give them a try and let me know if they were useful! I use these tips not just for finals, but for my general study as well. Do you have any study tips you'd like to share and you find useful? Let me know in the comments!
Good luck on your finals if you're in college!
- Vicky
