Essential Study Skills: Preparing for a New Semester
The beginning of the year is a great time to reflect, reassess – what worked, or didn’t? – and plan for the new academic year. While it’s infeasible to plan for every contingency, it is helpful to install a few keystone strategies in place to effectively focus, manage time, and study well.
Once the academic year is in full swing, and you are contending with deadlines, projects, and tests taking over your calendar, these strategies will be your allies. They’ll help you stay focused and organized to navigate rough waters successfully.
Keep a Planner: Avoid relying on your memory for important information such as deadlines, upcoming assignments, or events. Your brain is designed for creating and thinking, not for remembering tedious details!
Top Three Priorities: Often your days may be packed and the to-do list can feel overwhelming. Review the tasks on your to-do list, and determine what are your top priorities. These could be tasks with upcoming deadlines or those with large grade significance. Keeping your list short helps combat overwhelm.
Make Your Studying Active: Rather than glancing at your notes or reading them over, turn the information in your notes into test questions and quiz yourself on how well you know the content. Draw diagrams such as mind maps and illustrations - or make concrete examples of abstract ideas to help remember information.
Bury Your Phone: It can be tempting to get lost in a TikTok spiral and lose focus. When you study, put your phone in your bag – buried in the bottom of your backpack on the “Do Not Disturb” setting. If you absolutely need it near you, turn it over so that the screen is facing down so that you avoid getting distracted by notifications.
Use a Timer: Break your studying into short twenty-five minute study sessions followed by a five minute break; at the beginning of the study session, decide what your goal is, set your timer to work on a specific task and work until your timer goes off. Take a break. Reset timer and reflect on your progress and either continue working on the task - and if finished, pick another task to work on for the next session. Repeat.
In addition to implementing the strategies above, it can be helpful to nurture a relationship with a study skills coach who can check in on you, hold you accountable to personal goals, and strategize with you around how to best navigate around learning obstacles. Contact our team of expert tutors to learn more about our Study Skills & Executive Function Coaching program.
