How do you study?

[Gargus]

Basically I havent been in school since I was in a hick public school 13 years ago and I didnt do to well even then, monday Im starting nursing school and Im piss scared Ill flunk out the first day.

I know my big weak point is Im not good at studying from a book, I can learn stuff easy if I can see and touch things but books always gave me problems.

Any suggestions for the stupid on how to study?

[Bear]

Basically I havent been in school since I was in a hick public school 13 years ago and I didnt do to well even then, monday Im starting nursing school and Im piss scared Ill flunk out the first day.

I know my big weak point is Im not good at studying from a book, I can learn stuff easy if I can see and touch things but books always gave me problems.

Any suggestions for the stupid on how to study?

Your not stupid. You just have a different "learning style." Ever read Howard Gardner? Princeton University Professor. Famous for "Multiple Intelligences."

In your case you might favor a "Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence." That doesn't make you stupid; just means you might consider a different methodology for studying compared to a "Spatial intelligence" person.

If your into nurse, I'd imagine you have to take Organic Chemistry. I'd invest in a "ball and stick" molecule assembly kit. They probably require it anyway. It would be useful to you because then you can understand the topics from a literally "hands-on" perspective.

Don't fret.

[Aaron Kashtan]

I just sit and read until I start falling asleep. Then I force myself to wake up and continue reading. And I hopefully retain enough of the information to be able to understand and reproduce it later.

Perhaps I ought to take notes while studying. I did this while I was working on my BA thesis. The problem was that I rarely looked at the notes.

[howyadoin]

I'm terrible at studying. Never really learned how, because in grade school I was fortunate enough to be taught by people who could actually teach.

Unlike college. How I ever made it through that, I'll never know.

[Dan Apodaca]

Yeah, I'm awful at stufying. Nobody ever really taught me how, and I've always been a pretty good bullshitter, so I managed to skate by.

I'm definitely more of a kinesthetic learner. I can learn skills quickly, but concepts take some more time.

[Guapo Méndez]

I have an excellent memory.
However, it has certain flaws. Comics, movies, bits of trivia, books I like and inane conversations it works like a charm.

For school subjects, a lot depends on whether I understood the concept perfectly or I didn't. If I didn't get it, I need to help it cement the knowledge by taking notes, writing questions and answers and sometimes I make up symbols to represent the words and concepts. Other times, I grab the notebooks/papers and I walk around reading them out loud/to myself until I memorize them (if I take a seat and read it, odds are I'll fall asleep within 5 minutes).

If I understood it, we apply the excellent memory here.

[BoosterBronze]

I had issues with 'book learnin' in college, so what I did was get a confrence room at the librabry, put the book on a podium, the stand and read it as I paced to the chalkboard and made HUGE notes. It must have been quite a sight, me rushing back and forth and writing in Greek, but it helped me more than just about anything else I ever did in school.

[Night]

Study? what is this strange word you speak of?

I didn't pretty much study at all before I got to Engineering Physics (stupid course needed an entire branch of mathematics just to figure out what grade you got on a test). I got through that only because I took the worst professor teaching and crashed the study-group of the best instructor. Note the hyphenated word here: study-GROUP. Don't be afraid to ask collegues, professors, TA's, subject student groups, etc for help with topics. Most professors are compassionate towards someone who wants to learn (I did say most...). It's the people who try it on their own... the hard way... with no communication that are most likely to fail.

Then again, I never went through nursing.

[Gargus]

Ill try the standing and reading thing.

I plan on first day after class asking the teacher about a tutor, the nursing director is also my teacher for my mathematics lecture on statistics. Another of my teachers is nursing supervisor at the hospital I work at so Im sure she would help me to, nice lady.

Ill have to fold do a study group I guess. I just grew up more or less alone so I am much oposed to groups of people, especially strangers. Im used to doing everything alone hehe.

I always hated school though, some reason it makes me feel dumb.

My hopes is once I get out of first year stuff it will get easier since Ill start doing my clinicals where I can actually do things and interact with patients, that much Im fammiliar with already.

[Cody H]

I'm far more an auditory learner than anything, that is, I learn best from verbal material such as lectures. With that in mind, I find verbalizing study material most effective, which works well when studying with others. When on my own, I tend to silently rehearse material to myself.

I also find it helpful to make it a more active process by taking notes while reading. I'll sometimes review my notes by making notes on the notes (usually just rewording them in a different way) in red pen.

Oh, and by the way, this:

I had issues with 'book learnin' in college, so what I did was get a confrence room at the librabry, put the book on a podium, the stand and read it as I paced to the chalkboard and made HUGE notes. It must have been quite a sight, me rushing back and forth and writing in Greek, but it helped me more than just about anything else I ever did in school.
Genius!

[Erebus]

I usually studied 5 minutes before a test or quiz, and I managed to get a B, and even when I didn't study, I got at least a B. I got confused whenever a friend asked me to study with them, because I didn't know how. Later on, when things started to get harder, I changed my habits. If I needed to memorize some information, I'd think it 3x, say it 3x, and write it 3x. Works like a charm.

[Cody H]

Mnemonic aids are also pretty helpful. If I have a list of several concepts I need to memorize, I'll put them in point form and take the first letter of each point and turn the list into some kind of abbreviation that's easier to remember. Found that worked pretty well most of the time.

[Sanagi]

I find one of the best ways to make sure I've learned something is, once I've finished reading it, to imagine explaining it to someone else. That forces me to look at all the elements of the topic and re-examine the parts that I didn't really understand.

[Matt]

I find that having a bottle of wine handy is a great study aid. You feel good, you accept things more easily and are more susceptible to theories.

In short, you become a study slut.

[Wesley Dodds]

I think I can help you with this. I have ADD and I’m a postgraduate student so I have to deal with study problems every day.

Basically, the “vanilla” principles of memory are:

- pay attention
- repeat the material
- organise the material
- take breaks so your brain can consolidate the material

So, concentrate while you’re reading. When you’re done with a section think back and organise what you just read on a piece of paper. Set up a study program where you go back to your notes. Take breaks because it’s a lot more effective than trying to cram it all in.

I could go on forever about how memory works but I’ll just focus now on two key points so I don’t overwhelm you. I also don’t say anything about mnemonic systems.

1. “Pay attention” is the most important principle.

Think of attention as basically just processing capacity and of memory as a program. If you don’t have much processing capacity your programs will be slow. So, by paying attention to something we’re basically just directing our finite stock of processing capacity to the memory program.

You can’t will yourself to remember and it doesn’t matter if you’re interested in the material. What’s relevant to learning is attention. Interest and will are only helpful if they get you to attend.

2. Manage your fear of failure.

Fear of failure’s just that tightness you get in your chest when you start studying. As I said, attention’s critical. If your anxiety and all the pressure disrupts your attention your study won’t be effective.

I’ve found breathing exercises a helpful way of coping with this. But if you do have a serious fear of failure problem realistically you’re going to have to get a friend to come over and force you to study. Fear of failure's a phobia, you can beat it through exposure to what you're scared of.

So, remember:

- attend because it’s critical to learning
- repeat because it’s necessary to form a memory
- organise the information because it will help understanding and learning
- get on top of it now so you don’t have to cram later

[Gilda Dent]

You don't read informational text like you do entertainment prose. The primary purpose of reading your informational text is to extract information from it.

First, make sure you know exactly what you're expected to have read and the deadline for having read and processed the information. Begin studying it a bit ahead of time, not the night before or the same day.

Don't just start reading and go straight through. Unless you have a very good memory for written material, you're not going to get the most out of it this way. Begin by skimming the chapter you need to read. Look at the focus questions at the beginning, the headings and subheadings, the pictures and graphs. Most well-written textbooks are organized in a heirarchal structure, similar to outline notes. It will differ from book to book, but broad general concepts will be in one type of font, the next level down another, and so forth. Look through the headings, and read them as if they were the only thing in the chapter, ignoring on your first time through the actual details of the text. Go very quickly through the chapter to the end. Read the general summary and the summary of the main points. Read the discussion and comprehension questions you find there, and check to see if you know the answers based on your light skimming. Guess at those you think you might know. It's ok if you're wrong, the idea isn't to get the right answer, but to focus your mind. Now return to the beginning of the chapter. Take careful note of the main ideas and focus questions. Now read through like a prose novel, taking careful note of major and minor headings and anything in bulleted lists or bold print. The authors made those things stand out because they're more important. When there is a reference to a picture, chart, or graph, stop for a moment and look closely at it, study it, read the captions and symbol keys. If there are focus questions, stop for a moment to answer them. If need be, talk it through by saying your answer aloud or writing it down. When you get to the end, review the main points and answer the comprehension questions there in the same manner. This completes your first full reading, your initial study of the material.

If you're confident you've understood things well, test yourself by going back to the beginning and skimming the headings and questions again. Try to briefly summarize each section based on information in the heading. If you can't, scan it quickly until you can. Stop at each comprehension question and answer it again checking your answers against the text if you need to. Review the main concepts at the end and check to see if you know the answers there, rechecking the chapter itself if you don't. This should take a fraction of the time the first reading did.

Now take a break, even if you don't know the material well. If you've started long enough ahead, say a few days, come back tomorrow. If your time schedule is tighter, wait a bit and then skim the focus ideas, headings, and questions again. Take careful note of the list of main points at the end--those will usually get you through most quizzes and tests at a minimal level.

Don't read the whole thing more than once. Reread just enough to refresh your memory. After the initial reading, it should take no more than a few minutes to reinforce what you know.

Start well in advance, a few days. This gives you an opportunity to review several times before you're required to know the material.

Yes, this takes longer than just reading straight through, about half again as long, but it's much more effective, and it greatly increases the efficiency of subsequent study sessions.

Also, do the reading even if your professor covers everything important in class and the tests come entirely from lecture. You'll get more out of it if you have the reading to connect it to.

If this isn't enough, take notes. The cool thing about most textbooks is that they're already in outline form. The heading structure shows you how to organize the notes. You don't have to study the notes frequently, though it's helpful if you do a few times; the act of deciding how to organize them and taking the notes serves as a focus for your mind. Jot down the headings and a very brief description of what you need to know from that section.

Is this not routinely taught at the middle school / high school level any longer? The very first thing a public school teacher should be doing with an informational text is teaching students how to read it. When I taught middle school, the first week was how to read the book, take notes, study efficiently, learning the different strategies that are effective for different types of information covered in that subject, how to study alone, how to study with a partner, and how to study in a group.

Good luck. Effective studying takes a little more time initially, but is better at getting the info into your head, and it makes subsequent review much more effective. It also helps to train your mind in how to absorb the information such that you'll find after a little time that it becomes easier to learn.

I hope this helps.

[Wesley Dodds]

Gilda's emphasis is on organising the information well.

In fact, I find it harder to remember academic texts because the information's too well organised.

With ordinary texts you have to work to order the information. And that makes the information easier to remember.

[Gingold]

I haven't had to do it in a while, but a method that worked for me was- read chapter, write short summary of the chapter. repeat.

[Super Samurai]

Also it doesn't hurt to study with friends as mentioned previously as study groups. Of course make sure you're actually studying instead of messin around.

[Guapo Méndez]

Good tips, Gilda. I'll definitely put them to work now that I'm taking my Masters.

[i_mmmchocolate]

The key for me--and still is-- simply attending every single class and paying attention.

[Sabrina_Fried]

Basically I havent been in school since I was in a hick public school 13 years ago and I didnt do to well even then, monday Im starting nursing school and Im piss scared Ill flunk out the first day.

I know my big weak point is Im not good at studying from a book, I can learn stuff easy if I can see and touch things but books always gave me problems.

Any suggestions for the stupid on how to study?

Wow! Congrats on getting into nursing school!

I don't know how much of my study habits will be relevant to nursing school, but here goes:

The first thing is, don't freak out. When you are nervous or stressed, you will not retain as much as you would when you are calm. Choose a study environment where you can be calm, like a quiet table in the library or your favourite chair at home. Remember that book study WILL require lots of physical inactivity, so make sure your study area is comfortable. But try NOT to choose a study environment where you will be easily distracted by things like televisions, phones, parents/siblings/friends/etc.

Make sure your study are has good lighting. Believe me, I WORK in publishing which means I spend most of the day reading. Your lighting can make a big difference. I reccommend as much natural light as possible and/or an incandescent reading lamp (incandescents are easier on the eyes than flourescents).

Schedule specific times to do your studying, and nothing but. If you are, for example, at home with your family, make sure they know you have set aside this time and you need to be undisturbed. If you don't have a quiet study area, use a CD player or an ipod to drown out the distracting noice. But when choosing your music, pick something without lyrics that you like. Your ears will naturally follow the music subconsciously, and use it to tune out other ambient sounds.

Make sure you take regular breaks to rest your eyes. I reccommend at least 5-10 minutes per hour of study. Get up, walk around, do some push-ups, whatever works for you. The breaks will also allow your mind to transfer some of what you have read from your short term memory to long term memory, or start "connecting" stuff you have read.

Don't cram. No, really. Your brain can only absorb so much information at a time. If you cram it only leads to stress and frustration, and that will affect your ability to retain information. You're actually better served by being dilligent in your studies, asking your professor lots of questions during class, and getting a good night's sleep.

Read critically. I can't stress this enough. Don't just sit there and absorb what you read like a sponge so that you can spit it back verbatim at your professor. Think about what you have read. Try to think about WHY things are the way they are. If you take notes on your reading (I seldom did) don't be afraid to write your questions right in your notes. Understanding the WHY of what you are reading will help you compress the data in your brain. It will help you answer questions for yourself instead of waiting for someone to give you the answer to memorize.

Hmm...I think thats it for now...I may have more later. Hope these help!

Sabrina

[kmeyers]

The key for me--and still is-- simply attending every single class and paying attention.
Seriously. If I went to a class all the time, paid attention and took good notes, I found I didn't even have to study for the tests at all.

When I skipped all the time, reading from the book, or even someone's notes was a nightmare.

Art classes were a little different. For those, I just had to put in the time. Even if I skipped class, I was always working at home. But at that point I liked going to class, so I didn't really skip much.

[DrewTheXenocide]

The key for me--and still is-- simply attending every single class and paying attention.

What if, for the life of you, you can't? Like the subject material/prof. is so boring that your eyelids start turning into lead. Whaddya do?

When I'm at home reading, and I find myself beginning to doze off when I shouldn't be, I smack myself. Literally.Since I can't do that in class, I either pinch myself or drink something. But even then it's sometimes hard to pay close attention.

[K'Nort]

What if, for the life of you, you can't? Like the subject material/prof. is so boring that your eyelids start turning into lead. Whaddya do?

Drop the class, frankly.


What got me and several classmates through grad school with minimal panic was a classic book called "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler. It's from 1940 but still very easy to find in cheap paperback format. Same sort of advice that Gilda provided above, although I don't know whether he is the primary source of that philosophy.

Basically, it teaches you how to skim but still get all the data you need. Saves all kinds of time. And having a copy on hand to review is a useful pick-me-up when discouraged.

There are different chapters for different kinds of reading, so it's not like you have to go through it all at once. There's a section on skimming. There's a section on reading "literature" in the way that your professor is expecting for a paper. Sections specific to translating and getting comfortable with science writing, social studies writing, etc.

[Wesley Dodds]

Actually, it just so happens the Adler book is online:

http://cyberspacei.com/greatbooks/h2/how2read/h2r.htm (http://cyberspacei.com/greatbooks/h2/how2read/h2r.htm)

[howyadoin]

There are different chapters for different kinds of reading, so it's not like you have to go through it all at once. There's a section on skimming.But don't skim that section.

[Tages]

I don't study. Bad habit of mine.

[Gargus]

I had my first anatomy and physiology lecture yesterday and today is the lab. I was doing fine till we got into chemical bonds and things like isotopes and ions, thats when I started to get lost.

He said most of his test comes from lecture and powerpoints he hands out so I am trying to re-write the power points and I read them into a tape recorder and will listen to it multiple times.

Bleh wish I could memorize this stuff better.

Thanks for the suggestions Ill try quite a few out.

[K'Nort]

I had my first anatomy and physiology lecture yesterday and today is the lab. I was doing fine till we got into chemical bonds and things like isotopes and ions, thats when I started to get lost.

He said most of his test comes from lecture and powerpoints he hands out so I am trying to re-write the power points and I read them into a tape recorder and will listen to it multiple times.

Bleh wish I could memorize this stuff better.

Thanks for the suggestions Ill try quite a few out.

What are the exams like?

Many times, they're open book, in which case you don't need to memorize anyting, just organize.