Top 6 Study Tips from a Double Major & Honors Student

Authors Note: This blog is intended to bring relief to overworked students and those who are striving to improve. These techniques are important, as more and more students face burnout and stress, without knowing how to get past it. Not only can these techniques help with studying, but some of them may also be beneficial for those in the workplace.

How to get started when you’re lacking motivation 

Lacking motivation when you know that you have a lot to do is one of the worst situations to encounter as a student, even more so as a college student. But it happens to the best of us, and you are not alone. To get back on your feet, start by making a list of (at the most) three easy productive things to do. Spend 10 minutes on each of them. Sometimes I write down to clean my desk or to fold my clothes. Doing this will often put you in the mood to be more productive with schoolwork. It also gives you a feeling of accomplishment, which provides a sense of motivation to do more. 

The Pomodoro technique 

The Pomodoro Studying technique is my all-time favorite and extremely helpful. It was developed in the late 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, and it’s simple, yet effective. It’s also quite simple. First, choose a task that requires all your attention. Spend 25 minutes on it and then take a 5-minute break. Then put a checkmark on a piece of paper and repeat this for four intervals. Then take a 25-minute break. As a double major who has a lot of classes, this has helped me manage my time efficiently without burnout, thus helping me submit assignments on time. 

Visual Association for Memorization 

Visual associations for memory retention were created by the ancient Greeks and is especially helpful for vocabulary or list memorization. The trick is to associate different parts of a text to images you will remember. The more weird and out of the box, the easier it will be to remember them. For example, let’s say I needed to remember the definition of epithelial tissue, which is the outer tissue that protects organs and other parts of the body. I would connect the definition of epithelial tissue with the image of me taking a tissue out of a tissue box and using it to wipe down the outer side of my blinds. The idea of the tissue from the tissue box obviously relates to the word tissue and cleaning the outer layer of my blinds, connects to the fact that epithelial tissue is outer tissue. The imagery is also specific enough to remember it. 

Do’s and Don’ts for taking breaks 

I think it goes without saying that taking breaks is a necessity for the mind to function. However, there are some right and wrong ways to take a break. To start with, you don’t want to take an overly long break because you’d get too caught up in that and lose the motivation to work again. A way to avoid this is for small assignments, take a 5-minute break, for moderately difficult assignments, take a 10-minute break, and for your most tedious assignments, take a 15-minute break. Furthermore, it’s rarely effective to use technology on your break. Studies have shown that technology can negatively impact your memory retention and you may find it extremely difficult to go back to your task. More effective options may be going on a walk, stretching, reading, or something creative. 

Reviewing notes for testing 

One of my best recommendations for reviewing notes is that to make sure when you’re writing them in class, add a star next to information that has been spoken a lot about, because that usually means it will be on a test. Furthermore, it will help wonders to read your notes for that day aloud 10 times after class. After you have written notes for your class within four days, read aloud those notes from the past four days 10 times. Keep repeating this process. Consistently doing this will limit the amount you’ll need to study for the test because you’ve already been preparing. It will be much easier to study when the test comes if this technique has been put into practice. 

Music While Working 

Have you ever had the struggle where music doesn’t help you focus and can even distract you? What if I told you that there’s a foolproof way to keep this from happening? To start off with the general advice most people give, don’t listen to music with words while you’re working. It causes a distraction. But here’s some tricks that most people don’t talk about. The music you listen to should rely on how much energy you have in the moment. If you’re tired and need to be productive, you probably shouldn’t listen to slow and relaxing music. It will just put you to sleep. Instead, you can listen to upbeat instrumental music which will wake you up and help you work faster. If you’re extremely stressed, you should listen to slower music so you can be calm while working. It is also important to change your music every now and then, so you don’t get bored. 

Thank you for reading and I hope that this benefits you!