Studying for university, especially for those who do not have much experience in college, can be quite a challenge. It is clear that there are careers that are more difficult than others, but there is one thing that is clear: preparing for university exams and be up to date with the syllabi given in the subjects University requires more preparation than one would expect in a normal school or an institute.
So that… how to study for university? How can we adopt those study habits that will allow us to adapt well to the pace of work and learning that is expected of us in a faculty? Let’s see it.
How to study for university and learn week by week
When adapting to the typical type of study at a university, keep the following pointers and key ideas in mind.
1. Autonomy is what matters
The first thing you should know is that in the university world The person directly involved in learning is, clearly, each of the students. If in high schools the lack of experience of students had to be compensated by a very proactive attitude on the part of teachers, this logic no longer exists in universities. Students must do what is necessary to keep up to date with the content they teach in class, without waiting for anyone’s help (especially considering that in most faculties there are many more students than teachers).
So, get rid of the idea that behind you there is a lifesaving network of people willing to prevent you from having to repeat subjects or pay again to take exams. This doesn’t work like that anymore.
2. In-person classes are an important resource
Many people believe that classes are simply that place that you have to attend so that your grade is not deducted for attendance. However, there is something that makes these spaces very valuable: serve to raise doubts.
There is a habit of seeing questions in class as an oddity, something that only slows down the pace of the syllabus. However, they are the essence of what it means to teach. The question session serves to fill knowledge gaps that remain between what is explained and what is learned by analyzing what the teachers say. It is normal for these types of knowledge gaps to appear, so something must be done to prevent them from continuing to exist.
Asking a question out loud is something that can save us minutes and even hours of searching through notes, reviewing the bibliography, consulting other students, etc.
3. Create a calendar
You should avoid by all means making your study time depend on the dates on which you have exams so that you can start reviewing your notes a few days before.
To do this, create calendars from the first week of the semester, locate the days of the exams, and create a first outline of your study sessions for each subject. Taking into account that to optimize your study times you should spend time studying all subjects at least once a week spread out those sessions so that you have a balanced calendar.
Don’t limit yourself to reading what it says in the books, in the photocopies and in the notes you have taken as you listened to what was said in class. Write your own versions of that content. It may seem like an unnecessary “extra” task, since theoretically it implies duplicating something that already exists in other visual supports, but in reality it is not. The reason is very simple: doing this requires you to express content in your own words and make it form a coherent “whole.”
For example, carrying out this activity with the content to be learned will allow you to detect in time those “gaps” in knowledge and those apparent contradictions that, otherwise, would only come to your knowledge at the time of taking the exam or shortly before. In addition, it will make the study much easier, since having all the content in one place and forming part of a structured text in a way that makes sense to you makes things a lot easier.
On the other hand, writing the contents of the syllabus again makes you memorize them much better than you would simply reading, as it makes that information better fixed in your memory.
5. If you can, study in a group
Group study sessions are an ideal way to detect doubts in time that otherwise would not have occurred to you. Thanks to these sessions, those difficult questions that would have been left out of your radar if you limited yourself to studying on your own, without counting on others, are centralized. However, make sure you study with people who have a similar level of knowledge to yours or it could be a frustrating experience.
At the end of each study session, ask yourself questions for a possible imaginary exam. In this way doubts will appear in a controlled environment, in which if you do not know them you can go to the sources. You will learn those that have been a challenge well simply because they have made you go through a moment of tension and uncertainty, with which you will remember them in the future. Emotional memory is very powerful.
7. Create breaks to rest
No study session of more than an hour is bearable. The idea, to perform well, is that you consider small breaks of about ten minutes every three quarters of an hour, approximately. That way you will rest adequately, preparing yourself to face the next study session with full powers.
