10 Study Tips: University Edition

Hi, guys!
I'm finally presenting to you the study tips I've assembled over almost 2 months of university! Since I am taking 4 science courses (and 1 social science course), some of those techniques you might or might not need in social sciences and humanities. Anyway, please follow through, and I hope it helps!

1. Textbook is your friend

I've encountered multiple people who have said that they 'didn't even need the textbook', they 'didn't open the textbook', 'the textbook is too detailed, so it makes no sense to use', etc.
I use all my textbook, and it's true - they use greater detail, but...:
1. we never know what's coming on the exam
2. it will help in our future courses.
I not only highlight the assigned readings, but I take notes from them, work through the practice problems, and analyze tables and diagrams.

2. Gather all resources

The majority of my courses have lectures, tutorials, labs, textbook reading & problems, online modules, and online quizzes. I like to incorporate all of those when I'm studying for my exams. I have a notebook, where I record all of the information from those resources. That way, I won't have to search through everything to find the needed piece of info.

3. Create your own resources

Like I mentioned in my previous blog posts, I created my own online flashcards which are very convenient to review on the go. You can also assemble your own practice packages, question-a-day jar, or whatever your creative mind makes up.

4. Practice retrieving

It's easy to fall into a trap of thinking that you know and understand the information when you are only skimming or highlighting through it. Since it is always better to double check, cover the information with your hand or a post-it while trying to recall what a certain concept entailed.

5. Review regularly

Being regular is very important because it is a big part of time management. If you will distribute your workload effectively across a weekly/monthly period, you won't be very stressed at the end.

6. Do practice questions

I cannot stress the importance of this fundamental suggestion enough...
I was not practicing this in the beginning of my uni this year, and I have definitely faced the negative consequences. Whatever resources available to you for practice - use them. Also, when you are solving/answering questions from a practice test or what not, make sure to do at least 5 of your best attempts at solving something before actually looking up the answer/solution.

7. Make sure you are fully focused

Our Psych professor does a few "probes" (as he calls them) throughout the lecture. The probe is a question which asks whether we were "on task" before the question appeared, "unintentionally mind wandering" or "intentionally mind wandering".  Since those probes appear multiple times throughout lecture, I discovered that I begin unintentionally mind wandering after approximately 20-25 mins of an (interesting, though) lecture.
What I'm leading it up to, and what our professor suggested, is that try to control your brain's impulses, and if there is something in your head, write it down somewhere, so that it can be temporarily misplaced out of your attention. Also, take regular breaks of ~5 minutes long to "recharge" on the ability to focus on the material.

8. Do the easier stuff first

That might contradict a lot of suggestions you've heard before, but my reasoning is the pursuit of motivation. If I have a long to-do list of tasks, I will definitely get the small ones out of the way, so I will not be dreaded by a number of things I still have to do after I finish a time-consuming, "heavy" task.

9. Don't be too confident

Overconfidence is my old "frienemy", because sometimes it helps, but often it doesn't. For instance, I started out this semester with a quiz on almost every course I have, and my grades turned out to be fabulous! The problem was that I underestimated the midterms, and didn't do as well as I expected due to the lack of the sufficient amount of work put into it. Now, I am trying to bounce back with active studying techniques, and improve my grades until they will match my standards.

10. Make sure you understand why 

It applies to everything! In order to be a successful individual, an intelligent student, a good investigator, etc. you must not only understand the concept and its applications but also why is it occurring. It is a deep level of thinking, and even though you might or might not get assessed on it on a test - inquiry is still a skill which all successful people possess.


Good Luck! 

My Saturday Routine (University Edition)

Hi, guys!

Today I wanted to stay away from tips and suggestions, and I wanted to do a casual-type of blog post. I thought it will be interesting to see what my usual Saturday is like during university, because it definitely differs from my summer Saturdays!

~ 10:00 a.m.

I wake up, use the bathroom, and by this time the breakfast is already waiting for me, because on Saturdays I stay at my parents' house, and I have a pleasure of having my mom cook for me. What I like to do myself though, is brewing some coffee or tea with frothed milk. 

After breakfast, I usually just go back to my room, and clean up a little.

~11:00 a.m.

At 11, I like to work on non-academic activities, such as applications (to volunteering), presentations for my future club, or some other ideas concerning extracurriculars.

Somewhere along this time, I will want to take a shower.

~1:00 p.m.

At this time I will realize that I have a load of work to do, and once I set up my desk (sometimes my bed), I will get started with work. So, Saturday is the day when I need to do the most amount of homework, and it usually includes the following:

1. Health Aging and Society reading + notes

2. Chemistry module + notes

3. Chemistry tutorial questions

4. Physics module + notes

5. Physics textbook questions

6. Psychology reading + module + notes

Currently, I also work on rewriting my notes, and I will do that only if I cross out all of my priorities stated above

~ 4:30 p.m. 

About half-way through my homework activities, my brain will begin to boil, and I will want to get outside. Today, for instance, I went my mom and my boyfriend to a cafe, where we enjoyed wonderful pizza and a desert. Last Saturday my boyfriend and I went to the mall for some shopping and a coffee. Next Saturday, I am going to shop for some Halloween candies and decorations. 

~ 6:30 p.m.

Then, I'll start panicking about homework and rush back home. I will try my best to finish as much work as I can, and usually, it is just one thing left, which I will feel bad about not doing, but I will put it aside until Monday, because I have 5 hours in between classes to do it. 

~ 9:00 p.m.

At this time, I will either have my dinner and fall asleep, or have my dinner, and my boyfriend will drive me around downtown (because this is how I like to relax). On Sundays I go to work for which I need to wake up at 7, so I need to fall asleep at about 11:00 p.m. after watching some Grey's Anatomy or some Youtube videos! 

University Lectures

Hey, guys!
In this blog post I would like to go over one of the most important parts of university learning - lectures. Each post-secondary institution is different and your lectures might or might not go similar to mine, but see if you can relate.

My lectures are 50 minutes in duration and each course gets 2 lectures per week (for some courses it's 3) + labs and tutorials (but we are not focusing on those).
Initially I thought that the lectures will be the place where the heaviest amount of material is presented, like in high school. It is definitely not the case. I will outline the way lectures go in each subject and then I'll give you some tips for what to do to learn effective from my lecture material.

Physics:

• daily pop-up quizzes
• lecture outlines the online module (primary source of information)
• extended (from the module) examples are performed

Chemistry:

• daily pop-up quizzes
• lecture covers simple and extended examples and application of the theory, but no outline of the actual theory
• the teacher often stresses about concepts important for the exam

Psychology:

• daily pop-up quizzes and polls
• lecture covers application questions extended from the module and new information (something found in textbook, but not in modules)

Health, Aging, and Society:

• discussions of in-class (not-for-marks) questions
• lecture covers 60-80% of the information in the textbook (no online modules in this class)
• the teacher often stresses the concepts important for the exams

Biology:

• the first lecture(out of the 2) outlines online modules
• the second lecture brings in application from the information learned in modules
• pop-up quizzes occasionally 

So this is how the lectures go. I will outline what to do before, during, and after lectures, and feel free to accept these tips even if you have a different format of questions because it'll work anyway.

Before:

• read the textbook and watch online modules
• take outline (detailed) notes 
• you should pay attention to objectives of the material to use them as your guide to most important info to focus on
• prepare any questions for your TA or prof for the lecture

During:

• take notes!
• always note if the professor talks about a "good test question"
• ask questions

After:

• reread your outline and lecture notes and study them (highlight, create e-flashcards, etc.)
• do the questions from the textbook and/or any other resources provided (online quizzes, tutorial questions)
• prepare any questions for your TA or prof for the next lecture

If you will get into a habit of doing all of that, you will see how helpful it will be! I personally did not do that in the first month of uni, and now, I'm spending time doing all of that during my reading week. So start right!

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Studying On The Go

Hey, sweeties!

We all have busy lives - some days busier than the others, but we still never use our time to its full potential. A few days ago, it felt like I was studying for the whole day, but realistically - not more than 6 hours. The reason is that I spent a minimum of 2 hours in the car being driven to different places, and I also spend a good hour waiting for my blood work. I could have used those 2-3 hours to study, but because all my notes and books are so heavy it would be inconvenient. What should I do?
To learn how to study on the go (subway, waiting room, Starbucks line, etc.) with minimal resources, please keep reading!

You probably knew I'm going to say flashcards, and I will! I'm not talking about the ordinary flashcards though, I'm talking about the electronic ones.

When I was busy reviewing Psychology that day, I decided to make flashcards (149 in total!!!) on all the key terms in the material. I made sure to include the key terms from my notes, online modules, and textbook.

The app I used for it is Quizlet (and no, it is not sponsored), and all I had to do is to create the term and its definition. Then, the only thing you'd bring around with yourself is either a laptop, a tablet, or a phone! The 2 things I like about this app is that it allows for the addition of pictures (but there's a cost associated with it) but it wouldn't help in Social Psychology, and the second thing is the testing feature. You can practice matching the flashcards and reviewing it from both sides (which is way more efficient than reviewing just from one side).

 

In a few days, I will create some flashcards for Biology and I will probably add the pictures! It's worth it! I really suggest you check it out for your use. You'll love it!

What To Do During Reading Week (Academics)?

Hi, guys! 

This blog post will cover my plans for the reading week, as well as general perspectives for your 5-10 days off during the school year. I personally think that it is almost unreal to have nothing to catch up on, and there is at least something to review before coming back. I am definitely planning on relaxing, but to be entirely honest, even with my decent time management skills (no bragging at all ;)), even I lost some information and resources along the way. Here is my comprehensive list.

My Personal List:

1. Re-organize study materials

• Originally (before uni started, I planned on having 5 binders: 1 per each subject. Although I really like the organization of my binders, I won’t keep all 5 of them, because it gets very heavy.
• Then, I decided to have 1 big binder for all courses, but that’s not enough for my courses. Almost each course I have, has a lecture component, readings component, weekly quiz component, online modules component, and homework/assignment. All of them require notes, and the binder gets bulkier and bulkier.
• My current idea is to have a 5 subject notebook: 1 section/subject, and all my notes will hopefully fit in there. If not, I’ll get the same kind of notebook and just continue on there. The problem is that some of my lecture material is in the form of a power point, so for Psych, Chem, and Physics I will carry on in the notebook (because I don’t need ALL of those Power Point slides) but Bio’s and Health, Aging and Society’s Power Points need to be printed out and put into the binder.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

2. Re-think and practice new ways of taking notes and studying

• As I said, each of my courses has all of those different formats of learning. I think it is extremely helpful to re-write them all into one place and just add on to it. For instance, those courses where I print the power points (6 slides/page), I just highlight as we go through, as well as add any additional notes to it. For other courses, I just do my best to record the question and answer, because in Chem, Physics and Psych, the majority of stuff we really do is answer pop-up questions.
• As to the new study tips, I’ll touch on it in a different blog, but overall, I am planning to study WAY more actively!

3. Do practice on all subjects

• I definitely feel like I did not put enough time into practice question. Even though we have weekly quizzes, more practice needs to be incorporated. For that, I am planning to go through all practice quizzes for Bio, textbook and tutorial questions for Chem, textbook questions and test corrections for Physics, textbook questions and my own questions for Health, Aging, and Society (HAS), and practice quizzes for Psych.

4. Do test corrections on any assignments

• I kind of touched on it above, but test corrections are crucial to identify which areas you need extra practice in. We learn best from mistakes!

5. Prepare for the left-over midterms

• I have 2 more midterms (Bio and HAS) coming up, so I will spend a sufficient amount of time studying for them. I also have a big quiz in Psych, and that is also worth putting a lot of time into! In the nearest future (this week, most likely), I will post about how to study for science midterms!
• I also need to prepare for next week’s laboratories, and there is a quiz and other prep (research, graphs, etc.) that I need to do before hand!  

6. Research

• I am very curious as to what kind of research goes on at my university, and I would like to print and read some of Mac’s publications. That will not only provide me with an opportunity to meet the researchers (and maybe get involved with their work), but also to connect what I learned in class to real world concepts.
  

7. Extracurriculars

• I currently am a Vice President of the Sick Kids Foundation at Mac, and this is an honour to me to be a part of this organization. My role will be to help the President guide the activities of the club, and brainstorming new ideas for the future.
• My plan for the Reading week though, is to hire somebody for our new subcommittee (lectures about rare children’s disorders) and start actively preparing for the first meeting with all the executives.
• I also am planning to start working on my own club, which is going to be called McMaster Children’s Health Conference, where I will be presenting about common disorders in children, discussing description of an illness, symptoms, diagnostic techniques, treatment options, and prognoses. I will totally have cookies or other snacks set up for my audience! 

8. MCAT

• I definitely am not underestimating the importance of a good MCAT score, so I will look over the material I’ve gone through in uni with my MCAT books. It will give me some more practice on those concepts, as well as a new perspective (new pictures, explanations, diagrams) which might be easier to understand.
  
   

General List (in addition to personal):

1. Review

• If you don’t have any midterms, or quizzes coming up, you should still actively review the material. Just spend a few hours of your day to do practice problems, and review the info.

2. Assignment Work

• Depending on your program, you might or might not have a lot of writing to do, and during the Reading Week, you will have a wonderful opportunity to work on your papers/presentations. Even if your assignments are not due right after you return from the break, make an outline to save time closer to the deadline. 

GOOD LUCK!

QUICK UPDATE

Hi, guys!

I've been quite busy recently with studying, but I've got lots to share with you! From October 10th till 17th I'll have my Reading week, and you could totally expect a few blog posts in that range of time. I'll cover the differences between high school and university, how to study in general and how to study for midterms, what to do during reading week, and how to take lecture notes.
There is currently quite a few things I am trying to figure out:
- whether or not I like using my textbook as a primary study resource
- research positions availability in sciences in first year
- how to study more efficiently
etc.
Overall, though, I've been really enjoying university, and I can't wait until you get to hear all my experiences in the upcoming posts!
Don't forget that self-reflection is very important in life, and make sure you're constantly asking yourself whether you're honest with yourself, whether you did your best at a certain activity, and whether you're having your priorities straight!