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!