You know, after spending a year overseas, and having returned to my local campus, it did feel foreign to me. The usual group of friends I used to hang out around had different people, and some of them even had positions in their clubs/societies too.

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It was kinda like everyone had some sort of “student career advancement” and there’s yours sincerely who’s got no other interest in club positions because I ain’t got interest in politics existing within clubs...

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So what’s the overview for this Chapter?

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The past 2 Chapters have largely been on values I learnt through the personal stories I’ve shared with you, and I do hope that they’ve been beneficial.

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So now, I’ll shift gears to make this Chapter focus more on study tips which can be helpful to you… (Well, according to YouTube Analytics, there’s a high chance that you who are reading this indeed belong somewhere in the students category XD)

 

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That’s part of the reason why I felt it relevant to share some lessons and stories here with you before my student life becomes too far of a distant fairy tale for me to even recall the good times.

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Nonetheless, 3rd Year of Uni was the start of some difficult modules, especially the research project modules. They needed a lot more focus and more strategical approaches, and also a keen understanding of yourself of which hours you work best.

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So moving on quickly, I soon had to adapt to the new challenges quickly, or risk being left behind. And thankfully, I developed a few Timeless Study Strategies (TSS) for myself, and they have worked well throughout my 3rd Year and even for my Final year as well.

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These Timeless Study Strategies will be succinct enough for you to use immediately and perhaps are more than able to help you perform better in managing your lessons, modules and materials.

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So to keep things relevant, I’ll share with you 3 TSSs that have been extremely beneficial to me, and have been among the various contributions to my successful graduation.

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TSS #1: Never Trust This Dangerous 1 Liner...

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Have you ever caught yourself in class, when the teacher/lecturer is saying or showing something rather important , and you think to yourself:

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“Ah, I’ll remember it~”

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That’s a flag right there, and it’s one that you shouldn’t ignore.

 

I’ve lost count how many times I murmured “I’ll remember it” only to forget it by the time I walk out of the classroom…

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And even more times when I said to myself “Argh I’ve heard this before SOMEWHERE!” 

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I think it goes without saying that it’s really important that you jot down notes in class. Especially so when there are derivations or explanations that are extremely important in developing understanding of the lesson.

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In fact I often found that some really vital ideas come at the most unexpected times, and having pieces of paper around your desk can be so helpful to jot them down.

 

Being able to write something is far more beneficial to you than relying on memory alone to retain what was just mentioned. Choose writing over memorizing. It goes a long way in helping to build memory containment.

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And one of the most comforting feeling you can ever get while studying is finding back an important note in your notebook when you thought you didn’t have it written down, especially so when it’s that important.

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Never assume you’ll remember something just because you said so yourself. Let your notebook do the remembering for you, and you’ll find yourself in a much more favorable situation when studying.

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Speaking of remembering things, here is TSS #2!

 

TSS #2: To Do Lists Is THE Way

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Understandably, there can be a lot on your mind at the end of the day. There could be club meetings to prepare for or assignments to complete, and you might even feel overwhelmed already…

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And you’ll feel like not wanting to bother much about other things… more so if its any pending homework that needs submitting.

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Well, you can take a temporary respite or break by having fun with games or anything to wind down, but its only a matter of time before you’d have to look at the things that need to be done.

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So at any time when there’s a lot going in your mind, it is always so useful to

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WRITE DOWN YOUR THOUGHTS on a piece of paper.

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Here's an exaggerated figure of what I actually look like when rushing to write all the stuff on my mind...

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When the mind’s cluttered with all the day’s events, even your memory can be in a haze.

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And there’s a chance you might put off doing an assignment that desperately needed your attention.

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So one fine way is to have your To Do List with you, and make a list of things that need to be done.

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It is so much better if you

can offload some brain

power and let something

else take over the job of

reminding you what needs

to be done by when.

 

And of course, stick that List

somewhere your vision falls

on most often.

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Sure, it can be annoying looking at the growing list of things to be done. But I highly implore you to make sure you prioritize your responsibilities properly first before your list gets too big in the first place.

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Remember it doesn’t need a detailed entry as to remind you what to do. The name of the assignment and the due date is enough; not necessarily important to categorize them as “Urgent” or “Important”, but can still be an option should you choose to do so.

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Even my own “reminders” were crude: I simply scribbled them on a piece of paper next to my computer, and its always within my sight.

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And with 2 TSSs out of the way, here is the 3rd TSS, and one that will be extremely useful for research modules, especially for academic purposes.

 

TSS #3: Avoid the “Flip’ n Whip”

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Have you read research journals before? If you’re in the science stream, I think a good advice to take would be to start getting used to reading technical papers >.<

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It can be extremely DRY to read them,

and can be difficult to understand it,

let alone to appreciate one… 

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And yes, I've fallen asleep numerous

times reading technical papers...

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But the thing is this: the earlier you acclimatize to how difficult (or boring) it is to read journals, the better it’ll be for you as you progress through your years in college/Uni, and is especially useful when doing the research modules.

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Now, papers can have a lot of useful information, but you really don’t know if you’re going to use those information anyway.

 

Here’s a useful tip that I picked up during my internship at the end of my 3rd Year…

 

As you conduct your research, you’re bound to need A LOT of materials. Like hell A LOT.

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And if you were thinking you would do fine just by highlighting the information on a journal in the PDF format, you’re losing efficiency.

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Why?

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Because the trouble begins the moment you start writing your report…

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Imagine this:

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                                     You’ve done your research extremely                                               thoroughly, and you’ve highlighted a                                               ton of information, and almost every                                               paper in your research folder is filled                                               with color… 

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                                     You feel ready to finally START writing                                             the paper, so you turn on Microsoft                                                 Word, and…

 

I bet you won’t be able to recall a SINGLE sentence of what you’ve highlighted…

 

So you begin to look at Adobe Acrobat Reader and load up all those research journals you’ve accumulated, and think you could Alt+Tab between MS Word and Adobe Reader and type as you go through those highlighted points…

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But, can you be certain that ALL the highlighted points in the first PDF you’re looking, be used at the current point of your writing?

 

Then you realize that the information need to be in order, and now you’re not just flipping one PDF, but multiple PDFs to find relevant points to group according to the progress of your writing…

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And you’re Alt-Tabbing here and there and you feel like this is going to take FOREVER…

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Now you see the trouble of just highlighting the information in the PDFs or the downloaded source?

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Doing it for one paper is fine, but wait till you get to 5 different papers and above…

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You’d be flippin’ pages and tabs of

documents like you’re flippin' burgers, your

focus and energy be flippin’ flappin’ out of

the window in no time.

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Part of the University experience is learning

how to coordinate your materials. And the

“Flip’ n Whip” method doesn’t just affect

your attention and focus, but your eyes as

well.

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So instead of highlighting your documents

and leaving it be, prepare a document that

will be used to collect ALL the information

you’ve highlighted in those research

journals, and start categorizing your points

accordingly.

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I find writing down the points in order of their appearance as per the original document to be better. By having the points in order of their appearance as per the original document, you get to see all the points you’ve collected, compare similar points from other journals, process and write them as the report progresses, while linking up similar points from other references as well.

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As shown above, each of the red box represents ONE reference source and its points. I’ve covered up the sentences to avoid getting into trouble with the original source >.< Apologies. But my ‘pool of information document’ would look something like that.

 

TLDR: You want your resources in one place to facilitate information management. It might take some time to organize them, but once they’re in place, you’ll find that accessing your collected information will not be that tiring and you’ll be able to make more progress in your reports as well.

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So those are the 3 Timeless Study Strategies that can help you ace your papers!

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To summarize, here are the 3 Timeless Study Strategies (TSS) that have been shared here:

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TSS #1: Never Trust The Dangerous1 Liner "Ah, I'll                 remember it~"

TSS #2: To Do Lists Is THE Way

TSS #3: Avoid The “Flip’ n Whip”

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As you progress through your studies, you will find out more on what works for you and what doesn’t. The only thing left to do is make sure that you understand when are your peak hours of focus and attention, and use those hours to the best that you can, and prioritize important or high intensity work during those hours.

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And don’t forget to loosen up every now and then too!

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So with this, it’s the end of Chapter 3 and there will be one MORE chapter to conclude the series...

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Preview: The Final Chapter contains a lesson that no University modules will ever teach you… And is one that can only be taught through a "purpose defining" discovery...

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I’ll see you there!

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- DrewyJin - 

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PS: If you were keen enough to pick up on it, there was a phrase within this chapter that would have raised some eyebrows ;)