Things I Learned in College | Tips for Study & Essays

November 21, 2017

Things I Learned in College | Tips for Study & Essays

Alright, alright, alright. Here are some of my tips for you for when you are struggling through an essay or studying for that exam. I am an English and Anthropology final year student. My tips will be related to that field of study and my experience over the last couple of years. My advice comes from my experience and from what worked for me. You gotta find your own groove honey, but if I can help you along the way, it will be from this post...let's get into it!

"You gotta find your own groove honey"

A tip which was given to me, which I think will be invaluable, is to write every single day. Every day. Even if it is only 300 words, write 'em. With this, you gotta read every day. If you read every day, you will always have something to write about. I had a massive issue with critical writing, so when it came down to writing an essay at the end of term, it was way more of an ordeal than it needed to be. By only writing when you have to write your essay, you are leaving yourself out of practice for a good month or two, and then expecting yourself to be well versed in the skill of essay-writing when it comes to the end of term. It just isn't realistic. If you write every day, then you will find the habit of critical thinking, writing in a critical tone, and forming your own original thought, alongside critics, much easier! It should ideally become second nature with all of that practice. Why wouldn't you? It will hardly take any time, and if you get good enough at it, some of the material could work fantastically in that essay at the end of term.

Two things that truly changed the game for me are two of the most simplistic and straight-forward (probably blatantly obvious) things: some PDFs are copy-paste-able, and the beauty of control-F.

"Well I fxcking never"

Well I fxcking never. I couldn't believe it when PDFs were copy-paste-able. It changed my note-taking game forever. Now I just read things online, and copy out the passage or sentence that is of interest, make a document for notes specific to that PDF, and viola. Simple. Copy-paste it into your essay when needed, and you also have a document to refer back to instead of trawling through the PDF another time to try and find something that looks familiar, or wasting time writing out what you thought was important, or even printing it out and highlighting bits, only to lose the only damn copy you have. Life-changing, I tell ya.

If you are feeling extra savvy, you could write out the citation for your bibliography first thing, and paste it to the top of your document, so come essay time, it's all ready for you baby! Thank me later.

"I am a pen and paper gal"

Control-F though. Another life-saver. I can't believe I didn't know about this for SO long. For anyone who doesn't know, your life just got a whole lot easier. Scanning documents and websites, and even PDFs will never be the same again. Control-F allows you to type in any word, and it will highlight and show you all of the places where that word or phrase is featured within the text. Another blooming obvious thing that everyone seemed to know about before I did, but just in case you were like me, and lived in ignorant agony..you're welcome.

I am a pen and paper gal all the same, so I whole-heartedly believe in buying the book. If you are doing an essay on Jane Eyre, buy it. Buy it and use it. Bend the spine back, underline phrases, circle recurring motifs, scribble in the margins, stick post-its onto key moments. Know the book, make it your own. Own the plot line, create your own key scenes, pick out your own quotations, stand out from the rest. I understand some books are so expensive, and you are sometimes as well off finding the PDF version online, but I think this depends on the text. A lot of the classics like Wordsworth Classics and Oxford Classics go for 3 quid. Skip the Starbucks that day, own Jane Eyre instead!

"the vending machine was my best friend"

I cannot recommend this enough, eat well! Do not run yourself into the ground with crappy foods, all of that sugar and fast foods. I found when I was studying really late during exam season in the library in first year, and even for the first half of second year, the vending machine was my best friend. I used to eat so much crap and drink so many fizzy drinks, and a lot of energy drinks. For the more recent exam season, second year summer exams, I cut them out almost completely. I reduced the amount of crap I ate by about 70% I would say, and I felt SO much better for it. I just made sure to get a good breakfast, and to bring lots of healthy snacks and food with me to the library, so as I was never tempted by my old friend. I am guilty of a few take-aways to the library, but I have really reduced my intake of unhealthy food and I felt so much better for it. I felt so much more alert, like I can study for longer, retain more information, and be much more productive.

I think it is really key to keep your energy levels topped up at all times, and not to run yourself into the ground. If you let yourself totally run out of energy, and get really tired and worn out, then building that strength back up again is really difficult. This is where I would reach for a sugary snack or energy drink in the past, but by keeping the energy up by snacking consistently and healthily, and not letting your energy levels go down too much, you don't have such a low to come back up from. This means less sugar crashes, stress sessions and panicked moments to deal with! [ I could really do with taking this part of my own advice this year... did someone say hypocrite? what? Nooo..]

Something that my brother introduced me to, is the beauty of isochronic tones and binaural beats. These babies are my new saviour for concentration purposes. Rob told me about them, and how research into brains is becoming more and more advanced, and that they have learned more and more about brain-waves. These high frequency sounds help to bring your brain waves to a certain level or wavelength, enabling you to reap the benefits of a certain wave-length, depending on what frequency you listen to. I like to listen to Alpha tones or beats when I am working on something like reading, writing or even writing a blog post, to keep me focused.

I have spoken about this before, but I highly recommend speaking to lecturers and tutors. Email them, catch them after class, engage in class, or attend their office hours. They are there to help you, it is their job! I wrote a whole blog post on this (here). Meet them, take their advice, discuss the module topics with them, share your ideas, develop them with your lecturers. At the very least, they will remember you when it comes to correcting your exam or essay, and that they will know you have made the effort.

"Just do it, man"

As far as I know, I have mentioned this before, but do the reading. Read the damn text, read the critics' works. Get the book. Be the annoying friend who has the only copy in the library. Be the friend who has done the reading before the lecture, and actually knows what is going on in class. This will help you so much when you go to write your essays, because you will be continually formulating your own arguments and opinions on the topic. Just do it, man.

"Practice makes firsts people"

Writing essays is how I plan on studying for my exams, seeing as my exams are just on-the-spot essays. To be honest, I have always been really bad at studying for them before, and I really didn't know how. They always tell you not to prepare set essays that you just write out and regurgitate in the exam, but I do think writing essays and various answers as practice will allow you to learn more and more about the types of topics that will come up. Practice makes firsts people.

I hope these obvious, and not-so-obvious tips help to keep you going this essay/exam season.

As always, thank you for reading!

Lots of love