I should start this blog by saying that I really don’t enjoy studying, and I love to put it off as long as possible. I’m not sure if this makes me more or less qualified to share my techniques, but they’ve stood up under a lot of pressure and not enough time.
Different applications require different techniques, so I’ll break it down!
General HW: I find it very difficult to pretend I’m an organized person and start my homework right after the class. Therefore I like to start my homework two or three days before it’s due that way I have time to ask for help and go back to it before I have to turn it in. The most efficient way for me to do homework is to sit down and thing out a chunk of it in one block of time. On the other hand, sometimes I can waste hours trying to figure out a problem, and I just need to sleep on it or get a different way of looking at it from someone else. I’m always careful to keep my homework sets because they are an excellent tool to study for test, Which leads to my next point…..
Studying for midterms: I rarely if ever sit down and look over my notes or book to study for midterms, because it doesn’t help me. What works best for me is to sit down the night before or day of and go through the homework problems that I had trouble with. Honestly midterms suck but the company very similar to the problems you’ve be
en assigned.
Group projects: it’s really impossible to procrastinate on group projects the way I do with homework and tests, And I’m usually the one leaving in organizing the group so I have to be on top of things. Therefore it’s important to do a little bit at a time each day and stay on a schedule you’ve laid out. Also be very careful that your group members also know the schedule
Gen. techniques: something that works for me is to have a specific set up for when I want to get serious and study. This usually includes a cup of tea or coffee, very comfortable clothes and my favorite Pandora station: action movie film scores!!! Other people might have a group that they typically study with, a location that helps them focud, like Doheny library, or comforting snack like Hot Cheetos (that was sarcastic those are gross)
Honestly it sounds cheesy, but the thing that motivates me to study is how much I love my classes and what I’m doing. If I wasn’t an engineer I could be writing essay but instead I’m doing real-life problems about spacecrafts engineering! I am so lucky!!
