Study Smarter Not Harder – 12 Tips to Ease Your Higher Education

Education

study smarter

Do you ever wonder what you can do better to improve your performance in a class? Many students often find their school study habits to be not so effective in college. There is nothing to worry about as the curriculum differs a lot.

The batch strength is higher, a lesser involvement of professors, exams are critical with rigorous classes and intense reading. You need to adapt skills without worrying much about what is wrong with you.

This article highlights some practical strategies to help you with your college education.

1. Start Active Studying

The age-old practice of repeated reading and not engaging with the study material is not very fruitful. Reading only for class or re-reading to memorize are not good practices for active starting. You can pursue the following functional studying ideas to improve:

  • Creating a study guide by topic,
  • Deriving examples from relatable personal experiences,
  • Re-iterating the concepts in your own words to understand better,
  • Creating concept diagram for the material explanation,
  • Developing symbols for concept representation,
  • Figuring out big ideas to tackle non-technical subjects,
  • Working out problems to tackle technical subjects,
  • Studying with a specific focus on questions, evaluation methodology, and conclusion.

2. Utilize the Study Cycle

Frank Christ’s study cycle helps understand the different sects of studying better. You can use the technique that includes 

  • Previewing, 
  • Taking part in class, 
  • Reviewing,
  • Studying, and
  • Validating your understanding of concepts.

These steps will ensure that you do not miss any opportunity to learn effectively. 

3. Space Out

Spacing out strategy or distributed practice can help you increase your efficiency. Studies suggest that you can have maximum efficiency if you break down your study timing. However, this process will not alter your total study time, but it will ensure the same does not turn into a marathon.

4. Have the Benefit of Intense Studying

Appreciation for smart work is prevalent in any sphere of life. Choosing to have short and intensive study sessions will help you accomplish more with minimal effort. You will find it to be more beneficial than drawn-out studying.

5. Utilize Your Resources

You can remember that you have various resources at your disposal to seek guidance for your academics. You can reach out to your professors or academic coach to help implement your choice of strategy. Seeking help from outside is a great option too. You can refer to Sweetstudy’s tags, covering numerous subjects, from finance to marketing. 

Such expert help can ease your worries about a particular subject or topic. 

6. Do You Need Silence?

Understanding the environment where you can study the best is critical to the entire process. It can happen that the silence of the library is not your ideal spot, but the noisy canteen is. It is worth mentioning that active studying is rarely silent, and it needs you to say the words loudly.

7. Your New Friend

A great idea to tackle technical courses is to devote time to working on the problems. You can understand the explanation behind each step. Reading text in technical subjects will not help you have any benefit. 

8. Is Multitasking Necessary?

Multitasking impacts your results negatively and does not improve your efficiency. Eliminating the various distractions while studying can help you have more intensive study sessions. Multitasking will only lead to increased time required to learn the material and deteriorate your learning quality.

9. Identify Your Right Spot

You can identify various places in and around your college to alternatively use the spots. It can happen that you do not have the highest level of concentration early in the morning and focus better in the afternoon or evening. Understanding the productive hours is critical.

10. Imagine Yourself in Your Teacher’s Shoes

Try to act as your teacher and teach yourself the concept in your own words. You can try them all alone or with a study partner. When you spell out the word loudly, you will identify where you are hesitant and need more attention. 

11. Your Calendar in Your Control

You can better accomplish your goals if you adhere to a fixed schedule andYou will be able to finish off your assignments on time and be in control of your studies. You can refer to the following steps to improve your calendar control:

  • Plan out your schedule in advance for the coming week,
  • Set goals for each class that you want to achieve that week,
  • Decide the number of hours you require to complete the work on your calendar,
  • Identify whether you have time to complete your list,
  • Pen down the time for individual assignment completion, and
  • Go through the plan for the next day before going to bed.

12. Utilize Your Downtime

So, you are aware of the above steps that can help you increase your efficiency and productivity to study. However, a crucial step that you can not miss is to take care of your downtime. When you have a lighter week, try to share the coming week’s load to get ahead. Happy studying!

Tony Brian

Tony loves to write on technology, app/website reviews, business and internet marketing. He has been in the online industry for over 5 years. Tony is also good at web and graphic design.