As a working student (I’m in a dual study program), I’m in a tense situation twice a year: there are numerous exams, and even if most aren’t that hard, you have to study a lot at once and only have two tries. You can’t even delay an exam if you don’t feel prepared (technically you can by calling in sick, but that’s beside the point). As of writing this article, I have just completed the fourth semester and wanted to provide some insights into my studying (the stu is silent). There were eight courses about which we wrote exams within two weeks.
One of our profs tries to be inspiring and have a positive impact on our lives, so he decided to bring up the topic of how to memorize content. While this is a deep field of study, we, as students, only want to know what to make of it. What stood out to me was a document about how quick we forget things without repetition.
While he was trying to point our focus to the fact that we need to study multiple times to remember the lecture’s content, all I heard was “if you start studying too early, you will forget it until the exam”. (The values seem arbitrary, so I’m not going to go into detail on the numbers. Instead, this article uses a higher-level overview of that concept.)
In the second semester, we had a week off from lectures to focus on studying before the exams, and I figured I didn’t need to study before that as one week and the days between the exams would be sufficient. Well, guess what… I was sick that week, and got well just in time to write the first exam. Nevertheless, it seems like listening to the lectures and preparing for one or two days each before each exam was enough for not just mediocre, but actually good grades.
This semester, I used the week to prepare for studying (more on that later), but most of the memorization happened in the last few days again. And it worked. The exams haven’t been graded yet, but I rocked most of it. (edit: I’m quite satisfied with my grades)
So procrastinating isn’t that bad. It increases your return of investment. Say, studying for 3 weeks would give you 60 points (60 points / 60 hours = 1 point per hour). If you study for one week instead, and you expect around 50 points, that’s still 55 points / 20 hours = 2.75 points per hour. Now, let’s say you only spend two days studying intensely, that’s even more ROI (48 points / 12 hours = 4 points per hour). Obviously, these values are entirely made up and differ from person to person and in different exams. But the idea stays the same: procrastinating increases productivity. That is because the time spent in the beginning is way less rewarding, as you will have forgotten most of it, unless you use the last days to repeat the content. Instead of repeating it, why not just learn it quickly? (Note that the example calculations also show a decrease in total points, so this comes at a cost!)
Now, here’s something strange: I do not use study cards (like Anki or on paper). They are wonderful, and you should definitely try it if you haven’t already, but I tend to be more conservative in terms of studying methods. I write summaries on paper (!) and then use example tasks and questions to repeat the content. There are some advantages to this, as I’m going to explain further in this article, but I just wanted to share this ridiculous fact.
So far, the article was not really helpful, so let’s change that. Here are some tips that actually improved my performance:
Question-driven learning
Instead of focussing on what was taught, focus on what you have to do. Mostly, you have to answer questions. So why not study by coming up with questions on the topics? You can even write down questions that profs ask during lectures, maybe even rhetorically. Plus, you can generate them using ChatGPT.
Mode-driven learning
The exams I write are all handwritten. Therefore, I prefer to study with handwritten notes. It just makes sense, and I’m sure there is some research on how helpful that is. Handwritten notes also force you to break content down into smaller pieces and focus on the important aspects.
Sleep
Yes, sleep. 3 hours per night are not enough. The more you sleep, the less often you find yourself in a mental block where you just cannot comprehend the sentence you are reading.
Hydrate
Drinking enough water is also essential. Your body’s wellbeing is closely tied with your mental health.
Study together
If you are better at something, explaining it to others will help you identify gaps and learn to break the content down (similar to handwritten notes, but in my opinion even more effective). If they are better prepared, they can explain things to you. As for me, I prefer to study alone until I’m proficient enough and then have higher level discussions about the topics. This is also a natural consequence of me starting to study later. Everyone else has a kickstart, and I’m simply not as productive when having things explained to me.
Accuracy is key
I don’t know whether it’s a common phenomenon or just a me-thing, but I tend to be perfectionistic about my notes. There may not be any mistakes, including spelling errors. I’m not annoying about it when others write something, really, this is just limited to my own writing. But my mind just prefers this kind of accuracy. Remembering things wrong just because you swapped a few words, or misspelled something just once, is a bad habit in my opinion.
In the end, all this article’s ridicule comes down to a simple, yet powerful point: don’t listen to conventions, instead find what works best for you. Including my tips. They work for me, but might be useless to others.
Bonus: Procrastinating doesn’t have to be boring. Instead of feeling bad about not making progress, you can have a good time, meet friends, play games and once you feel more balanced, continue where you left off.