8 Effective Study Habits for College Students

Guest Post | Are you struggling to stay motivated for exams? Do you find yourself studying for hours and learning nothing? It’s very common for students to not know how to study properly. It leads to burnout, poor exam grades, and even a feeling of self-doubt. Luckily there are some simple changes that can help achieve effective study habits for college students.

Create a Productive Environment

Finding a place to study regularly may seem like a very basic tip, but tons of students don’t follow this. Some work from their bed where it makes them more tired and less willing to do the work. Every student should create a space in their home that is designated for work. It can be your desk, the dining room table, or any other space that will stay clear from clutter.

You should also set up the environment around you to help you be as productive as possible. If you need absolute silence to be able to focus, find somewhere you can have that. If you need music to be playing while studying, pop in some headphones. Even the lighting can affect your productiveness. Try out a few different spots to study in before you pick one to consistently do school work at.

In addition to the location and noise concerns of studying, you should also consider the time. If you know you are most productive in the evening/night, study during those times. If you need to start your work at 8 am, consider adding studying to your morning routine list. The time is just as important as the place you decide to study at.

Organize and Plan your Study Schedule

As soon as you take a new class, go over your syllabus. Typically professors will have test dates, essay deadlines, and homework due dates all on the document. By reading this you can prepare to plan out how much time you will spend working on classwork and studying.

Enter every single due date and exam date into your physical planner or digital calendar to keep track of important dates. Once you have your test dates entered, you can begin to plan your studying 2 weeks in advance. This will allow you to break up the chapters and lessons you have learned across the time span. It’s never good to cram for any class. To truly be successful in creating effective study habits, you must start out by blocking out your time. Designate going over a chapter a day, or break it up by lessons. It is best to do a little bit over time rather than everything at once.

Create a Study Group

Sometimes it is very difficult to study alone for a certain class. If you know Chemistry or Calculus is not your strong suit, it can be very helpful to have a partner or group of classmates all working together to understand the concepts. You can simply create a discussion post in Canvas to ask if others would like to form a study group or drop a discord link in your class’s Zoom call.

It’s always better to go through lessons with other students to see where each of you is lacking. You can all focus together on doing practice problems or creating chapter outlines. It helps lessen the amount of work you do as an individual and lets you teach concepts to your classmates. If you know something well enough to teach it to another person, then you should do well on your exams.

Review and Rewrite your Notes

Taking great notes during class and not reviewing them is a complete waste. You did all that hard work of paying attention to your professor and copying the lecture slides. It is super important to review your notes the same day you took them. According to some sources, students who reviewed their notes within a day of taking them were able to recall more information than students who did not.

Another habit you may want to pick up is rewriting your notes. Sometimes the way the professor may word definitions and concepts is hard to understand. Or you took really messy notes in class. Whatever the class may be, it is great to rewrite your notes as it also helps with memory. You are reviewing the material as you rewrite so it allows you to go over everything you learned that day and know where you get confused. It also helps if you can even reword some of your notes in your own words to prove you have an understanding of the material.

Ask for Help when Needed

Sometimes studying on our own or even with a group may not be enough, and that’s okay. Not everyone is going to understand a certain chapter, topic, or even subject. If you are struggling, reach out to your professor, the TAs, or even see if your college offers free tutoring. There is no need to suffer in silence.

Set study session goals

Every time you sit down to study, you should have a desired outcome in mind. Are you trying to memorize all the key definitions of a certain chapter? Are you trying to accurately solve 10 Calculus problems? Set clear and defined goals for each study session to make the most of your time.

Sleep

Do not get into the habit of sacrificing your sleep to study. If you have been properly planning out the days you are studying and the goals of those study sessions, there should be no need to do this. Sleep is very important to stay productive, you can’t run on empty. If you are not sleeping properly, you will also end up studying for longer amounts of time and become even more tired. One study even states that students who sleep more have higher GPAs than those who don’t.

Utilise the Pomodoro Technique

One way to block out your study time is to use the Pomodoro technique. This is where a student studies for 25 minutes then takes a 5-minute break. You can do this up to 4 times and then take a longer break that’s about 15-30 minutes. This will allow you to focus on the tasks at hand, but give your mind rest when necessary. It’s always about studying smarter and not harder. If you sit down and study for 11 hours, chances are you probably aren’t going to retain all of that information. By adding in breaks you are giving yourself a necessary amount of time to rest.

Practice Makes Perfect

Simply rereading and rewriting notes will not be enough to truly understand everything you have learned. It’s very important to complete practice problems and tests to effectively study. You can redo the problems you have gone over in class, in discussions, or on homework assignments. You may also look for extra problems to test out in your textbook or on KhanAcademy. This will allow you to test your knowledge of the concepts you are learning.

Recap of Effective Study Habits for College Students

University life is difficult, everyone knows that. However, you can make it a little easier on yourself by implementing these effective study habits for college students. Study during the times and at the places, you know you will be productive. There is no need to force yourself to study at 10 pm if you are a morning person. Take actionable steps to understand the material by scheduling out your time, rereading and rewriting your notes, and completing practice problems.

You must trust yourself and the process. If you are working hard and making the effort to study well, you will be fine. Stressing yourself out when you are doing the most you can do is counterintuitive. By believing in yourself and doing the work, you can ease your testing anxieties and boost your grades.