Study Smarter, Not Harder

I’ve always loved school from the word go. Growing up, I would say I was a very smart student because I always aced my exams and all of that. I’m still smart though, but you know sometimes things get hard. Everything was quite easy in primary and junior high for all of us I guess but things get tougher as we climb the ladder.

In senior high, things weren’t the same. Being taught complex stuff by the wrong teachers was just something new to me. Back in primary school, we were about 15 in class and that gave our teachers time to help us all understand what was being taught. In high school, the classes were choked and we didn’t even have enough teachers. No one cared of you understood stuff or not. It was more like everyone for himself.

My first year was though. I didn’t know what I was doing because no teacher would even want to go over stuff again even if you asked. You’d probably just have to join some extra class where you’d pay a lot of money for some lame classes. At that point, it was like drowning in the sea for me. I would say I managed to complete high school by Gods grace because I started to hate the whole learning thing, thanks to my teachers.

I really looked forward to going to the university. I had the choice of program I wanted to study and I was happy because I thought I’d have so much fun learning and all of that. No one told me I was in for a surprise. My first semester results weren’t that good but they weren’t that terrible. I was really surprised because I spent my whole semester in class studying.

Everyday after supper, I would go to class and spend the whole night studying. I had about 4 to 5 hours of sleep every night and to think that I didn’t get all A’s was depressing. It actually took me a while to finally discover what really worked for me when it came to studies.

Group studies

One study technique that really works for me is group studies. I’m more into discussions than solo learning. I hardly forget what is said at any discussion especially when it has to do with academics because so many people share their views on a particular topic.

I’d rather sit for a group discussion than study in my room alone because there’s more to learn from others and we also learn by teaching others.

YouTube

Am I the only one who learns everything from YouTube? Many students spend their whole nights burying their heads in lecture notes they’re not going to understand at the end of the day. I think lecture notes are just a formality between some teachers and their students.

You open some lecture notes and you get more confused than you were. Some teachers are very terrible at their job but the truth is, they don’t care and you just have to find ways to understand what is being taught and pass your exams. My go to place all day everyday is YouTube. For someone who’s a visual learner, there sure is always some magic there for me. Imagine being able to understand a whole topic in about 30 minutes to one hour instead of staying up all night.

Cramming

This is actually my last option in most cases. I’m really good at cramming and sometimes it helps me a lot. In my third year, I was mostly away from school the whole semester and I had just a week to study for about 10 courses and write exams on.

I would spend the whole night ahead of each course cramming everything into my brain and be sure that I would pour everything out word for word and I did get my A’s. But, one thing about biochemistry is that, cramming stuff would give you the grades but you’d end up with no knowledge at the end of the day.

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Being a student is hard, don’t let anyone lie to you. What even makes things worse is getting the worst of the worst when it comes to teachers in addition to all the stress and depression. What’s better than finding easy ways to learn which actually work for you. There’s a million and one ways to study, you’ve just got to find what works for you.

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This is my entry for day 28 of the #Aprilinleo prompt. I hope you enjoyed it. To take part you can check it out here

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all images belong to me.