Studying Tips

After so much time in school, one eventually ends up with a routine that provides oneself with success (hopefully).

Below is a list of what I've found helpful when studying and what not. These tips are coming from someone in engineering, but could easily be applicable to those in other programs :)

1) Attend all lectures, whether or not you like the course or not, and whether or not the professor is good or not. This will help you keep on top of material in the course, reduce the level of possible cramming before exams, and prevent having to study extraneous material.

2) Attend all tutorials. This will help to combat procrastination and will act as another measure of review.

3) Review lecture material daily by keeping a stack of notebooks to write summaries of what you learned in class that day. This will help to minimize the time spent reviewing concepts and maximize the time spent doing problems when it comes to exams.

4) Initiative is the key to beating procrastination. If you never take initiative to study, you will more likely end up cramming for an exam.

5) When doing problems, don't dwell on ones you don't know how to do for too long. If it's been 10 minutes and you still have no clue as to how to proceed, skip the problem and come back to it later. If you still have problems with it later, ask the course TA, professor, or a friend for help.

6) Keep aware of when midterms/exams take place, so that you know when to start studying for them. I usually aim for approximately 2 weeks in advance, with about 20 hours per course for midterms and 40 hours per course for finals.

7) When studying for midterms or finals, make a study schedule. Start from the last midterm/final and plan backwards from that day. For each course that you will be studying, write the course and the number of hours you will work on it. Don't write anything else -- nothing is worse than saying you'll finish assignments #1 and #2 in 5 hours when they end up taking 10 hours.

Slideshow video of these tips: