My Personal Study Habits

The first two chapters of “What the Best College Students Do” cover several topics. Throughout the chapters, the lives and experiences of different college students are explored. A reoccurring theme in the book is the concept of learning styles. Essentially, the three learning styles are memorization, comprehension, and strategy. According to the author, comprehension is the most effective style of learning. While everyone will possess one of these three learning styles, it is not impossible for someone to adjust to another style. Additionally, the author elaborates on academic ideas such as independence, grades, and outside influences.

While only having been at John Carroll University for a few months, my approach to learning has already drastically changed. Choosing a university to attend is one of the hardest decisions an eighteen-year old has to make. It essentially determines the course of your life and what you are going to do with it. However, even harder than that decision is being able to pursue the education and keep up with the studies that come with a degree. My learning expedition in college thus far has been an ever-changing one, particularly due to the realizations I have come to in the Honors Colloquium: Life of the Mind course this fall. Through the discussions of various scholars on learning, memory, and other similar subjects, in contrast to my previous

When I’m at home, I will study a smaller section at a time so I can reflect more often on what I have just read. By doing that my brain will have more time to rebuild and expand. Then I will try to keep to my appointed studying times and days. That will help me to stay on track with my homework and other assignments in the class. Having a certain study

Another great strategy I learned is that you should not study for an exam in your room. The best way to keep yourself from being frustrated or falling asleep is to keep moving. Whether is to hop from coffee shop to coffee shop every two hours in order to stay focused. Lastly, a great way to study is to do it with a group of people. However, it has to be the right people. As a student who is trying to get a good grade on an exam, the time you have before an exam should be effectively used. That means not having a study group with your closest friends because you’ll gossip all the time. It also means that you need to surround yourself with people who know the material. Sometimes it is good to help a classmate learn the material but, it cannot interfere with your own study plans. In other words, the study time has to be beneficial to everyone. Another way that you can get distracted is your cell phone. Turn off your cell phone when you study. There are extensions in google chrome that actually block distracting websites that you can go on when you

I feel like I did not have many barriers that caused me to have trouble with my study habits. I do feel like I need to take a break sooner when I am studying then to keep on studying one subject to the next. During my study times, if I keep them the same at the same place I feel like I will be able to accomplish the task, because the distraction are very few for me, and I have the house to myself when I am studying. If in this semester, I come to a block in the road of where I choose to study, then at that time I will choose another place to sit down and study. When we study, if we are truly studying as we should, we do not need to allow anything to hinder us from getting our work done. If distractions are happening, then we need to fix the problems right away so that we will not get behind in our lessons. I have found that through all of this, that what might work for me will not or may not work for someone else. You have to choose a place to study that works best for

When I begin studying for a final test, I do my best to make time for study and review days in advance if possible. Furthermore, when I am doing homework and studying, I take breaks and

Developing their own study skills is part of finding out which skills students have already mastered and are efficient in. When students effectively develop these study skills it will help them to be able to succeed in any training session or class. Many students suffer due to the fact that they never do learn how to effectively use their study skills. Once students find out which skills they have already mastered and are efficient in they can figure out in which area they are lacking. In developing good study habits it is also best if students make a plan of action so that they can best use their time in order to reach their goals. At any time a student can alter or change their schedule if they need to, students just need to realize the importance of sticking to a plan or schedule. Being tired greatly reduces a person’s ability to study so students should never try and plan study time when they know they will be tired. If students study while tired, it will cause them to begin disliking study time. Eating is also very important for the development of good studying habits. If a student tries to study on an empty stomach they will not be able to focus on the material. Usually studying and average of one hour after eating is a good rule of thumb to follow. Students need to be aware of their study time as well, if a student studies to long they will began

Study habits and techniques were non-existence for me in high school. I never did anything but look over notes or previous work. The only time I remembered studying was around the time we took our standardized testing. Looking back, I can’t recall ever learning any study skills or strategies. It may have been that school for me was easy and I had no reason to study. Or I was not challenged academically to have to study. Nonetheless, soon I would find out the difficulties of navigating college courses without effective study skills and habits. I fell behind in college early because of my inability of how to study and what to study for. Just like me, there are many more students that have never been taught effective study skills and habits

This is problem since there are many distractions in my life: games, family, work, friends, boyfriend, parties, and etc. To combat this problem though I'll use the same studying method that I had developed when I was going to WSU (Weber State University). Stay focused in class, take strenuous notes on everything (Can't be too careful!), make flashcards at home and in class. Practice the flashcards with family, friends, and fellow students whenever I can. Thirdly, I have an app on my phone which is called Quizlet and with this app I can make digital flashcards that can be read back to me, I will go through the entire set of flashcards at least once a day. Most likely before I go to bed (Since I have trouble sleeping) I will also study them in the car, at work, while playing video games (during wait times, loading screens, respawn times). The great things about Quizlet is that it's on my phone and my phone is always on me, so I will essentially have my flashcards with me at all times and can practice whenever I

Learning and studying for many months, with so days doing homework from three to eleven had made my life adapted to being busy. Now that I had more free time, I do not want to do nothing because to me that it would be a waste of time. I want to go to sleep every day knowing that I did something that day and I did not waste my time. I also felt I could become more efficient in learning because there are still many students who are smarter than me and are somehow able to pick up new material really fast. This had driven me to challenge myself more, striving to become a better

It is very important to keep a healthy lifestyle in college because it is easily go to an unhealthy routine. I learned that eating healthy and exercising was important in maintaining a proactive, healthy environment. I began realizing small things as time went by in my college career. I am glad that when I was a Jr. in high school, I picked up the habit of writing my homework and what I did daily in a calendar as a memory when I looked back in life. I never thought it was actually necessary in college. I cannot explain how helpful it was for me when transitioning into college. Without realizing at in high school that it benefit me in the end. As time went on, I still did not pick up a studying habit. I did not find one until spring semester of my freshmen year. I had a hard time picking a studying habit because all my professors quizzed differently and had their own style when giving out exams. Therefore, I struggled for a while, and until I found my studying habit, I used index cards and study groups. Those techniques did not help as much as I hoped just on certain

College is a time unlike any other in our life, like high school, middle school, nor elementary school where students can just turn everything in by the end of the fourth quarter. College academics, especially in the first term, will be the most difficult because it is new material that students have never seen before. Plus, they’ll be facing much higher expectations for performance and the expectation that they are the one responsible for their own motivation and success. This means much more work than they are used to. As a college student one thing in our mind is to work hard, keep up all the good work, and succeed. “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”-Les Brown. The most important thing a student can do when they want to be successful in college is to plan ahead of the course or their schedule. There are several steps how to be successful in college, therefore, these three strategies to

Studying is a task that seemed to be easy for me, but the quiz revealed I have major holes in my strategy. I scored a 31 out of 50 on the study habits quiz, this revealed that many things can be improved upon. The most beneficial study habit that I can obtain is learning how to study differently for every test. I can use models to study instead of reading a textbook, using models would grab my attention and engulf me into the content I am trying to learn. Receiving help from an instructor is something I rarely do. If I am struggling with a topic I need to contact my teacher instead of googling information about the subject. Using the internet to find information is dangerous because it does not always concur with the information my teacher

A range of different and useful topics have been discussed since the start of Pathways to lifelong learning, some of which I found to be of particular help. The college expectations which we learned towards the beginning of the course was especially helpful to learning how to become a critical thinker, something that was not very touched upon throughout my time in high school. I now use Bloom’s Taxonomy when beginning to prepare for an important paper or presentation. In addition to the first chapter, I had also found great help in the second chapter on the skills needed to succeed in school. In the past, I used rehearsal as my main strategy to memorize for any upcoming tests or exams, however that often resulted in either retrieval failure or ineffective encoding. I now use chunking and elaboration as my main strategies to studying as I find it most effective when studying and retrieving information, especially when I am needing to memorize and learn a big amount of material.

A range of different and useful topics have been discussed since the start of Pathways to lifelong learning, some of which I found to be of particular help. The college expectations which we learned towards the beginning of the course was especially helpful to learning how to become a critical thinker, something that was not very touched upon throughout my time in high school. I now use Bloom’s Taxonomy when beginning to prepare for an important paper or presentation. In addition to the first chapter, I had also found great help in the second chapter on the skills needed to succeed in school. In the past, I used rehearsal as my main strategy to memorize for any upcoming tests or exams, however that often resulted in either retrieval failure or ineffective encoding. I now use chunking and elaboration as my main strategies to studying as I find it most effective when studying and retrieving information, especially when I am needing to memorize and learn a big amount of material.