How To Study Faster: university

Showing posts with label university. Show all posts

Showing posts with label university. Show all posts

Monday, June 29, 2015

How To Memorize Insane Amounts Of Information (Quickly)

This article is my response to request I received from a student. That student was looking for a way to memorize a list of words for a foreign language. Now, I would normally recommend using my typical study strategies outlined through this blog, one thing changed that. This student didn’t want to memorize the list for class. She wanted to memorize the list for her own personal scholarship. Since grades aren’t the primary concern anymore, a ton of details in learning change. To really memorize a set of information and make it stick, I recommend a different set of strategies.

The basic layout to think about when trying to memorize a large amount of information is as follows. First of all, you need a standard method of memorization. You need to have a strategy that you plan on using through the whole process. Flash cards are going to be used as the example in this articles. There are alternatives but flash cards are usually the most accessible method.

Second, you need to set up a cycle of sessions for studying based on the amount of information you need to remember, the time you have to study them, and the accuracy rate you want to achieve. The faster, the better, and the more, you want to learn, the more sessions and cycles you’re going to want.

Third, you need to adjust the information to be palatable on flash cards. For foreign languages, this should require no work at all. If you’re applying this strategy to biological processes or something complicated, it’s essential that you scale back complex details and only force yourself to memorize the macro details at first.

Throughout this article, I’ll go over how to make sure this basic layout turns into something practical, easy, and quick. Most of the information provided so far can get you into an effective study strategy but without the details you may end up wasting a ton of unrequired study time.

The Method

If you don’t have any better ideas, don’t feel the slightest bit bad using flash cards as your go to method. I’ve practiced similar strategies for years and they’re my go to method. Sure, flash cards suck but they provide more versatility and effectiveness than 95% of methods.

There are other options if you get creative though. For foreign languages, there has been one particular strategy around for years. To memorize a language just put post it notes on everything that you own and write the foreign languages word for it on the post it note. This is a powerful strategy for languages but unfortunately, you need to combine it with another method to include parts of speech other than nouns.

There are a ton of game methods as well. There are boatloads of websites that create games based on learning. Using those games instead of flashcards is reasonable. Of course, it comes with the risk of not learning the exact words you need. (No game was specifically designed for your learning needs.) Also, you need a computer to use them.

See the complexities I’m talking about? Flash cards are usually way easier.

Cycled Sessions

Don’t use those flash cards in the typical “study for an hour” style method. Sure, it will work better than some things but that’s one of the least efficient ways to learn.

Use your flash cards in sessions under 15 minutes long. It’s much better to require extra short study sessions than increase the time you sit and study. The human brain learns best early in the study session. By doing multiple study sessions, you learn best for more time than using just a single study session.

If you need to learn a ton of information then increase the number of sessions you use per day. If your motivation is for school then I don’t recommend more than 6 ten minute sessions per day. (Ideally, don’t use this method for school though. Use my other strategies outlined in this blog.) To the student that asked the question: Since your motivation is personal, you can add in virtually as many sessions as you want every single day. (Max perhaps around 1 per hour. You don’t really need that many in most cases though.) If you ever feel drained then just cut back on the sessions.

Lets say you have 1000 words you’re trying to memorize. It would be absolutely insane to try and cycle randomly through 1000 different flash cards. That’s why you should break up the flash cards into sets of 10-30. Then design a schedule to go over all of the different sets of flash cards.

So, if you’re studying 50 sets of 20 flash cards, you may schedule them one after another with 5 sessions per day. That would take 10 days to get through. That comes with some problems though. By day 10, you won’t remember most of the information from day 1. So try to cycle day 1 flashcards in on day 3, then day 2 flashcards on day 4, and so on. Notice how complicated this is getting? Yea. Write down the schedule to make it work. (Also don’t feel bad about combining sets into fewer larger sets of flashcards as you get through memorizing them. So, instead of two sets of 20 you can make one set of forty to be memorized in a couple days.)

You need to be really damn motivated to make this work. I’ve personally done it but I wouldn’t judge anyone that struggles at this. If it’s too much then cut back somewhere until it’s reasonable for you.

Macro VS Micro

Throughout school, I got in the bad habit of studying almost anything with flash cards. I would write one word on one side of the flash card, then on the other side I’d have a wall of text that I’m trying to remember. That doesn’t work too well.

Some information is not designed well for flash cards. That doesn’t mean that you can’t use flash cards though. It means you should probably adjust the information into something that’s more accessible with flash cards. Let’s say you have this monster of information for your flash card:

Required Information:

Metazoa: Heterotrophic and motile multicellular organisms. (Some have adopted a sessile lifestyle.)

Yikes! Do you have any idea what that means? Well… I don’t but that shouldn’t be an issue for my point.

The easiest flash card to make would be “Metazoa” on one side, and then the line after that on the other side. That wouldn’t be a miserable flash card but it’s definitely not an ideal one. There are ways to make this easier though.

First of all, if you have any flash cards explaining what “heterotrophic,” “motile,” and “sessile” mean, then learn those flashcards first. Put this flash card into a set you study after those other words are learned.

Second, don’t be afraid to lop off a semi-essential piece of information like “(Some have adopted a sessile lifestyle.)” At least, be willing to lop it off early in your study session. Maybe write it on your flashcard but don’t force yourself to remember it to get through that flash card until the second or third time through the set of flash cards. (Write it in blue or something to make it obvious.) Using a strategy like that you can include unbelievably complex concepts on a single flash card and not feel like banging your head against a wall.

By using a cycled sessions strategy like this one, you should be able to memorize virtually anything you’re looking to memorize. It requires significantly more motivation than many of my methods but for personal use, it can be absolutely ideal.

Do you want to know how to study in less than fifteen minutes a night? That’s what this blog is all about. Be sure to check out the articles in the archive and follow to learn more. Also, please check out the ebooks in the sidebar.

Monday, June 1, 2015

7 Teachers You Don’t Want To Have

All the studying in the world doesn’t help if you have the wrong set of teachers. Actually… that’s not true. All the studying in the world is what you need if you’re stuck with a miserable teacher teaching the subject. A good teacher makes a huge difference on your final grade for a few different reasons.

The first reason is a reason I’ve mentioned a number of times on this blog. Some teachers give easy A’s and some teachers rarely ever give them. Every teachers makes their class a little bit different in difficulty. Sometimes, you can just switch teachers and see a dramatic improvement in your grades.

The second reason is a bad teacher can kill motivation. It’s tough enough to study most subjects. If you have a teacher that drives you nuts then you’re never going to be able to focus and learn as much during class. That means you’ll need to spend more time outside of class catching up.

The third reason is one that I rarely mention because it’s kind of a given. Some teachers are good at teaching. Others are bad. Some teachers are good at teaching people like you. Others are not. These differences completely change the dynamics of a classroom situation.

Here are 7 teachers you don’t want to have teacher your class:

The Complainer

I can remember a slew of these teachers during high school. There I was getting dragged into a class I didn’t want to have to go to (I hated high school) and some teachers still insisted on sharing how depressing their own life was.

If the class was a little noisy the teacher would go on a massive aggressive or passive aggressive rant about why the students should listen. Sure, the students should listen but when with 9 out of 10 teachers the students do listen, the teacher never considers they might be the one with the problem.

It’s a teachers job to get the student to care about the material. If the students don’t care about the material, of course, they’re not going to listen. This is common sense. Perhaps instead of complaining about how tough your life is, you should learn from the evidence the students are presenting.

Of course, that’s not nearly as bad as the teachers that come into school complaining about their personal lives. “Oh! I don’t get paid enough!’ Then shut up and get a new job. Students don’t control your paycheck. In fact, it’s none of their damn business. “Oh… my wife and I were arguing,” You are paid to educate people; not talk about yourself.

Monotone Lecturer

It’s like some teachers actively try to be as boring as possible. Really… I can’t talk as boring as a monotone lecturer even when I’m trying really hard. The natural intonations of my voice end up slipping through as I’m trying to sound as boring as these teachers.

When a teacher goes through his or her lesson with a monotone voice, you can make a few assumptions with a high degree of accuracy. First, they don’t care about the students. Everyone knows that monotone lecturing sucks. Second, they don’t care about the subject. Passion leaks through when you care about something. Third, they are likely bored to death with their own life. I imagine they must go full breaking bad during their free time just to stay sane. Fourth, they don’t update their lessons often. So much for improving the lesson plan every year, these folks tend to teach the same crap, year in and year out, whether it works well or not.

Avoid monotone lecturers.

PowerPoint Pros

No… Put away that powerpoint. I know how attractive it looks but don’t do it.

The sad truth is that 99% of people blow at powerpoint presentations. Sure, I’ve seen a couple good ones in my life but it’s such a subtle balance that most people would be miles better off by just lecturing the subject.

There are a ton of mistakes that can be made on powerpoints. One of the most common is the walls of text. Really… what is the point of putting a wall of text on a powerpoint and reading it? Most people that read the text off the powerpoint would rather you shut up. Most people don’t actually read the text and just wait for you to finish reading it. So, what is the point of it?

You have one of the most advanced technologies in history. You could build animations, show pictures, show graphs, and all kinds of other things but there you are building a book projected on a screen that’s so brightly lit that it’s a little painful to even read off of.

Sure, pointless animations are another common problem. If it’s not actually related to the subject then you’re just being weird.

Politicizer

Man… teachers should not bring politics into the classroom. People like to pretend classrooms are a place for free and open discussion of the topics but that’s a couple lie in 99% of the cases. For that reason, most teachers shouldn’t even pretend it’s a free open discussion. It’s better if they just stick tightly to the educational information.

If you end up learning the political leanings of a teacher in a classroom during a class that isn’t related to politics heavily (history, political sciences, etc.) then you can almost instantly assume that teacher is an idiot. It doesn’t even matter if they agree or disagree with you. They’re stupid just to bring the subject up.

When a teacher shares certain beliefs with you, it can affect the education in two ways. It can affect their treatment of you and it can affect your treatment of them. Either way, unless both parties are mature (No… they’re not) then this will lead to problems or perceived problems in the classroom.

Center Of Your Universe

Some teachers seem to think that their class happens to be what you dream about at night. They think that you go home and study the subject for three hours with a huge smile on your face. They think all their student’s lives are going to revolve around their subject in the future. That’s why they insist on giving you so much work on their subject so you have no time to spend on any other subject.

These teachers are absolutely insane. Don’t take classes from them. They will make you waste hundreds of hours on pointless activities on the subject. Sure, you may learn a ton about that subject but you’ll be sacrificing sanity, other grades, and things that are actually important to your life for what will most likely be a relatively pointless grade.

Conform Or D(ie)

Sometimes getting the right answer isn’t enough for a teacher. You have to use their specific methodology to get that answer. Sure, in some subjects like math, that’s actually kind of important. But even in subjects like that teachers can get insane.

I remember having a math teacher deduct points for me not writing down a super easy addition problem that came right after a super tough algebra problem while following her specifications perfectly up to that point. “Oh… well… if you don’t write down the no-brainers then your not showing ALL your work.” Oh please… there is no productive value to excessive writing stuff down when it’s been locked in your brain for 10 years. Sure, it’s a little stupid but at least there is a little sanity to this.

Some teachers go as far as forcing subjective strategies on all of their students work. Despite it being their personal preference they’re willing to knock off points just for doing it the slightest bit differently.

Let’s face it. People don’t think the same way. People aren’t all the exact same. Some people require different strategies than others. A teacher forcing a strategy on you is also forcing you not to use a strategy that works well for you.

Grade Curvers

I know… I know.... Some students love grading on a curve. Some students hate it. It usually comes down to how much it has helped or hurt them in the past.

If a teacher is insanely difficult then a grade curve can seriously improve the average students grade. If a teacher is easy then it can seriously hurt the average students grade. Of course, it gets more complex than that though.

What about the students? If you have a classroom full of smarter students, you’re going to be in a bad position. You’d suddenly have to compete to get higher grades. If you have a classroom full of lazy students then you don’t have to compete as much.

From most of what I suggested from my piles of articles on this blog, you might be thinking, “this sounds like an exploitable situation.” By getting in classes with grade curving teachers and a bunch of idiots, you could end up getting straight A’s without much work. In theory that’s wonderful but in practice, that’s impossible (at least as far as I’ve tried. I also caused the school to fix an exploit in their website allowing. Oops…)

Ultimately grading curves just introduce a ton of really hard to control variables into the equation. Avoid them as much as possible. You can’t control who you’re in a class with. You can only control your own success or failure and which situations you put yourself in.

Sure, some of these teachers may not be your pet peeves but this is a pretty good list of my major ones. It’s mostly to remind you: Don’t take classes without teachers you like. Honestly… it’s a huge factor. In fact, I would pick the hardest teacher of a subject if I truly liked the teacher. It helps during every second of the learning process. In the same respect, I would avoid a teacher I didn’t like even if they were an easy A. Is that productive for my grades? I don’t know but I just think life is too short to waste with people I don’t enjoy being around.

Do you want to know the secrets to studying in less than 15 minutes a night? That’s what this blog teaches. Check out the archives and follow along for all the updates. Also, if ebooks shake your maracas then be sure to check out the three listed in the sidebar on the right.

Monday, May 18, 2015

6 Things To Ask Yourself Before Going To College

Too many students underestimate the importance of the decision to go to college. The vast majority of students (particularly the more gifted ones) are poked and prodded from their childhood with the idea of going to college. Considering the statistics, it’s virtually inevitable that an average or above average student is going to end up in college. Hell, some students are even required to apply to colleges to graduate from high school. It’s hardly even considered a choice anymore.

That being said, college is a choice. The question that’s virtually never asked is, “is it the right choice?” Sure, statistics show a correlation between income and education. That correlation, doesn’t necessarily mean much. It could just mean people “destined” to make more money tend to go to college. (By destined, I mean any of a million possible factors. Students that go to college could be smarter than average. That means they’d probably make more money with or without college. Students that go to college could be richer. That means, again, they’d probably make more money with or without college.) Of course, even considering that correlation matters assumes income is a more important goal than happiness. My point is just that it’s more complicated than it looks.

I think college can be one of the best decisions of a persons life. A college education can open a ton of doors. That being said, you need to think about what’s behind those doors and whether or not you really want to open them. (There are plenty of doors you can open without college too. Maybe you’ll like those better.)

Here are some questions to ask yourself before going to college:

1. Do You Want To Go?

This is a more important question than most students consider it. Your decision to go to college is going to cause you to spend tens of thousands of dollars. That makes it a pretty big risk to be playing around with.

If a year into college, you change your mind about wanting to go, you’re still going to have to pay for that year of college. More importantly, you’re probably going to have to pay for that year of college with a non-college graduates job. Sure, plenty of students end up surviving that mistake but it could easily take years of your life just to start back at zero again.

That dynamic leads many students into graduating just because of the costs they’ve already lost. They’re committed to four years because they can’t afford to switch to doing what they want to do. That, usually, just leads to the college graduate getting a job he or she hates in the field he or she graduated from (and wanted to leave.)

Going to college when you don’t want to go is a terrible mistake in most cases.

2. Is It An Investment?

Virtually every teacher and parent would tell you college is an investment. No, they won’t ask what degree you’re getting first. They’ll just blindly tell you that college is an investment. Mostly because, they have absolutely no idea what an investment is.

An investment is something that you’re putting money into to, ideally, make more money. When you take out loans for college, you need to make a considerable amount of income more than you would have if you didn’t take out those loans. If you don’t have very clear job prospects that can pay off those loans in a reasonable amount of time then you’re not investing.

Many college degrees are not investments. They’re luxuries. Sure, there is nothing wrong with a luxury but don’t go spending money that you don’t have on luxuries. If it’s not an obvious investment, pay for college in cash. That’s the only way to make play it safe. (If you do happen to get a good job from your luxury degree then consider it a bonus. You never have to pay interest from your loans.)

3. Is It Better To Wait?

For many students, it’s actually a smarter financial decision to wait a few years before going to college.

One of the most obvious reasons a student should consider that is loan favorability. If your parents income disqualifies you from federal loans then it may be smarter to wait a few years until your parents are off your forms. That could save you thousands of dollars and a significant amount of private student loan stress.

I remember being told, “If you don’t go to college right after high school then you’ll never go!” I didn’t listen. I ended up going to college years later. I’d argue that time off schooling taught me more than college ever could. I ended up having no student loans and had plenty of fun. Of course, if I graduated high school started sleeping around, binge drinking, and spending every penny I earned, there would be a real chance I wouldn’t end up in college. It’s all about making smart decisions. If you make smart decisions, you can put college off safely. Even after a few mistakes, it’s usually still reasonable with a little extra work.

Some other advantages of waiting: You don’t end up the average new college student that can’t even do their own laundry. You actually care about schooling because you saw the world without it and chose it rationally instead of emotionally. You have time to learn how to deal with money before taking thousands of dollars in loans.

4. Do you need it for your dreams?

If you’ve dreamed of being a doctor since you were a child then you damn well should be doing to college for it. Many fields are regulated so that a degree is required. If that degree is absolutely required to do what you want to do (even if it’s not the greatest investment) then it’s usually a good decision.

Sure, bad investments aren’t usually a good idea but if this is about chasing a dream then investing has virtually nothing to do with it.

If you want to be a writer or something, you don’t need a college degree. You can pursue that field and become successful without ever graduating from college. In fact, instead of getting the college required liberal arts education you could spend 9-5 everyday learning how to write. You’ll end up miles ahead of the average student.

5. Do you have a solid career plan?

If your career plan consists of only, get a job, then you’re making a bad mistake. There is so much information that you should consider first.

First of all, what jobs does your degree qualify you for?

Next, which of those jobs pay enough to pay off your debt (unless it’s your dream job?)

Next, how many of those jobs are available?

How many students are going to be graduating and competing for those jobs?

“I’ll become a college professor on the subject!” NO NO NO! Really… that is usually a horrible mistake. In fields where your best job options include teaching the subject you’re getting your degree in, you’re limiting your options significantly. Look at the data. Are there really that many jobs available when considering how many people are graduating? Usually they’re not.

6. Why Are You Going?

This is one of the most important questions to ask yourself.

What is motivating you to go to college? If it’s your dream job then awesome. That’s a good motivation to have.

The sad truth is that most students pretend that it’s for the job. They lie to themselves and say that when the truth is something a bit more embarrassing.

Are you just trying to get away from your parents? Are you trying to get people off your back? Are you scared that you’ll fail outside of college? Do you just want to drink and party (you can do that a lot cheaper outside of college)?

These are all motivations that you need to question the value of. Is it really worth the price it’s going to cost? Are there cheaper alternative ways to do them. Of course, if you have a few million dollars in the bank, perhaps they’re cheap enough to pay for willy nilly but if you’re the average person, you need to seriously worry about that price.

The ideal motivation to go to college is the joy of learning. Of course, if it’s the joy of learning that’s pushing you then you’re stupid to take out student loans for it.

The second best motivation is an investment.

Don’t end up at 25 living in your parents house with a crappy job trying to pay down your student loans. By paying attention to the consequences, and risks, of every option you can make a smarter decision.

Do you want to know how to study faster than ever? That’s what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives if you’d like to learn more. Also, there are some ebooks in the sidebar that you might want to take a look at.

Monday, May 11, 2015

The Pursuit Of Knowledge Versus "Grades"

Knowledge and good grades are not the same goal. They aren’t completely opposed to one another but they’re definitely skewed a little away from each other. Just because you have a ton of knowledge on a subject, it doesn’t mean you’ll get good grades in a class about it. Just because you get good grades it doesn’t mean you have a ton of knowledge on the subject. You need to keep that in mind with every decision you make in school.

Factors come into play that virtually no one discusses. You can get grades best on showing up to class, dumb luck, concentrated studying, smart memorization tricks, sleeping with the teacher, or cheating. Grades are not knowledge. Grades mean virtually nothing when you don’t factor in the methods used to achieve those grades.

You can’t become knowledgeable by cheating the system. Well… maybe you can. Using cheap memory tricks can help things lock in your brain easier than ever but hacking your brain chemistry isn’t exactly a problem in most cases. Knowledge is the end. Grades are just one slightly related means to achieve that end.

In Pursuit Of Grades

I recommend focusing on grades for students. Forget about acquiring significant amounts of knowledge. Students are judged based on the grades they get. Not based on the knowledge they have. By making intelligent study decisions, a student can learn everything required for a course in relatively no time at all.

Using prioritization methods a student can focus their energy on the information that really matters and spend very little energy to do it. Energy doesn’t have to be wasted on low value projects.

Teachers are constantly benefiting the students that chose this path through school. Many teachers virtually hand the questions of the tests to their students before the test in test prep material. Virtually every teacher focuses their class time significantly on the testing material. Teachers encourage this focus because it helps them too. (Who cares if you know more than the average student in a subject if you don’t get a good grades on the test? The teachers will look bad in that situation.) The whole system is designed to focus around grades.

Is that a good thing? Who cares!? That’s irrelevant to your success or failure. Using these biases in teachers you can study for minutes every night and get a good grade in virtually any course. Sure, the system may be stupid but at no point do you have the reasonable option to not participate in it (until college but college the system tends to be slightly less stupid too.)

By focusing on grades you get one less obvious advantage over other students.

In Pursuit Of Knowledge

Knowledge is something that requires emotional investment. In school, going after good grades is your emotional investment. Parents and teachers guilt and scare you into getting good grades. “What are you gonna grow up to be a bum?” “I’m so disappointed in you!”

Sure, it works to some extent but as you can imagine, it’s not the most motivational way to go on the pursuit of knowledge. It’s just emotional blackmail. By pursuing good grades without the knowledge goal, it offers you a significant amount of extra time. Suddenly, you won’t have to study for hours a night because you’ll have great grades already. Any extra studying would be the pursuit of knowledge.

After you free that extra time out you can do virtually anything with your time. You can slack. You can watch a movie. You can talk to friends. All that is an option but there is a problem with those decisions. They’re a bit shallow and boring after a while. If you’re the kind of student that would study hours a night to get good grades, you’re probably going to pull your hair out slacking off. This is the perfect time to spend actually pursuing knowledge.

I know… Why pursue knowledge when you can veg out? That’s your natural thought but once you free this time up for a while, you’re going to feel slightly differently. You’ll likely find yourself curious about certain things. That means you’ll look them up. You might even start to study a few subjects completely unrelated to school.

The great thing about this pursuit is that it’s your curiosity driving you instead of your fear and guilt. You’re looking to learn things that you actually care about. That is how you actually try to learn something effectively. Instead of fighting to force yourself to remember something, you’ll find yourself just not forgetting it.

Making Your Distinction

The dreamer in me says, “never sacrifice knowledge for grades.” I believe that is probably the preferable way to leave. I sometimes wonder if I chose to drop out and focus on my own studies if I’d be better off. The practical part of me says, “You’re F’in nuts. Get good grades and play the game dumbass!”

If you’re the kind of student that focuses on actually learning the information your classes teach you then this can be an awfully strange distinction to make. It can take you a very long time to completely accept it. It can feel like knowledge and grades are linked but it’s a much looser connection than most students even imagine.

In fact, just look at some of the syllabuses for your class. Look for the section that shows a percentage of your grade for each aspect of the course (for example, 10% homework, 40% tests, etc.) Get a little creative and see if you can find any little tricks for improving your grades without increasing your effort. Or, at the very least, not affect your grade while decreasing your effort.

Think about the example I gave where 10% of your grade is based on homework. In that case, you could skip all your homework assignments and still get an A- in the course (90, depending on grading style.) Is that smart? I don’t know. Does the teacher give hundreds of hours of homework, maybe? That’s a class specific question. Usually the smart decision is a simple balance with most of your energy going towards the valuable factors. (If you’re going to skip anything in that example, homework probably is one of the better things to skip.)

Prioritization like that is one of the most powerful ways you can focus on improving your grades without increasing your knowledge.

Once you learn that skill remember this though. School doesn’t value knowledge. It values grades. Life (past college) doesn’t value grades, it values knowledge. Sure, getting good grades without more studying is a skill in itself but it has limited value outside of fields dealing with the government and contracts. (“Oh look… if we reallocate funds here it will be tax deductible.”) You want to have knowledge.

You don’t have to learn what school is teaching you but be damn sure to learn a little about something.

Do you want to know how to get good grades without the effort? That’s what this blog is about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives to learn more. Also, there are three ebooks in the sidebar that you might be interested in reading.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Study One Page A Semester

What if you never needed to study more than a single page for your classes? How much easier do you think studying would be. It could save you hours and hours every single week. It would leave a ton of free time after studying. That is why I originally used this method in college. I was hoping it would have a dramatic impact on my final grade. Surprisingly, it did something much more interesting than that. I’ll get to that later.

If you’ve read this blog at all then you’re probably familiar with the tons of experiments I’ve done around studying. I’ve studied in more methods than I could name and with each one I did semi-controlled experiments to find to the absolute most effective ones. When I heard someone describing this method I’m discussing here, I got a little excited. It seemed to coincide with some of the most important study factors I was finding. It sounded like a super powerful method. After the experimentation, I found out it was but not how I expected.

So, without further ado, here is the study method:

Throughout each course, keep on extra sheet on lined paper. After each class, or chapter in your textbook, write down the absolute most important things on that single extra sheet of paper. Here’s the important part though: by the end of the semester, you cannot get a second sheet of paper to continue writing this. Just continue to add to this single sheet of paper.

You can get creative to try and write more and more information on that single sheet of paper. That’s actually part of the fun. By the end of the semester, you’re going to have the most important points for the class written on a single sheet of paper. I, personally, was able to study exclusively off of that single sheet of paper without it causing any negative effect on my expected grade.

This might sound a little crazy. I’ll get more into the details later but first, I think it’s worth going over why this method is awesome.

Why It Works

This study method is a false restriction on the amount of information you need to study. In the average textbook there are hundreds of thousands of potential facts to memorize but in reality, the class probably only requires you to know a handful of them.

When you pick up the textbook to study, or your full class notes, you’re making the task of studying significantly more difficult than it has to be. You not only have to study the information but you’re forced to try and find the most important information to actually learn.

When that most important information is already decided, you don’t have to go through a list of unrequired facts again. That means your studying goes much easier. That does something even more important though.

When you reduce the information that you have to learn, you completely change the way you think about studying. When I was studying for that course, I never once felt overwhelmed having to learn the information on the page. That meant getting myself to study in the first place was unbelievably easy.

This method involves false restrictions on the amount of information you have to learn. That makes it much easier to learn the important stuff. It also does one more super important thing.

It ensure that you actually think about the class outside of class. You’re required to spend at least a few minutes after class narrowing down any important information that you received. That process involves a bit of studying in itself. It’s no surprise this method works because it actually requires you to put in a little bit of studying regularly.

Some Important Tricks

This method of studying works very well. It can cause a very deep level of learning. While most of the study methods I recommend are quick fixes that don’t offer you “permanent stick-forever” learning. This is one of the methods that can really make information stick. Since you’re going over that same information regularly, it’s natural to remember it. Here is what you need to know and do to make the best of it.

Information Capsules:

At the earliest chance you get, create boxes on that single sheet of paper. Create the number of boxes based on the number of times you plan on updating that single page. If you plan on updating it once a class then make one box per class. (In high school, you may need to focus on one box per week or something.) Make those boxes as big as you can while still fitting them all on the page.

Then, each class, or each time you fill it out, make sure not to require more than the single box.

This ensures that late in the semester you’re not stuck using a tiny section of the paper for a large amount of information.

Single Sheet Is Variable:

If you’re taking an anatomy course or something ridiculously tedious, forget about the one sheet restriction. Some courses, mostly in college but not all college courses, have too much information to fit on a single sheet of paper.

Increase the number of sheets to something a little more reasonable. More reasonable means a couple more sheets, not a whole notebook. Personally, I couldn’t see a course requiring more than 4 sheets for a really good grade (as long as you’re filling in those margins well.)

There is one important note though: Plan the number of sheets in advance and do everything in your power not to increase that amount. The false restriction doesn’t really exist if you don’t actually plan to follow that false restriction. You won’t get half the benefits if you don’t treat your selected page limit seriously.

Teacher’s Emphasis:

In most courses, teachers are virtually giving away the test questions. Teachers have a tendency to lecture for the specific tests. Remember that whenever a teacher spends a significant amount of time on any particular point.

Given the choice of focusing on the textbooks emphasized points and the teacher’s emphasized points, always put the teachers points first.

The Results Of My Experiment

Here is the most interesting thing about this method. It actually taught me the information in the course really really well. While I’m all about using cheap tricks to score high in courses, this study method ended up getting the information to stick really well. That is actually one of the reasons I don’t use this method particularly often…

Here’s the deal: This is a great method for learning new information. That being said, it’s not the most efficient way to score high in a class. That means it doesn’t fit into my 15 minutes a night study strategy.

Are you looking to really understand the material in a course? Then this study method is absolutely great. If you’re looking to score high without investing much energy, this is an okay method. That being said, it requires a relatively large time investment when you add up all the single sheet updates.

Do you want to know how to study in less than 15 minutes a night? That’s what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives for the details. Also, check out the ebooks in the sidebar for a crash course.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Maximize Your Grades With Focus Rotation

When you're working to study as efficiently as possible, you need to change the way you approach your study time. Theoretically, you could be studying all day. The average high school provides enough textbook pages to make it completely impossible to keep up in all the potential study material. There is no reason you couldn't be studying every free second you have but, of course, that's a complete waste of time when you could score similar grades studying less than an hour every night.

If you've kept up on this blog then you'll know this by now. Studying longer usually just reduces the efficiency of your studying. By dramatically reducing your study time, you can usually get better results. Doing that introduces a few problems though. First of all, when you're taking 5 or 6 or more classes, how can you possibly study for all of them in a limited study period?

The answer includes two different things.

From my experience, a portion of the classes you're taking will require almost no studying. (That is, assuming you've kept up with your previous courses and aren't in a particularly challenging program.) That instantly knocks away a portion of your required studying.

The next part of the solution is...

Focus Rotation

Focus rotation is absolutely fundamentally to getting this study routine to work. (Quite frankly, I think it's fundamental to just about anything in life but that's a whole different subject.)

Focus rotation is the strategy you use to decide which courses you're going to be putting your study time and focus into. If you're doing it well then you should be scoring high in virtually every class. If you're doing it poorly then you'll probably be falling behind massively in at least 1 class.

Focus rotation happens naturally in most cases. A student might see a test coming up the next day in one class and decide to study for that test. That being said, naturally (and haphazardly) hopping from study focus to study focus usually just causes more harm than good. Instead focus rotation should be a conscious and planned change between your potential focuses. By doing that, you can learn to actually maximize your results.

The Basics

Focus rotation isn't all that complicated a subject but it can be tempting to leave it up to chance. You've got set up a focus rotation plan AND actually follow it. The effect this can have on your grade can be dramatic (if you're not naturally good at it.) If you're naturally good at focus rotation then you'll still usually see a small boost.

An example of a focus rotation plan might look like this:

Study for my lowest grade class 3 days a week. Study for my second lowest grade class 2 days a week. Study for my next two lowest grade classes 1 day a week each. Excluding the night before test days when I can study for the class with a test.

Simple. Right? Mostly at least. (I've personally used a study rotation strategy that took up a whole page. These strategies can get pretty complicated.) Notice the focus on lowest grade classes. That is not required but can work well (with a few challenges.) Everyone requires a different strategy. You'll need to play around a little to find yours.

I recommend you come up with your own basic outline for your current classes. Think about it like creating a flow chart for your required studying. Make it so you know which courses you're required to study for every night (or at least most of them.)

There is one important point you need to focus on with your study rotation. Do not make it subjective. If you say something like, “study the course I need to study,” or something up to ridiculous interpretation then you're wasting your time. The key is making only one potential option that leads to the right choice. Objective factors would include class scores, homework scores, test scores, class difficulty (as rated by anything excluding your gut,) etc. The more objective your rotation, the more you're going to be able to adjust it for perfection.

The Hardest (And Easiest) Part

The hardest part about setting up a study focus rotation is being honest with yourself.

In designing this plan, you have some incentive to lie to yourself about which classes you need to study for most. That's because, usually, when you don't do well in a class, you also don't really enjoy studying for it. While you're designing this plan, you may want to undercut the required time you'll need to study for the class.

The opposite incentive also exists. If you score well in a course then you probably enjoy studying it a little more. That means you might want to give yourself extra time studying it that you don't actually need.

These incentives can be difficult to ignore completely. People have a tendency to either fall for these incentives or, instead, study the hard classes excessively to make up for those incentives. Do you want to know the secret to dealing with that and balancing the classes study time? Yea... Me too. That's just about figuring out your tendencies.

The great part about that challenge is that when you figure out the solution, you never have to worry about it again.

Most students occasionally have hiccups in their unplanned focus rotations. They might not know which class they should study for. That can lead to five minutes of the student metaphorically (or physically) banging their head on their table trying to figure it out. When you have a focus rotation set in place, you don't need to waste time trying to balance your course load because the equation is already set.

Rebalancing

Oftentimes, this study rotation routine will suddenly not work. Sometimes, courses can introduce piles of extra required studying. To make up for that, you may have to adjust your study focus rotation. That being said, try to update the rotation to include a clause to help you deal with that extra required studying (so you, hopefully, don't have to change your plan again in the future.)

Over a few semesters, your study rotation should almost be set in stone.

Using your objective focus rotation you can maximize your grades in each and every class without wasting a significant among of your time studying things that you don't absolutely have to.

Do you want to know how to study for less than 15 minutes a night while scoring in the top of your class? That is what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow it and check out the archives to get all the secrets. Also, check out the ebooks for some crash courses in the subject.

Monday, March 9, 2015

How To Survive The Most Difficult College Majors (15 Minute Study Strategy)

I’ve received a ton of questions from students asking how to use my study strategies in a “hard” major like Pre-Med or Engineering. I put hard in quotes because there needs to be an important note considered with that. I, generally, agree (not based on anything useful like experience, well one, not the other) that engineering and medical are the most difficult majors to score high in. There have been plenty of studies suggesting that. That being said, hard is a really difficult concept to pin down.

Every subject has its particular challenges. Those challenges shouldn’t be compared based on a single scale because every person has their own skills and weaknesses that ruin the simple scale considered. A person that loves and kicks ass at math might find engineering significantly easier than psychology or something. A person that hates math but is smart as hell can still suck in an engineering major.

Sure, maybe those scales are generally accurate but they mean almost nothing without including the students aptitude to learn certain things.

When you’re looking to use the study strategies suggested in this blog, you may or may not have to adjust them a little. If the classes you’re taking are particularly difficult (TO YOU) then you definitely need to adjust these strategies in certain ways.

Here are the factors you need to work on:

Study VS School Work

I recommend not spending more than 15 minutes a day studying. As unbelievable as that number may seem, in almost every major it’s appropriate to score good. If you want to learn more about the 15 minutes of studying then be sure to check out the archives of this blog for details. I’ll go into the specific ways to adjust those 15 minutes later in this article.

Those 15 minutes are for studying. They are not for school work.

Schoolwork can dramatically change the amount of time you have to spend. If your teacher is a jerk and gives you two hours of boring school work every night then I can’t help you with that. (Other than possibly suggesting to check the value of completely skipping the homework and taking the loss.) Some teachers don’t provide homework. You can be finished with those teachers work in absolutely no time at all.

Engineering is one of the majors where more time for work is needed. Much of engineering is math. Math is usually best learned by working on it. It can’t be studied well with the traditional strategies. That usually means you have to give it more school work time. Of course, since engineering requires a lot less brute memorization, you may be able to get away with a significantly shorter study session.

Another major that requires a ton of outside school work is education. You may have to put in dozens of extra hours a week to complete all your required assignments. In general, they’re not pull your hair out challenging but I hear they can drive a person nuts.

When To Increase That 15 Minutes

Some majors require a seriously ridiculous amount of memorization. Most of them don’t. While I can’t go through every single major and list which ones need more than 15 minutes and which ones don’t, I can give you some basic guidelines.

To start, assume you don’t need to study more than 15 minutes a night. As before, this may sound ridiculous but you’ll never know unless you try. That is the case with most students in most majors who aren’t already behind. The only exception to the 15 minutes a night studying to start, I would consider, is a student that missed out on significant portions of the basics or doesn’t speak the native language at their college.

If you’ve used this strategy in high school then you’ll know within a week or two if you’re keeping up. If you’ve never used this strategy before, you may need to try it for a month. (Of course, if you’re already thinking “there is no way this will work.” It probably won’t work. You need to be committed to getting it to work.)

There is one major that gets a ton of attention as a difficult major. Some medical major classes you enter are going to be particularly challenging when it comes to studying. Studying for a medical major is like studying in a new language. There are going to be thousands of new words to learn. Then you’re going to have to learn how they interact. I would not be surprised if you need to add more study time. Make sure you do it right though.

Do not add more than 10 minutes to your individual study sessions. You’ll just kill your efficiency past that. Add more short study sessions if you have to. Instead of doing a single 30 minute study session do two 15 minute study sessions. Keep your study sessions closer to 15 minutes than 25 minutes whenever possible. You should not need to add more than two 25 minute sessions unless you’re struggling, approaching finals, or taking an insane course load.

As you increase your study time, you have to count on your efficiency lowering. Remember to control the length carefully. If more study sessions doesn’t work for you. Consider switching to the flash card strategy I discussed a few weeks ago. That strategy is particularly powerful for medical majors.

Adjusting On The Fly

To some extent, if you’re taking a really difficult major then you’re going to need to learn to adjust as you go along. Every single major in every single college offers wildly different experiences. While you may dominate in one college’s math major, you may completely bomb in another one. That means you need to be observant enough to know when you’re struggling and when you’re thriving.

I’ve found most students (that read this blog) tend to assume they’re struggling even when they’re not. Try to force yourself to be honest about these kinds of things. If you can’t be objective then keep track of all your scores and set goals in advance for them. Then don’t trust the way you feel and only trust the results. Did you meet your goals or not?

As you get deeper and deeper into a particular major, you should be able to find people to help you come up with good study strategies yourself. Remember to look for efficiency. You don’t have to waste your whole day studying just to survive a major. Heck, I can almost guarantee you, there is someone dumber than you, studying less, and still scoring higher than you without cheating. Figure out what that person would do.

Do you want to know how to study in less than 15 minutes a night (well… usually?) Well, that’s what this blog is all about. Be sure to check out the archives and maybe even get an ebook for a crash course in it.

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