EDUCATION EDUCATION
STUDY SMART, STUDY LESS: IMPROVING YOUR STUDY SKILLS hile studying is the key to
W
success for any college student, it isn’t always
easy. Between managing
multiple classes, working a job, volunteering on campus, and balancing relationships, many students fi nd themselves with too little time to study. Even worse, a lot of
people don’t know how to study properly or effi ciently.
In their recent
seminar, “Study Smart, Study Less,” Priya
Khanchandani and Dr.
Malika Greyson addressed some of these problems. They talked about some of
the barriers to good study habits and discussed how they were able to develop more effi cient modes of learning.
“I used to cram a lot,” says Dr. Greyson, who
holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. “If I had something due on Friday, I’d be cramming on Wednesday. It worked for a while, but then I started to get really frustrated.”
Cramming is an exhausting process and not one that works well for most people. “After an hour, your mind starts to shut off ,” says Dr. Greyson. “If you try to go three hours straight when studying, you’ve reached your capacity and aren’t going to retain any information.”
Upon fi nding that cramming was not the best method, she
decided to make some changes to her study habits. “I decided to take a step back,” she says. “If I had ten pages to read…I needed to get the general idea out of those ten pages.” She realized that summarizing the course material was the
best way for her to understand it. “If I had to explain to any of you what I’d learned in class,” she told the group of students, “you were supposed to understand what I was saying.” Similarly, Khanchandani talked about the importance of
customizing your study method. “Each one of us has a diff erent style,” said Khanchandani, who worked as a systems engineer at Northrop Grumman. “Not everyone follows the same approach.” There are essentially three styles of learning. Visual
learners prefer to read or look at pictures. These learners benefi t from using fl ashcards with visual cues or drawing diagrams that map out the connections between ideas. Auditory learners, on the other hand, learn best by recording lectures and discussing the material outlaid. Kinesthetic learners learn
12 USBE&IT | CONFERENCE ISSUE 2018
by Christopher Zacher
editors@ccgmag.com
by doing, so physical pacing and tapping their feet helps them to retain information. “If you want to study eff ectively,” Khanchandani explains, “you’ll probably learn better by studying in your preferred method.” No matter what your preferred
method of studying is, it’s important to stay on top of course material by taking careful notes. You don’t have to write down every detail either. “The course objective is given up front,” explains Khanchandani. “I would write down the course objective and go over it at the beginning of each lecture.”
Taking careful notes can help
you understand the way that the course material progresses from one session to the next. “You don’t need to memorize everything,” Khanchandani says. “Just make sure you have a continuity and you
understand where [the last lecture] left off .” Ultimately, strong
study habits require self-confi dence and motivation. In order to succeed, you need to feel comfortable asking for help when you need it. “It’s important that
you have the confi dence to say, ‘I am committed to this problem, but I just need a little
more information,’” Dr. Grayson says. “Those people teaching you are there to help.” If you are having trouble with the course material, it is
likely that other people in your class are having diffi culties. For this reason, it helps to form a study group. As Dr. Greyson points out, one of the most important steps to success is “stepping a bit out of your comfort zone and saying, ‘I’m having a problem; let’s all work on it together.’” Ultimately, building good study habits is a process that
takes discipline and perseverance. It may also take some experimentation to fi gure out which methods work best for you. Start by making a plan, keeping up with the course material, and reviewing your notes. Studying is a challenge, but as Dr. Grayson says, “Challenges are meant to be overcome. You’ll get through it…. You just need to have patience with yourself.” S
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