By: Kelanie Cuadrado, Staff Writer
You’ve got a midterm coming up. You know you need to study, but you want to go to a party that everyone will be at. If you don’t go you will be left out, but if you don’t study you know you will fail the test. Getting yourself to sit down and study can be a little complicated for a college student who loves to party and hang out with friends. Who wants to study after a long day of lectures in classes? You have your favorite show on TV or things to be done on campus. So what do you do? You start to become a procrastinator. You do all the fun things first and wait until the last minute to study.
If you are a person who procrastinates a lot. You might want to change that habit, unless you want to fail the midterm. Make sure you try to do things ahead of time. That way you don’t have to cram it all into your brain the night before a test. If you do a little bit each day, you won’t feel like studying is wasting all your fun time. Most important of all, you eliminate the word procrastination from your vocabulary. When you don’t feel like studying for a test, take a moment and ask yourself; do I want to take the class over again? Taking the class over again would be much worse, since you have to pay for classes. Studying doesn’t always have to be torture. Find some ways that you can stay focused and won’t be thinking about other things that you can be doing. There are many ways that you can keep yourself focused on studying or making studying a fun things to do.
There is no right way to studying. Some like to listen to music while studying while others can’t focus with music on. Some learn by just reading the material. “Reading the book and going over notes is a good way to study,” said Rae-Kwōn Andrews. This can help because you refresh your mind with the material you have just learned in class. You can be a critical reader. You can write down questions and summarize what you just read about. This will help you decide on whether you understand the material or if you need to ask more questions to your professor. While others need hands on practice. “Writing the vocabulary words on flashcards is a good way to study,” said Victoria Grace Quarles. Writing things down on flash cards has been proven a good way to study because it helps you remember more easily.
Using the game Jeopardy can be a great way to study with friends. There are some online websites that allow you to make your own online Jeopardy game so that you can play with friends using any topic. Quizlet is a good online studying site. You can make flashcards and they also give you the option to play games using the vocabulary or questions that you need to know. You can even draw out pictures so have a better understanding of the material.
Getting sleep is important if you want to pass that midterm. Getting a good amount of rest helps you retain all the information that you have crammed into your brain. So after studying for a few hours take a break, or even a quick nap. If you think you will work better under pressure and staying up all night. Think again. You don’t want to be that one kid who falls asleep during the test and then you screw yourself over by failing the test.
Don’t understand the material? If you are having a hard time studying because you just don’t understand the notes or you can’t keep up in class because your instructor is going too fast for you. Well you’re in luck! Saint Leo University offers the LRC, which is the Learning Resource Center. They are student tutors waiting to help you whether it’s just homework that you don’t understand or you need a study partner. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You’re not the only one who has been in a position that you didn’t understand something. So get to studying and pass that midterm!
