College is a completely different experience than high school. It provides a sense of liberation that you’ve never fully experienced before, and it’s your first taste of navigating the world as an adult. With college, however, comes an inevitable increase in your workload, as studying becomes far more intensive than it was in high school. It would be in your best interests to plan out the best ways to manage all the knowledge you’ll soon be privy to. Here we provide a collection of our best study tips for college freshmen.
1. Make a Schedule
Having a schedule and sticking to it will go a long way in improving your time management skills. Write down all your classwork and activities in a planner so that you can also block out time for studying. This way, you won’t have to worry about time getting away from you.
2. Don’t Pull All-Nighters
Students commonly pull all-nighters when they find themselves in a pinch. This may seem like a good temporary solution, but it’ll ultimately do more harm than good. Cramming doesn’t help you retain any information, and the lack of sleep will make you disoriented and unable to concentrate later.
3. Take Notes by Hand
Writing by hand is one of the best ways to improve your memory: the muscle memory helps you better retain information. Additionally, it frees you of any potential distractions that a laptop offers.
4. Take Breaks
Allow yourself to take breaks to rest your eyes and mind and loosen up your muscles. For every thirty minutes that you study free of distraction, take ten minutes for yourself. By keeping your work and breaks divided into blocks of uninterrupted time, you’ll find that you accomplish more. You’ll get valuable study time as well as an occasional breather.
5. Study in Groups
Finding a reliable study group is a great way to get valuable work done. You and your study buddies can hold each other accountable and use your personal strengths to help one another. Be careful that you and your partners don’t get caught up in distractions.
6. Reward Yourself
Whether it’s a chocolate bar, a podcast episode, or a video by your favorite YouTuber, make sure that you have something to look forward to after study time has ended. This is the metaphorical dessert that you receive after eating your vegetables—having something to look forward to will make it easier to digest.
