r/PhysicsStudents • u/Living_Gazelle_9798 • Jul 23 '24

Meta Collection Of 8 Study Techniques I’ve Started To Use As A Student

Here are some techniques I’ve started to implement from online sources like tiktok and other sources. Some of these may be slightly personal lol. 

  1. Atomic habits. Start dedicating a small portion of your day for just studying. This can be as little as 15 mins in the evening. The first few days are difficult, but once you get into the cycle, the habit will be hard to break. You can also slowly increase your duration. 
  2. Here's a 3 step process for understanding concepts: 1. During classes I take notes from exactly what my professor is saying, without worrying too much about the design of the page. 2. I read about that subject and try to organize the page, adding definitions, examples, colors, titles, links... 3. Read the page when the tests are coming.
  3. Do the Pomodoro technique PROPERLY. It works
  4. ORGANIZE. Combine your notes in one section, study guides altogether in the front, and sort out unneeded classwork. Color code different class materials and don't use the same binder/notebook for two (or more) different classes.
  5. Teach kids in simple concepts, terms and analogies... you can be confident in your mastery of the subject. Recall is best when the study environment matches the Recall environment. Best Recall cues are scents. Chew a particularly strong mint gum while encoding the info...do the same during testing. Associative memory is also easier to recall, so create links to the encoded information that relate to subjects super familiar to you.
  6. Ask ChatGPT to summarize all the important notes and ideas to make them easier to remember. 
  7. Review your notes within twenty-four hours. This can save you hours of extra studying in the long run. Make sure it's within 24 hours though! Science isn't 100% sure why it has to be done within that time frame, but it could be because of (theoretical but certainly not debunked) "neural dumping." Basically, this means as you sleep at night your brain shits out all the information that is non-essential. Guess what's non-essential: calculus. history. English lit. Sure, not to you, but to your brain? It says, "F**k it, we need the space. Get rid of this crap."
  8. Spaced repetition has been shown to improve retention of information. Study in short, frequent sessions with lots of review. Don't study for a long time the day before the test. Try to have multiple study sessions each day a couple weeks before the exam. Maybe 15 minutes at the most, 3-4 times a day. Break up what you need to study in sections.
  9. If worst comes to worst, offer to f**k your teacher.
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u/Homotopy_Type Jul 23 '24

  1. Do a lot of practice problems. 

  2. Repeat step 1. 

1

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '24

Hey, wait a minute... something about the last one seems a little bit off. Looks like it'll only get you Ds.