How Can I Study Better Quickly? This:

“How can I study better?”

That must be the question that you ask yourself when you are struggling to stay alive in your classes.

Do you want to know the fast and easy way to dominate your classes without having to wonder how you are going to study?

If you said yes to those questions, then this post is for you.

You will learn the bulletproof, step by step method for studying better while reducing your anxiety in college!

This post alone will give you the most effective study techniques for all successful college students around the world

Now before we get into it, I would like for you to watch this video right here so that you can get acclimated for what I’m about to discuss.

If you watched the video, you notice that Professor Leonard mentions several steps as to how to study. I am going to go over each point in detail so that you can have clear direction with these study methods.

So let’s begin.

Take Good Notes

This is the most important step here and is the best way to study and memorize material (even though I hope that you solely don’t rely on memorization; that’s BAD for you!).

To clarify the video, this step needs to be a combination of self-study with books and/or YouTube videos or written tutorials and your class.

I will mention before we go on that you CAN get away with not going to class depending on your class, but you CAN’T get away from self-study.

That’s required.

However, if you go to class after you self-studied the material before class, then you are going to use the lecture to your advantage since you’ll understand almost every point that the professor is talking about and you’ll be in a better position to ask thoughtful questions to them which will make the lecture 10X more effective than just simply going to class.

You can read more about that concept here.

Now here is how you take the good notes:

For everything that the book and your professor say, don’t copy their stuff down word for word.

Instead, write everything in your own words in a way that you will understand what is happening and that you are going to be able to CREATE the solution with a conceptual understanding of the material later on.

This is the secret to acing any class whether it’s engineering, computer science, history, etc.

But especially the STEM classes.

Memorization needs to be minimized as much as possible to allow this conceptual understanding to take place.

If you understand the concept, the know-how will follow naturally as a result of understanding what you need to do to reach the solution.

And you don’t have to solely rely on Chegg for all of the answers.

And let me just point this out:

Solely using Chegg is by far the most ineffective and the most destructive way to study for your classes.

If you just use Chegg, you will fail your classes.

Chegg can only be used AFTER you have tried the problems that I’ll discuss later in this post and you have a conceptual understanding of what you are doing in a way that you will understand the gaps in your knowledge and why they are there.

That’s when Chegg is effective.

Otherwise, it’s a waste of time and money.

So the bottom line of this section is to write your notes in your own words and to focus on gaining a conceptual understanding of what’s happening instead of just memorizing your way through the class.

And if you got that nailed down, you’ll get this nailed down:

You CAN Do This

And that is the key point.

Many students get caught up into thinking that because they see gigantic equations, you can only be a natural born genius like Jimmy Neutron in order to understand the material.

That can’t be further from the truth.

All you need to do this is self-belief.

And when you get that self-belief, you will find a way to do it. And you will actually do it.

It’s predetermined destiny.

You set something for yourself and then you just go for it.

In fact, I discuss this in great detail in the post right here in which I elaborate about how unshakable you will become and how invincible you will become if you just believe in yourself SO MUCH.

But it has to be STRONG and MASSIVE to the point where you are sexually obsessed with achieving what you want.

Remember, Albert Einstein was once called a doofus by teachers and classmates and Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Why did they overcome that?

Self-belief.

That’s it.

That’s the secret to all success.

Plus massive action of course, but you already knew that.

So keep that in mind when you do ALL of this.

In fact, ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing first before you read the rest of this post.

It’ll make you more MOTIVATED to read the rest of this post!

And with that in mind, keep on reading!

Ask Questions When In Doubt

This one is inevitable.

You will get stuck eventually whether it’s in the lecture, while doing problems, listening to the professor in class, etc.

Because of this, it’s important to do these two things that I’m about to share with you while you are learning the material.

1)      If you are reading or watching videos, whatever you don’t understand, write your questions down in your own words to then ask either someone in your class or your professor

2)      If you are listening to the lecture in class, write down your question in your own words and then immediately raise your hand and ask the question while it’s fresh in your mind.

This will ensure that you get everything clarified.

If they don’t answer your questions in class, then go to office hours and get all that you can get resolved there. I wrote a post about office hours and how you can go about them to maximize your college experience. Access it here.

And if the professor still doesn’t answer your question and is rude, then simply don’t try to engage with them.

Instead, ask a classmate or a tutor who is willing to thoroughly explain the material to you when you have doubts.

And here’s another rule for you.

If you can, don’t schedule classes with a notoriously obnoxious professor because that is an unnecessary mess that you can avoid.

Of course, if that’s the only professor that’s teaching the class and you have to take the class, you are going to have to just suck it up and do it.

But if you don’t have to do that, don’t do it.

Always use the university student satisfaction survey of professors to vet them before signing up and always use rate my professor right here to vet them before enrolling.

And the most important thing about asking questions is that you have got to be persistent when you are asking them.

Don’t expect to get all of your questions at once.

You see, this is another mistake made by college students.

They get too scared of asking questions because they feel that the professors and their colleagues might intimidate them for asking.

Here’s one thing to keep in mind:

Remember who’s paying for this?

You are.

And what do you know about people who pay for things?

They are the bosses.

What does that make you?

The BOSS!

Yes, universities have codes of conduct and some guidelines that you of course have to follow, but assuming that you are following that and you aren’t breaking laws, YOU ARE THE BOSS!

They have to do what you say.

And if they’re not, they are not doing their job.

Just write it all down at the end of the semester in the student satisfaction survey.

So after you have asked all of the questions that you have, you will then start your homework.

And you’ll go about your homework in the following way:

Do Your Homework With Your Notes

This will get all of the steps in your mind and get it used to doing what you are doing.

It’ll make things silky smooth later on.

What will happen in your mind when you do this is that you will repeatedly tell your brain that this is how it’s done and this is why we are doing it.

As you keep getting the answers right, your brain will get comfortable doing all of the things that the notes are telling it to do.

As a result, you should have no problem doing your homework by memory later on.

So keep drilling it in there with your notes until it is perfect.

100%, not 99.99%.

And that brings us to our very next step here in this blog post:

Do Your Homework Without Your Notes

This is the one that you absolutely must do to truly be prepared for your tests.

The ability to do it perfectly from memory proves to yourself that you have understood everything that is going on and you are independent of any other source for your knowledge.

But only do this once you have conceptualized it (not memorized it) perfectly.

When this happens, it’ll feel like you are doing it effortlessly and that you don’t feel any fear when you are doing the problems.

Know this other thing in this section: Fear is an indication that you don’t know something.

If that is the case and you get that uncomfortable feeling in your head, use your notes until it is perfectly in your head.

And then try it again.

Until you can eliminate all of the fear, you are not perfect at your craft.

And if the notes didn’t get the job done, then go back to the reading, your professor, classmates, and YouTube until you get that section perfected.

Once you have perfected the section that you are on and you have gotten through all of your homework seamlessly, then you can move on to the next section of your class and the next section of this blog post.

Remember this point, you need perfection by test time.

Read that sentence again so that it’s very clear.

If mistakes are made, it’s now.

It’s fine to make them now because they can be easily corrected, but not on the test when 1 question is 15% of your grade and one misstep will drop your grade by 15 points.

That’s a full letter grade.

So correct what you have to correct now so that it’s PERFECT!

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

15 Minute Review of Any Weak Section

So in between each section of studying after breaks, you will review one or two sections that you have done previously to refresh your memory about them so that they don’t slip.

Preferably, these should be weak sections that you need refreshed so that you can just engrain them in there into your mind.

But if you don’t have any weak sections, then start at the earliest section and go from there until you reach your section.

You can do this process at the beginning part of every study session and pick up from where you left off during the next session.

For instance, say that you have the 15 minute window and you need to study section 1.1.

Let’s say that in those 15 minutes, you are on section 1.1.

In your next study session, you will start with section 1.2 and carry on from there.

You’ll get the grasp of it when you actually do it, but this will at least get you going in the right direction.

This is important like Professor Leonard said because eventually, if you don’t use the material in there for a while, you will lose it.

Hence the phrase, “If you don’t use it, you will lose it.”

So before you start doing whatever you have to do for the next section, you should do this.

Like he said, you don’t have to do the problems, but rather, just read through them and keep those concepts and the steps in there so that when you do the next step, you can do so with great ease and comfort.

And that brings us to the final step on how to study better:

Test Review: Do Everything Without Your Notes

This is the key.

If you are given a study guide, then just do what Professor Leonard said.

Go through the study guide and do every problem there.

If you did the 15 minute reviews, then you should have no problem completing the study guide.

Now if you do NOT get a study guide, then you have a few options as to what you can do:

1. A) Do all of your homework again

This is a long option, but I can tell you for a fact that it does work extremely well assuming that you did the reviews.

The reason for this is because you are going to cover every possible section that can be on the test and you don’t have to guess as to what’s going to be on there in the method that I will discuss below.

You will be more sure as to what’s going on the test.

Now here’s the other option that you can do:

1. B) You can make your own study guide

I would only recommend this if you are on a time crunch and you don’t have time to go through all of the homework problems that you did.

The reason is because it involves selecting a random sample of questions from each section that even though it will cover every topic, because you didn’t do every question again, you might miss a few details that can bite you back if you don’t review them.

But for time crunches, this is your best bet.

Here’s how you do it:

Go through every section and every subsection of topics inside of the section and select one or two questions from each subsection of every section to put on the study guide.

And then do them.

That’s it.

And drill them like crazy.

Madman like.

Of course, if you are taking a calculus class, then you should not have a problem with this since Professor Leonard will guide you through everything and everything will be silky smooth on test time.

But if you are not taking calculus right now, then you are going to have to work 10X harder to get to perfection.

But believe me when I say this:

You can do this.

You can become unstoppable if you choose to be.

It’s all a mindset at the end.

And if you have that, the X’s and O’s will sort themselves out.

So there you have it.

That is your study plan for every class that you can imagine and the best ways to study for exams.

May the force be with you and if you do have any questions about this post, leave them below in the comments section and I’ll answer them as soon as possible.

And if you got a lot out of this post, make sure that you subscribe to the blog right below with your email where new in-depth and rich blog posts will be sent to your inbox right when they are published.

Until next time,

This is Chief Islander Evan signing off.

PS: If you’re an engineering student taking Dynamics, read this and do what it says. You’re welcome. .