Much of college is about working efficiently and effectively, and good habits helps one succeed greatly. Moreover, having good habits is good for one’s mental health altogether. I think that, generally, many students enter CC without having perfect studying habits, so we develop our own.
It seems that developing a good studying method is often overlooked; so many students pull all-nighters regularly, procrastinate, etc., suffering through education unnecessarily. It’s an important thing to consider.
For example. I have straight A’s, including one class I took at Cal, but I don’t do things as early as I should, and I do schoolwork 7 days per week. I don’t think I’ve taken a weekend off my entire college career. It takes its toll, and I think it’s unnecessary. So, this coming year, I plan to limit all studying to the week, and take weekends off - this will likely make me study more often and more efficiently, as it constrains my time to complete certain tasks. I hear that it works well, and I want to try it. I’d also like to exercise more regularly, limit caffeine consumption, increase water consumption, and make other lifestyle changes that would likely improve my mood/energy levels altogether, which is all very valuable with school. These are my goals.
What are your studying habits? What can you improve?
Basically right when I get back from class I sit down and start my hw. I normally like to start with short assignments, then on to longer ones like essays, and finally finishing with reading assignments since you can skim those. My biggest advice is DON’T READ EVERYTHING. Sometimes we get assigned so much there isn’t enough time. I really don’t recommend taking the weekends off, but rather use it to briefly study material you still don’t understand and get ahead on the next week. 
What I do that is really bad is put on tv shows while I do hw. I really need to stop but otherwise it can be painful long nights instead of just long nights 
The rationale behind taking the weekends off is this:
- It provides a real break, where one can recharge, rest their brain, and so on. Doing this allows one to be more productive during the actual week, because they allow their mind to rest well. Currently, I can only really do about 4 hours of intense, nonstop studying per day, in conjunction with lectures and extracurriculars. That's all that my mind can really muster. If I allowed myself to have more rest, then I could likely work longer (probably around 6 hours), and more effectively.
- It limits time for studying. When there is time pressure, one cannot afford to procrastinate. Let's say today is Monday, and I have an essay due the following week. For me, the due date would essentially be Friday night. My time is further limited because I have clubs and other ECs. So, given a period of time, I cannot afford to stretch it out until Saturday or Sunday; I have to work efficiently to get it done, and the earlier the better, because that makes room for other things. Constraining time helps improve efficiency, and forces one to be more productive.
- It makes more room for what one wants to do outside of their studies. For example, I have a massive stack of books that I would like to read, but I can never find the time. With two completely free days in the week, I would be able to focus on these things that I'm neglecting.
Working 7 days per week is pretty awful, and I think it’s a damper on productivity as well. So that’s what I plan to do - and work harder during the week to compensate.
Lol yeah working 7 days a week is awful, but sometimes you got to suck it up. I mean do what works for you, but it seems like you might end up cramming during the week
I work full-time and go to school full-time, so my time to finish homework is all over the place. Before moving, my work schedule was very consistent (Monday-Friday 6am-2:30pm), then I had classes afterward (usually 2-3 days per week on campus, 5-8:30pm). My apartment was in the opposite direction of school, so I would head straight to the school, work out in the gym/run for 30 minutes, then do homework for about two hours before heading to class. While I wouldn’t take an entire weekend off of homework, I would dedicate one day of my weekend to homework so that I could have a day off. Since I was dedicating at least a couple of hours to homework every day during the week, I usually only ended up needing to do a half day on Saturday (unless I had a major project due).
That being said, my work schedule now is much less consistent and I am enrolled in four classes, which has proven to be a challenge! I don’t work nearly as early now, so I do homework in the mornings before work and use one of my erratic days off to just work solely on homework and maybe a bit of housework.
Unfortunately, since I need to work full-time, I’m not able to do much in the way of ECs. However, with so little time on my hands, I have learned how to really put my mind to things to get them done by the due date.
Also, I don’t know how late to the game I am, but I just started using Flashcard Hero and it was my SAVIOR for my massive Biology exam last week. I may or may not have been doing flashcards while stuck in traffic on my way to work. I highly recommend dropping the $8 on the full version.
My school load has for the most part always been full-time and I worked a terrible job full-time until Spring of 2015. Then I got laid off and now i’ve taken time off from working to finish out school. I was working a job where I had to be at work by 4 am, work until 11 am, immediately take 3 busses on a 2 hour commute (one-way to school), and then take 2 classes, back to back, get out of class at 9 pm, I’d get home at 11/1130, and then sleep for 4 hours and then get up and do it all over again, and that was 5 days a week and I had only one real day off that was completely dedicated to school. I had a terrible semester, was extremely depressed and my grades suffered. When I was studying, I was cramming everything into a 24 hour time frame and it was horrible. My job was also psychologically stressful and actually put me in physical danger many times. I remember when crying every day in the car when driving to work was pretty much the normal state of things, which is unacceptable.
Now that I don’t work, I have to manage my time really carefully. I do some volunteering and most of my classes are online, and usually those classes give all the material out at once and its my responsibility to get everything done by a certain due date so it really pushes me to organize myself well and manage my time. It was kind of a challenge at first, but I rather enjoy it. For tests, I re-read chapters twice, make a study guide that I work on every day up until the test, and do some flashcards - i’m going to get that Flashcard Hero thing @incogneato it looks pretty helpful.
Not working for the rest of the year and into Spring to focus on school and EC’s has been really refreshing, but now I pretty much just stay inside my house for the majority, doing nothing but school work and contacts for my volunteer gig, and doing nothing but studying and work for 14 hours straight can sabotage the next day where i’m too drained to focus on anything and then I get distracted and become less productive. It also doesn’t help that I have ADD and can’t afford medication for it, so getting through chapters for certain classes takes extra long. I have to account for that and give myself extra time on some days. I’ve come to that point where i’m like, “THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE HOURS IN THE DAY/NEED TO DO ALL THE THINGS.”
When I move to UC Davis in September, I will definitely be working and I know the workload will be heavier than it is at CC so I’m trying to prepare for that by pushing myself a little further and working through to get things done ahead of time, even if i’m a little too tired.