¶ … sat in class and wondered how you were ever going to pass? I had high expectations when I entered college, but after one semester I realized I did not know how to properly study.
I tried everything: taking notes of everything the professor said, using a laptop in class, using a recording device, contacting tutors for extra help and even meeting with the professor directly. None of it helped!
Eventually I realized, it was not that I was missing something important -- but that I was trying to do too much.
Instead of focusing on grasping the basic concepts being taught in class, I was trying to turn myself into a carbon copy of the teacher. I was missing the point of education!
After reading up on how to properly study, I learned that there are three easy and effective strategies for successfully studying to pass your class. This paper will discuss these three strategies and show what I learned from the process.
Strategies
A. Step One: Being Actively Engaged
1. Actively listening and actively reading helped me to identify key points made in the class. Rather than robotically writing down or recording everything, simply listening and reading to digest and comprehend made a huge impact on my ability to succeed.
2. After all, the "first principle of learning college material is that you have to be engaged with what you are doing" -- and I was not until I became actively engaged.[footnoteRef:1] [1: "Determine to be Actively Engaged in Your Courses," Chapter 3: Study Strategies -- The Blueprint, 3.]
B. Step Two: Reading More Closely
1. I also benefitted from reading more closely by noting titles, keywords, main points, thesis statements, and subheadings.
2. When it came time to write papers, I could quickly move through a reading and draw out key points and supportive evidence as a result of my learning to read closely.
C. Step Three: Choosing a Good Study Place
1. I also found that I could study more easily by choosing a quiet place and making it my consistent study room.
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