College 101

Midterm Season

Right about now, you are reaching that time of the semester where midterms start happening. Well at least for some of you. You might be stressing and worrying about your midterms starting or they are coming up. Some of you are probably studying like crazy for not just 1 but for 2+ courses (depending on how many you are taking). Let this blog post help you relax and ease your mind for a bit. I will be giving you my tips and tricks for getting comfortable with midterms.

Resting

No matter how long you are willing to stay awake, you need rest. Your brain needs to rest and process everything that you're studying to retain that information. Your body also needs that rest. If you are a commuter, best believe your body gets drain. It is on a constant move that you may forget but your body does feel it. Resting also involves your health. When you stress, your body stresses and when your body stresses, it starts affecting your health. Resting 8 hours can do wonders for you.

Study Methods

Main study tip is to not try and review every material the night before. Rookie mistake and that probably won't be saving you in any class. Space out the material. If there are classes that you feel more confident in and the information is easier to understand then you don't have to prioritize those classes as the main portion of your study session, heavy info classes might require more than just 3 days to review. The best way to help you is making a study schedule. If you have time in the morning to review or study, use this time to study for the heavy classes. Your brain is going to be highly active in retaining information. At noon (or around that time) you can focus on classes that you are not 100% confident in but still understand the topic. You are already awake and fueled up to get you started on these study sessions. In the evening/night you can review what you have studied throughout the day for 30 mins, take a 10-15 minute break and then review/study for the classes you already feel confident in. If you are taking 5 classes, space them out evenly in your study schedule. Assigned certain days for these classes that also align with your personal schedule. You can do:

Active recall: Allowing your brain to retrieve information that was taught. This method can be done by writing on a blank piece of paper, white board, or speaking out loud.

Practice tests: Using any practice tests that are given to you in class or generating one with the lectures that you have been taught. This is a perfect way to prep for a midterm (or any exam) and you are able to create tests on the topics that you struggle with the most.

Spaced repetition: Reviewing material at different time rates to fight natural forgetting. This can be by reviewing lectures from your first class and going ove4r them every 2 days to allow your brain to retain the information and makes studying easier before an exam/midterm/final.

Feynman technique: Teaching someone else what you are learning in simple terms. You can teach your topics to a family member, friend or your pet. As long as you understand the topic, teaching this to someone will be easier.

If you need extra help, watch YouTube videos that correlate to your topics. Attend office hours with topics that can be challenging for you and ask your professor to teach it in simpler terms.

Proper Meals/Snacks

Having a proper meal before an exam is important. It is not just fueling your body but it is also fueling your brain. You cannot work on an empty stomach when doing an exam, speaking from experience, I have dozed off on a few midterms/tests. Learned my lesson and make sure to have a proper breakfast or lunch (depending when you have class). If you have 2 midterms back to back in one day and both are in person, take snacks. It can be a fruit, a yogurt bowl, or a granola bar. If you have an hour or 2 hour gap, a snack will do but you might want to accompany that with a mini lunch.

Mini Rewards

After completing a midterm, don't forget to reward yourself. No matter if you did good or bad. You finished and studied for that midterm, you deserve a reward!! It can be something small like buying snack or a drink. For most of my rewards, I bought myself drinks (lattes, matcha, or a smoothie). Most of the times I would get a smoothie no matter how hot or cold it was, a smoothie after a midterm was always the best reward for me. There are some midterms that tend to be a heavy component to your grade and for those I would reward myself with something a bit bigger. The most "expensive" reward I would get for myself was a book. For my undergrad courses that were very important (all of them were) there were some that retained a lot more information than others. Those courses were biomechanics, disease and plasticity in neuromuscular system, physics, anatomy, and physiology. I did spend a lot of my time studying and memorizing certain actions and terms that wouldn't just appear in the first exam but in multiple and for the rest of the year. Depending on how heavy the course is, you can then choose your rewards with things you like.