Mikaela Baratka4th year E&E major and pre-PhD student It’s that time of the year where everyone seems to be drowning in exams. Fortunately for me, I managed to score a final semester with no exams (!!), but every single student at this university has been there: exam after exam, paper after paper with no end in sight. Now, I can’t magically make your exams disappear (but you can try in your last semester!), but I can try to share some of the study skills I have found most helpful in those challenging courses. Before I dive into these skills, I want to preface with one very important thing: every single person learns differently, just because these skills worked for me does not mean they will for you. I recommend taking what I am going to lay out here and adapting them as you figure out what works best for your brain. The one thing that I have used in a number of classes is “cheat sheets”. I don’t mean actually attempting to cheat-- if anything I’m here to advise against breaking the academic code of conduct. I mean creating note sheets summarizing the most important things from lectures so they’re all in one place. This has forced me to reread all of my lecture notes, turn back to slides, and even consult the textbook as it helps to identify concepts you aren’t super certain about. Rewriting your lecture notes and condensing them will also help instill them in your brain. I’m not sure of the exact science, but it’s the same idea for writing your own notes instead of just annotating a PowerPoint slide. The way that I personally go about this method is by first just flipping through my notes and identifying the major concepts that a professor talked about in class. I either did this at the end of every week (in courses like Organic Chemistry and Physics), or towards the end of each unit (in courses like Biostatistics, Biochemistry, and Genetics). As the exams were approaching, I’d refer back to my “cheat sheets” and add to them as I understood more of the concept. I also found that color coding these sheets was helpful, but that’s mainly because I learn better in color. These sheets don’t have to be perfect, it’s the practice of making them that helps you better prepare for the test. One of my other major study tactics isn’t always applicable to all courses and that is flashcard matching games. If you have a vocabulary heavy test, sure traditional flashcards may be helpful, but for most classes they can’t really be utilized. I never really found flashcards that helpful unless I had to commit something to memory, until I had an idea when I took Genetics my sophomore year. At this point it was so long ago, I’m not entirely sure what the topic was I made the matching game for, but I did. Since I can’t remember that specific iteration, I’ll share one that I still use as a biochemistry UTA to aid students. I bought a pack of flashcards that had 4 different colored cards (you can do this with plain cards and colored pens). On each color I wrote either the enzyme, the step (products à reactants), intermediates, or regulation. I shuffled them up and tried to match them up, each time identifying which steps of the pathway I needed to review. I did that same for the citric acid cycle and before you know it, I had both pathways down and did extremely well on that exam. I did a similar thing with amino acids (structures, names, and the two different abbreviations). Finally, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, don’t be afraid to go to office hours. If all else fails and you cannot understand something, don’t be afraid to ask. The professors and TAs are here to help you succeed. One of the things I have done in the past is if the homework allows two or three attempts to do each problem, I do them once (or twice) on my own and then go to office hours and figure out where I messed up before resubmitting. This helped me figure out tricky problems which often times would show up on exams in slightly altered form (and helped to ensure I got the most points possible for the homework!). Again, none of these methods are guaranteed to work for you, but I’ve recommended these tactics to friends and students who have also found them helpful. I hope you find a study method that works best for you, and you can adapt it for all those tricky classes. Best of luck on your exams!
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January 2022
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