Being a second semester senior in college, one would think that I have midterm season down in the books for preparation and planning ahead but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Every semester tends to look different regarding mid-semester exams and projects, but this semester was different because I made a conscious effort to check in with myself to see how I was doing mentally along with the many hours of studying.
I think a lot of college students forget the importance of building breaks into their days so that their concentration, focus, and productivity don’t suffer. While it might be tempting to want to knock out studying for a 5-hour block all at once, this is not the most productive use of time considering the fact that humans need breaks in order to maintain energy levels and focus (Cornell Health.edu). Trying to cram hour after hour of studying in can become overwhelming. This year, I made sure to build breaks into my schedule (physically putting them in my Google Calendar) to hold myself accountable for taking breaks. I found this personally helped me a lot with my motivation levels in studying.
I am able to admit that I am a chronic over-studier when it comes to quizzes and exams. I would always rather be more prepared than underprepared which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I found that some of my study methods were not the most efficient use of my time. For example, I would often do active recall with my notes – however I would try to rewrite everything down again which takes a lot of time to hand write everything a second time. This year, I decided to continue active recall however I would look at the title of a topic and try to say in my head what I could remember about the topic. Anything that I was not able to remember I would then physically write down so that I would know what parts of a topic I needed to spend more time on as I didn’t remember much about it the first time around. Sorting through the information in my head and only re-writing what I did not remember allowed me to continue using active recall while also honing in on topics I needed to spend more time on.
As I struggle with anxiety, when midterms season comes around, I often fall into the trap of feeling like how I do on one exam determines my ability to pursue my major of study and whether I am capable of my career goals. I think it’s incredibly important to check in with yourself when you’re studying for exams and remind yourself that it’s not an end-all be-all. Midterm season is difficult considering many classes are picking up the pace simultaneously and it’s normal to struggle to balance your studying over many different classes. Reframing my
mindset to a “I’m going to try my best and that’s all I can do or will ever be expected to do” perspective has tremendously helped me this year.
These are just some things I tried this semester that I found useful and enhanced my ability to study hard and be more efficient with my time! Maybe you could try out one of these if you resonated with one of these struggles.
https://health.cornell.edu/about/news/study-breaks-stress-busters