Tell me if this situation sounds familiar. You’ve just come fresh out of high-school, gotten into university, survived Freshers Week and are ready to begin your degree. You sit down at your desk, with that brand-new color-coded stationery set you convinced yourself you needed for university, open your laptop and – are so confused. What do you mean you have to read 10 50-page essays, 5 books and 20 different articles for that 9am seminar tomorrow? A seminar? A lecture? Recommended and required reading? What does that even mean?? Well, I’m here to help!
How long do I study for?
Let’s begin with the maths (ironic, I know). Humanities students are expected to self-study for approximately 30–40 hours per week. If we divide 35 by 7 that’s roughly 5 hours per day of self-study. Contact hours (the hours you spend in lectures, seminars, lessons or workshops) average out to 4–6 hours each week depending on the way your modules are organized into either 1-hour lecture and 1-hour seminar per week, a 2-hour lecture and/or seminar etc. Then if we take it as roughly 2 hours per day, 2 – 6 is 3. So, timetable dependent, you should aim to study for 1-3 hours of studying per day when you have contact hours. During the exam revision and/or coursework period when you don’t have contact hours, bump that number up.
Try to set yourself a target and a reward at the end. In my second year I aimed for 2-4 hours of studying each day when I had contact hours. If I met my target, I would reward myself by watching Jane the Virgin with my housemates. Shirtless Rafael is the best reward.
What do I study?
Now that you know how long to study for, we need to put that time to good use. One of the biggest differences between high-school and a degree is knowing exactly what to study. While A-levels and IB programmes come with a neatly organized curriculum and a mark-scheme served to you on a silver platter, humanities degrees will throw lots of different information and sources at you, which can be overwhelming. You don’t want to spend 6 hours reading 50 essays for only 1 of them to end up being useful.
Most courses will have required reading for each week. That means it’s compulsory and is the first thing you should be looking at. Read as much of that as possible, because let’s be real, no one can read 10,000 pages in a week without their brain imploding (but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try)!
Lectures will generally give you an overview of topics around and related to the required reading, so don’t worry too much if you haven’t finished the reading before the lecture. Seminars is where you’ll go into the nitty-gritty of it by having a discussion with your peers and seminar-leader, so have it done before then.
Underneath required reading (specifically if you’re using KEATS) there may be ‘recommended’ or ‘secondary reading’. This will usually be a list of extra material to delve into if you’re interested in the topic and/or have the time before a seminar. After you’ve made notes on the required reading (see ‘How do I study?’), examine your notes and see what’s sparked your interest. You can usually gauge what an essay or source will be about from the title, so that way you don’t have to read all of them, or in as much meticulous detail as the required reading. Aim to skim at least one or two pieces of extra reading. That way you can bring some cool points to a seminar to help the discussion along (because trust me, a dead seminar is boring for everyone).
Make sure that you find out exactly what the reading is if you’re unsure. Sometimes required reading is put in the recommended reading section which can get confusing. Drop an email to your seminar-leader, lecturer or professor or ask them in person. They’re always happy to help!
How do I study?
To know how to study we first need to know exactly what we’re studying for. With A-Levels and IB programmes, you’d be studying for exams and/or working on coursework and projects. Similarly, at university, you’ll be assessed with exams or coursework depending on what modules you’ve chosen. But unlike high-school, you won’t be thinking about the exam or coursework throughout the year. This is why I personally find university better than high-school, you’re learning for the sake of learning rather than just to be assessed.
Before the lecture/seminar
Each week you’ll be focusing on a different topic which will relate to the overall theme of the module. Therefore, when it comes to doing your required reading each week, these are the places to look to streamline your focus:
1. The module titles
From here you can find out what you’re meant to be thinking about when you’re doing your reading. For example, a module I took last year was called ‘Ideas of Nation’. This means that when I was reading, I knew I had to note down points in the text that spoke about the nation as a construct, specific countries or national identity.
2. The weekly topic titles (not always included, but use them if they’re there)
This will help you narrow down your focus even more. So, if I take the same example, one of the weeks titles could be ‘The Nation and Madness’. I now know that I can look for the ways national identity can lead to madness, or how the nation is related to mental health or if specific countries and cultures deal with madness differently.
3. The module description
Here is where you can go to find questions or starting points for your notes if the module title and the weekly topics fail you or are too vague. Look up the module online and see what questions are being asked, what ideas, topics and themes are central to its focus, and use these to guide your notes.
When it comes to actually writing notes on a piece of reading, challenge yourself by forming questions or themes to look for and use them as sub-headings to answer while going through the text. Also, always remember to note down the page of a quote! It seems obvious, but it’s a small, extremely useful piece of information that helps tremendously when it comes to coursework.
In the lecture/seminar
Humanities lectures can leave you feeling like a tidal wave of information just washed over you. You come out the other end simultaneously confused, dazed and amazed. Try to avoid writing down every word to help with this. It’s tempting because you’re never quite sure what will be relevant later on, but a lot of gaps can be filled afterwards by you revisiting lecture slides or emailing your lecturer. Use sub-headings wherever you can – if they’re not given by the lecturer in slides try to make your own when or if you revisit your notes. It’ll help you re-organize the information in a format that helps you and cement it in your memory.
With seminars, I simply jot down whatever interesting points other people and/or the seminar leader have made.
It’s your choice whether you hand-write or type your notes, but most lecturers will tell you to hand-write because you’ll remember the information better. In my experience with both, the lecturers are usually right!
After the lecture/seminar
I highly suggest revisiting your notes after the day of the lecture/seminar, but it’s not essential. In my second year I hand-wrote my notes and then typed them up into a large PDF file. It was very helpful to see all my lectures in one document, because I could jump back and forth between the pieces of information I needed for my coursework.
I hope that now, fellow humanities student, you feel a bit more prepared for the year ahead. So on that note, make sure you get to that 9am tomorrow, and happy studying!