With finals scheduled in another week, students on campus are cracking open the textbooks and piling up the flashcards.
According to a study done at Clemson University, college is a time of many transitions, both social and intellectual. With college-level courses typically come more intensive study habits and learning what works for each individual.
While some students work well under pressure, others have to prepare for tests a week in advance in order to be ready for an exam. With finals around the corner, students begin to get organized and focus on the questions to come and what techniques to use. But what techniques are most effective?
High school habits
“In high school I didn’t really study. I was a very C student, being more active in band. I was a band nerd, and I went to all the competitions,” Kerry Cookston, a non-traditional student with a dual major of History and English. “It was more important to learn my music than to study for my classes. But I did make it to state.”
Shena Bowman, a freshman marine biology major, agreed.
“High school was a lot different. You could just kind of pick up what you heard in class,” she said. “I didn’t study as much because I didn’t have to. Now I do,” Bowman said.
Crystal Walker, a freshman pre-veterinary major, said she didn’t try that hard in high school either. Now, she looks over her notes “at least 20 times, if not more.”
Last-minute studying
Prisciliano Rodriguez, 22 of Dallas, said he prefers to wait until the night before the test to study.
“I go over notes and examples to try to work the problems again,” he said.
According to Rodriguez, an industrial engineering and math double major, for him it depends on the subject to determine how he will prepare for the tests. For philosophy, he said he does a lot of reading and reviewing the notes from the class.
“Before (this semester) I waited until the day of the test and studied then,” he said. “It didn’t work out.”
He said his grades suffered, and he changed his methods this semester.
“I manage my time better,” Rodriguez said.
Cookston put it another way.
“Cramming is a waste of time,” she said. “You have to be careful about staying up too late. You can short change on sleep a little bit and do fine, but you have to be cautious. Pulling an all-nighter isn’t wise. You need to have some sleep, to have a chance to let everything settle.”
Small wonders: Note cards
By far, the most popular study technique among those interviewed was note cards.
“I live by them,” said Madison Hamilton, 22, a pre-dental major.
She has multiple colors of cards and three separate boxes for them. She said she has a difficult time learning material note cards don’t help with.
“I memorize definitions. I figure if I can get the definition, I can piece the rest together,” she said.
Cookston uses the 3-by-5 staples of studying as well.
“Making note cards and flash cards has really been effective, particularly on tests where you have identifications,” Cookston said. “You know, you have bits of information scattered throughout your notes, and you can get it on one note card. And it not only helps organize your thoughts, but makes it much easier to – the night before the test – go through your notes cards instead of flipping through pages and pages of notes.”
“Beginning this year, I use notes cards,” senior kinesiology major Jessica Patt said. “Note cards work.”
“They’re portable and easy to pull out. I can use them while I’m eating lunch or anywhere else,” Bowman said.
Walker, however, said note cards do not work for her.
“I think, at least with my classes, that there is too much information to put on note cards,” she said.
Tonya Morris, an undergraduate with a double major in English and history, utilizes cue cards for some exams.
“If I know it’s going to be a multiple choice, I’ll write cue cards with the facts on them and study that way,” Morris said. “Whereas, if it’s an essay question, I’ll try to organize the essay and write it out ahead of time so I have an idea about what I’m going to write once I get into the exam – kind of like a rough draft.”
“Both techniques are very effective,” she said, “but I have to say I really prefer essay questions to memorization, though when it comes to memorization, repetition is definitely the key.”
Shine on: Highlighters
For some students, writing notes again is a waste of time when they could simply put a bright yellow – or pink, green, orange, or blue – stripe over the important information.
Morris said her techniques have changed dramatically over time. The non-traditional student had never highlighted a book before she returned to school.
“I think in the three semesters I’ve been back, I’ve probably highlighted every book,” she said. “Highlighting really helps when you’re reading the text. It helps during discussion. And it helps when you’re going back to study for an exam.”
Will you be my buddy? Study groups
One method that used to be popular but seems to be losing steam is the study group.
Maghan Whitlow, a freshman pre-medicine major, said she knows why.
“Your focus goes off. People will just start talking instead of studying,” she said. “You can become too easily distracted.”
Marcus Hawkins said he can’t concentrate in group settings because people talk instead of doing any studying.
“I study alone. If I have somebody in the same class as me and they want to study as hard as I do, then I study with a partner and make sure we both know the material before we leave,” the freshman social work major said. “I quiz them; they quiz me – making sure we both know the material.”
However, some students said studying with one or two classmates can be helpful sometimes although each prefers to study alone.
For others, it’s not about studying with someone from the same class, but rather the same household.
Morris said with a husband and five children it’s sometimes hard to find quiet time to study. Her solution is to have her family come together to do their studying, grading, and homework.
“It helps to sit down at the kitchen table and study together,” Morris said. “Everyone has their own space. It’s obviously a big table, because we have a big family. If it’s just reading you can read on the couch or your bed, but written homework has to be done at the table.”
While she and the children complete their assignments, her English professor husband will grade papers.
“Study time is family time,” she said. “I believe it also helps the kids, kind of a do-as-I-do,” Morris said. “If they see that we have homework to do, they know that they have to do their homework, too.”
Background sounds: music to the ears or just a distraction?
Other students – like Whitlow – preferred background noise while studying.
“It really just helps me stay awake. That’s the only reason it’s helpful when I’m studying,” said Whitlow.
Others depend on caffeine-filled beverages like Red Bull, along with a music-playing device, to get them through all night study sessions before a big test.
“I always listen to my iPod. It helps me concentrate and blocks out other annoying noise,” Kyle Johnston, undergraduate computer science major, said.
Others say silence is golden.
“I gotta be able to hear myself think,” Marcus Hawkins said. “Pretty much when I’m studying, I’m saying it out loud in my head. If I can’t hear it in my head, then I’m not getting enough information. I need quiet, and I need to be organized.”
Where students study can be as important as how they learn, too.
Walker said something as simple as a knock at the door could break her concentration and studying in complete silence is best for her.
Chris Means, an undergraduate English major, said the lack of peace was his main issue when it comes to studying.
“I can’t go five minutes in my apartment without someone going by and blasting their base,” Means said. “There aren’t a lot of places for quiet. I usually have to lock myself in the library, because I get really, easily distracted.”
“If it was possible, I would go to my professor’s office and ask questions about things I don’t understand,” Dena Hawkins said. “I stay in Smith Hall – it’s a study room on the third. I’ll study in there or if my roommate is not in the room. I’ll study in there with everything off.”
Crate and Barrel called: Get organized!
For many, simple organization is the key to successs.
Non-traditional student Margaret Pena said she takes notes in different colors of ink on different days in her biology class.
Planning ahead is the key for Cookston.
“At the begging of the semester, I look at major deadlines and make a notation of those. Every week I look at the syllabi for each class and write down specific deadlines that are coming up, make sure I’ve broken down reading assignments, and I write it all down, and then I just keep up with it,” she said. “If I keep up with my breakdown it all gets done.”
What your mother recommends: Study every day
Sure to be on most instructors’ lists of perennial advice to all college students is the old stand by: study a little bit each day.
“Leading up to the test, I just study every day, so the last day I just skim through it so I won’t be so stressed,” Herron Love, a freshman computer science major, said. “In college, it’s so many more classes, and exams come faster so I study every day pretty much to stay on top of things.”
He’s not alone in his opinion.
“If I try to study before the test it does not work, so I have to study every single day so when it comes down to it I already know it,” Emily Gibson, a freshman history major, said.
A few more options …
Dena Hawkins, who is majoring in criminal justice and psychology, said flash cards and study groups did not work for her; she suggested taking notes while reading textbooks and rewriting them using the Cornell Method.
The technique involves writing down the theme of the discussion on one side of the page and the notes on the other.
Pena said she tried to show Hamilton the study aide, but “it didn’t work for her.”
Pena also said pneumonic devices didn’t work for her, but she did enjoy a trick a friend told her.
“A year ago a friend told me to eat peanut M&Ms,” she said. “Peanuts for protein and chocolate for the endorphins. It didn’t do anything for me.”
Staff Writers Shauna Banks, Brent Lyday, Katie Holt, Andrea Canafax, Amber Pompa and Troy Brakefield contributed to this article.