You’ve probably heard the phrase “work smarter, not harder,” and the same applies to studying when you’re at university. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, so it’s up to you to make the most of them. Read on to learn ways that university students can study smarter, from professors’ office hours to a professional essay writing service.
1. Take Advantage of Office Hours
When you’re struggling with how to balance an equation or decide which sources to use for a research paper, you might wish that you could sit down with someone who would walk you through it. You can! Almost all professors keep office hours, where students can walk in and ask questions. There’s nobody on earth who can explain what the professor wants better than that professor themself, so you may as well take advantage of that. If you’re feeling as if that would be an imposition, remember that most professors are contractually obligated to keep office hours. They have to be there no matter what, and it’s their job.
2. Prioritize Your Assignments
Part of studying smart is good time management. If you have an essay due that you know will take 20 hours of work, that’s 20 hours that you can’t spend on other assignments or self-study sessions. That may be a tradeoff worth making if you’re an English major or if you know that you can kick butt and pull a solid A to raise up your grade point average. However, if you determine that your time would be better spent elsewhere, you can outsource that paper to a professional essay writing service like Homework Help Global and focus on what matters most to you.
3. Form a Study Group
There are a few good reasons why it’s smart to form a study group with other students who are serious about academic success. For one, you can all keep each other accountable and provide support when one of you is struggling. That in itself is valuable and can keep you on the right track at university. Also, it’s often true that the best way to learn something is to teach it (that’s why senior residents teach junior residents in medical school). When you help other students through their struggles, you will also come out with a much better understanding of the material.
4. Take Notes in Longhand
These days, lots of students type their notes – often using autocorrect or predictive typing – or even record them. There’s nothing wrong with that, and sometimes it is the most efficient way to take your notes quickly. But there is a solid body of research that suggests that hand writing your notes, especially in cursive, increases theta wave activity in the sections of the brain that are responsible for thinking and working memory. Anything that helps you remember the class material better is a good thing, so why not bring an old-fashioned ballpoint pen and spiral notebook to your next lecture and try it out for yourself?