Studying: Do It Your Way

So I'm a lawyer, which means I survived law school and the bar exam. Both things I would not recommend if you have any self-love whatsoever. To be honest, the two weeks leading up to the bar exam was a time I was extremely fragile mentally. But I digress.

Something I saw in these contexts were individuals who wanted to do well. And there's nothing wrong with that - it's good to have motivation. But a problem arose in how some of these individuals went about trying to do well that typically backfired.

Pictured: A bookshelf full of reporters no one uses anymore because we have the internet.

When figuring out what their study regimen should be, some students chose what they heard was the "correct" way to study like spending an ungodly amount of time in the library studying and fighting over the composition of study groups. Yet, even after doing these tasks, many would still not do well. So here is a list of the traps some people fell into.

1. Memorization: Don't do it for its own sake

Unless you are in med school and you have a ton of vocabulary to memorize, this method of "learning" is almost never a good way of understanding new concepts. I could see this in law school where a student would be doing okay for a month or so in memorizing everything. However, after that month, there was simply too much to memorize. Students who did this would typically start fine and then become more burnt out - particularly by the time finals came around.

So what should you do instead of memorizing things? For this, I try to understand the "why" of something in place of memorizing the "what".

For example, when I tutored people in economics, I found that one of the concepts people typically struggled with was understanding the slopes of supply and demand curves. On one hand, it may be simplest to memorize "demand slopes down" and "supply slopes up". But now, you are woefully unprepared to discuss what can shift these lines or how they function in relation to other graphed items.

Instead, I would encourage my tutees to put themselves in the world of the graph. Once students figured out that demand slopes down because people don't like price increases (and, thus, the amount demanded by the market goes down), it was suddenly an easy concept to grasp; no memorization needed! Further, as the semester progressed, we were able to build off this concept to make sure that the student didn't just know the information, they understood it. And they performed better than students that were dead set on memorization.

2. Don't force a study habit just because others are doing it

Going back to the intro, it can be tempting to try to copy the methods of those we perceive are doing well. When you see someone spending a lot of time in the library or with their study group, this can be somewhat demoralizing if you aren't doing the same thing.

But people are different and need different things. One person's study habits are unlikely to work for another person because *gasp* they aren't the same person!

Instead of copying others, take some time to figure out how you best learn. Then stick with that (and make adjustments as needed). Perhaps you'll still see that person in the library all the time, but you'll know that you are doing what works best for you.

3. Drop courses/projects if needed

Sometimes you have no choice but to take a certain class or project on. In those instances, this tip doesn't work. However, in many scenarios, there is not this rigidity. For example, there are typically add/drop periods in higher education. Taking this to a profession, while there are fewer opportunities to outright drop a project, it is perfectly acceptable to ask for guidance (or maybe it is possible to get someone else to assist on the project).

In my last post (shameless plug), I went on a rant about how giving up is sometimes the best course of action. That applies in this context as well. There are no medals for sticking things out when you could have asked for help. Indeed, it will typically take you longer to figure things out yourself which in and of itself could be an issue.

4. On forming a study group

You don't just want "smart people" when you are forming a study group. First, this is something that is incredibly difficult to gage and you'll probably be wrong or overlook someone who could have helped. Plus, there are multiple types of intelligence - one that could be helpful may not be immediately obvious.

These reasons aside, having a diverse group of people in a study group will make it a better group. People will understand different concepts with varying ability and will catch things you don't. Working through parts as a group help both the people teaching and learning the concept. There were plenty of concepts I thought I knew well enough, but when I went to teach others in the group, I would quickly realize that I was wrong.

5. Don't take this (or anything like this) as gospel

As with any self-help guide, this is not a bulletproof way to get through anything. If any of this does not work with your learning style and abilities, you should go with what works for you rather than what is typed here (see point 2).