Tag: college

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How to wisely spend your time in college to do well in classes

By Brady Thomas

When many people get out of high school, they normally believe that they are prepared for anything that college will throw at them. They think that what they learned in high school gave them the proper knowledge to study and learn properly. However, students typically and very quickly find that college is much more different and difficult than what they encountered in high school.

When students begin college, they believe that it will be easier because they  do not have class all day, five days a week, like they did in high school. This extra time should be used to complete school-related tasks such as studying, reading course material, or even working on homework. However, most students do not do that. Many college freshmen become caught up in playing video games, watching Netflix, or the ever popular, taking naps. These conflicts of interest can be dangerous because it is typically expected that college students should spend two to three hours outside of class working on course material for every hour they spend in class.

However, because coursework can be difficult and stressful, one tends to avoid it and participate in more activities that they find fun and relaxing. By spending more time away from their assignments, students do not complete them in a timely manner and their coursework accumulates. When this occurs, students begin to feel overwhelmed, stressed, and may feel like their brain cannot store or remember any more information because they are trying to take in so much at one time. This is where working memory comes in to play.

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Spacing Effect and Consolidation in Studying: Don’t you worry, you have time for that nap!

By Liz Wagner

Reality of College
College can be a scary experience for every incoming freshman, your automatically scared of the action of “failing”. College isn’t supposed to be a scary experience, it is supposed to be an enjoyable experience. You will have many opportunities that will shape you in to the grown individual you will become, you will attend parties, join clubs, and experience many firsts. But one important factor that you need to pay attention to is your study habits. If your study habits are not up to par, your grades and college experience will not end well.

Now we all know that one weakness that many college students face at some point in their college experience, and that is procrastination. Procrastination is somewhat like an evil monster that creeps up on students, especially when it comes to big papers and exams. The results of procrastinating are cramming last minute for that exam, meaning no time for that Netflix show or that nap you were counting on. What if I told you, that there are studies showing that a college student could benefit from not cramming, and you would have time for that nap.

This phenomenon in psychology is called the spacing effect, and it can benefit many college students in their studies. Many students throughout the years, typically develop their own study habits. But as you continue to read, you may discover that the spacing effect is the answer to those prays or to help you get that passing grade. The spacing effect is a pretty simple concept in psychology, the concept is spacing out your study time into multiple periods instead of one mass study session (4). During these multiple study sessions, an individual should take breaks in between each session, and the mind should be devoted to the same subject to acquire the best results (4). So that is right, multi-tasking in this phenomenon wouldn’t be a good idea. But the good news is during those short breaks in between studying you can do all the social media browsing, napping, or Netflix watching you want.
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Test Better Using the Testing Effect

By Sydney Abdnour

We’ve all heard the saying “you get out what you put in.” This statement applies perfectly to schooling, specifically studying and test taking. In high school, it is easy to cram the night before a test and get a good grade. Unfortunately, that is not the case in college. Even if you consider yourself a “good test taker,” it is important to put more time into your studies than you did in high school. There are many techniques out there to enhance the learning and studying experience for students of all ages. One of the effective ways to help students (especially college students) study and retain information better is the Testing Effect, known more commonly as the Retrieval Practice Effect.

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Only three steps and you’re master of elaboration!

By Hikaru Sanouchi

Elaboration: The process of developing or presenting a theory, policy, or system in further detail. (from dictionary.com)

The word elaboration is from the late Latin word, elaborationem. Labor played an important role in the word elaboration, as we can physically see the word “labor” in this word. When we imagine the word labor, we would imagine labor work, which is physically hard work people do, for instance yard work, construction, and such. Currently, elaboration means to work out a problem in more detail and depth.

That is it for elaborating on the word elaboration. Here, I’m going talk about using elaboration in psychology.  Elaboration is the process of incorporating new information with an old idea. According to Yang (1995), a goal of elaboration is to, “make learning more meaningful by forming a relationship between the new, unfamiliar material and the new the older, already learned information” (Yang. 1995. P,3). Creating a connection between your new knowledge and old knowledge to understand the information in more depth is the goal (1).

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Chunk Your Life Together

By Laken Barlow

Congratulations! You’re going to college! Or you may already be there, still good for you. Going and getting into college is an important milestone in many people’s lives. It prepares you for your future career. College is also a time to figure out who you are as a person and to help you grow. It can be intimidating sometimes, I’m not going to lie. You’re put in a completely new environment where you have to make new friendships and completely start over in sports and other organizations. You have to create a positive image of yourself to your peers, all the while under the pressure of doing well in your classes. The whole reason you came to college is to prepare yourself for your future, so you need to learn how to balance out your social and academic life. A key component to managing your academic work is your study habits.

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Making Better Decisions in College

By Yuchen Yang and Taylor Walker

Every college student will be challenged with making decisions at some point during their college career. The decisions made by college students impact their relationships, family, career trajectories, jobs, education, sex, health, money, living situation, diet, friends, beliefs, and drinking.

However, compared to upperclassmen, college freshmen are likely to experience a hard time making these types of decisions because their lack of knowledge about new environments like college.

Some common questions asked by college freshmen are:

“Should I go out for drinks tonight or should I stay in to study for my exam on Monday?”

“Should I take this course because it seems easy or should I take a different course that challenges me?”

“Should I choose my major based on salary or should I choose a major that interests me?”

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Make It About YOU: Learning with the Self-Reference Effect

By Marissa Wurster & Daniel Ilagan

You know how you’re mom told you while you were growing up to stop being selfish and stop making things all about you? Well we’re here to tell you to forget that! In terms of improving memory and encoding items, relating things back to yourself can actually be really helpful! Students spend hours every single day trying to comprehend new material, but often times they waste that time because they fail to relate the material to themselves. Evaluating incoming information relative to the contents of one’s self schema can lead to enhanced elaboration and organization of the newly learned material (1).

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Please Give Me Your Divided Attention: Multitasking While Studying

By Aileen Tierney and Erin McQuitty

Picture this: You’re trying to study for your first college exam, but your phone keeps buzzing. You try to answer texts and check your notifications while also reading your textbook in between. You think you have a handle on your studies because of this multitasking, but when it’s time to take your test, you realize you don’t remember anything you read about before. Why?!

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Low-Load vs. High-Load: How Distractions Really Affect Your Studying Habits

By Olivia Arnold and Ashley Gottardo

The transition to college can be a rough period for most students, ripe with a new school, new friends,  and a new sense of independence. Through all of these new experiences one realizes many areas of their life change in ways they didn’t expect- namely in their approach to studying. This is more of a forced change, and in order to succeed you will likely have to actively make it on your own. Lucky for you, we’re here to explain what areas may benefit the most from change, help you cope with your changing study habits, and give you tips for how to succeed in college.

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