Study, Study, Study.

It's midterm week. Yikes. I'm already drowning and it's only Monday (see: my Google calendar). But, I've also developed some pretty solid study habits in the past 3 and a half years. Since I started tutoring this semester, my tutees have asked for tips studying for their tests and I've had a few of them thank me and tell me how much that helped. I touched on this a little bit at the beginning of the semester, so that might be helpful to read too!

So here's how I study for my tests! A few classes do require a different style, but this is my go-to method.

1. Take good notes. Notes are your savior when studying. Not everything can be found in the textbook. And let's be honest, you're probably not going to read that.

Tip: If your professor posts their PowerPoint presentations prior to class, print them off in 3 per page, handout form. This way you can take notes on the slides and highlight what's important. It's a waste of time to write everything on the slides and you'll lose information.

2. Type up a study guide/outline. This is a life saver. If you type up an outline after each class, it helps even more because you won't be rushed to do it.

3. Highlight. Underline. Circle. Re-read your outline and make sure the important stuff is standing out. Add in specifics if you need to.

4. Re-read again.

5. Discuss. If you have friends in the class, it helps to bounce questions off each other. Compare notes and make sure everyone has a full outline. By discussing the information and quizzes each other, you're able to recall it quicker on the test (or at least that's what I think).

6. Start early. Seriously, we all say we're going to do it and we all promise ourselves that we will and we never will. I thought I learned my lesson last week when I was in the library until 2am on a Monday night but apparently I didn't because here I am procrastinating again while writing this post. Whoops?

These may be somewhat generic, but many a classmate has been saved by my study guides and the discussing helped me ace a crazy hard test last week!

Happy Mid-terms!