As classes wrap up and finals loom, stay sane and supplement studying with recreation
By Scott Pearring
May 21, 2009 9:30 p.m.
With the chairs at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center filling up, many of your friends from other schools enjoying summer and your classes drawing to an end, now is the most important time to be on top of your studies. If you’re anything like me, you’ve fallen embarrassingly behind in several classes and are having more and more trouble following your professor’s lectures.
The uphill battle to finals week is a challenging task, but fortunately there are many proven ways to effectively study these last few weeks. There’s really no way to get past the hard work that’s required to pass your classes this quarter ““ at least, not without risking an appointment with the dean of students. But the good news is that we have three weeks until school is over, and that’s plenty of time to learn any material that has sailed over your head. So we all agree that you need to work hard. I’m not going to tell you exactly how to do this. For me, it involves a chair, a desk and a tall glass of orange juice. What I am going to tell you is how to best approach these last few weeks of cramming.
“The best strategy is doing your homework every week, and then you’ll have less cramming last-minute,” said Michael Elbogen, who graduated from UCLA in 2007 summa cum laude in mechanical engineering.
Agreed. Assuming you have failed at this ideal approach, there’s still hope.
“Map out what you need to do. You are in a time crunch, so you need to organize and prioritize,” Elbogen said.
Bruce Barbee, the director of Academics in the Commons, echoed this advice.
“Right now, get yourself organized. Set up a schedule, planning out what and when, and be realistic,” Barbee said. “You can’t keep it all in your head, you need to put it in writing. Then do your best to follow it.”
Setting up a schedule is the single most helpful thing you can do to increase productivity. This way, papers and projects don’t sneak up on you. Designating study times will also bring to light how much work you need to do, and failing to meet these times will ignite urgency in your mind. Aside from setting an agenda, the next essential thing is to stay realistic.
If you still find yourself with more than a dozen hours of studying left a few days before a final ““ the clock is ticking and your body is giving in ““ it’s easy to panic. But it’s absolutely necessary to stay realistic. The truth is that it’s completely impractical for me to get 10 hours of studying done in one day. In all honesty, six is something to be proud of; some are delighted with three. When I shoot for 12, I find myself distracted and discouraged. After spending too much time in Powell Library, my body rebels and I wander outside, straying diagonally through the concrete squares like a bishop on a chess board. Realistic goals with enjoyable study breaks provide a better alternative than shooting for the sky and failing.
They told us at orientation that 20-minute study sessions are ideal. Try an hour of statistics, then 15 minutes of frisbee. It’s also very helpful to play with a study buddy who can be the arbiter who decides when you need to get back to work. If you can force yourself back in the library, you’ll return feeling refreshed and at ease. And learning thrives in a relaxed mind.
Many times I’ve found myself, one day before a midterm, understanding only a negligible percentage of the homework and with dozens of pages of untouched lecture notes. This is when I lock myself in my room and rip out the power cord on my computer to prove why I got accepted to this university. If I had better followed the advice above, I wouldn’t have found myself in such a dire predicament.
It’s indisputable that keeping up from the beginning is the best way to learn and excel in academics. But after failing at this, you can still enjoy success with proper planning and practicality. With the three most stressful weeks of the year approaching, these suggestions offer productivity and peace of mind. And hey, maybe all this talk will put me on the right track, too.
If you have some miraculous strategy to pass your classes, e-mail Pearring at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].
