How to stay organized in college
Assessment of the University is, of course, is not important, but some companies carefully look at the average educational score of their potential employees. To understand how to be productive in college, we have studied the experience of graduates of leading universities and I went through a few threads on Quora. In the end, have identified the most common tips that movers give to their classmates.
Organization tips for college students
- Define your goals and prioritize.
What you want to achieve in life? Even if you’re only determined by what you want to work after graduation, you have desires and goals (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article). Define your goals. Be ambitious and think in a big way! Make a list of goals and periodically go back to it. The list will motivate you every day to become better than yesterday, and to prioritize.
- Cultivate interest and be curious.
In fact, even the most “useless” subject can be not so boring if you try to find in it something interesting for yourself. Comprehensive knowledge will expand your horizons and you never know where and when they will be useful (suddenly you will suddenly be able to sustain the conversation about the rare hobby of your future clients, will position it to themselves and eventually get the big project for your company).
- Down with procrastination!
Start preparing for the exam overnight is a bad idea. Not only that, after a few days you will forget learned, you also do not sleep enough, you will feel bad and lose my concentration on the exam.
The key to successful studying is to learn daily. Break the topic into sections (it is known that we better remember information in small pieces), explore each one fully at a time. Make a timetable and strictly follow it. Master the basics of time management to properly allocate their time.
If you follow this advice, you will be surprised to find that it is much better understand the material, and on the night before the exam you will sleep and not be tossed about in a panic trying to learn the full course of calculus in a few hours.
- Practice self-control and discipline.
Discipline and ability to work will help you not only in University but also in future career. Believe me, all successful people clearly define themselves, their actions and emotions.
Follow the schedule, exercise daily, focus on one task at a time.
Do not be distracted by social networks and the Internet (by the way, there are special applications that allow you to block access to the Network at the time you set), turn off all reminders and alarms to your mobile phone, explain to parents / friends / young man or woman that you are busy and will be free after a certain time, expel from the room of Pets and on time get rid of all distractions. As difficult as it is, remember: no pain, no gain.
- Keep the daily schedule and be physically active.
To successfully engage and be productive, need to keep yourself in good shape and have plenty of power. To do this, (let it not seem to you new and boring!) sleep 8-9 hours a day and deal with their own body.
Get up early so you will have more time to study (in the evening we are more inclined to stay and delay for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow). In the morning you are more productive and focused (even the most convinced an owl can turn lark at the expense of discipline).
Mind body! Sport and active life organization will give you a huge amount of energy, which will quickly think and remember new information. In result, you’ll have more time for enjoyable. Besides, sport is a great way to change the type of activity.
- Take breaks.
Have you noticed that after 20-30 minutes after the start of classes, your mind starts to wander not where you want them, and you are distracted?
In fact, man is able continuously to keep the attention on the same subject a limited amount of time, and this number is purely individual. Note the time that you are able to concentrate in class, and after take a break: grab a snack or drink of water (it is extremely useful to your body primarily for the brain), stretch your legs, walk around the room or take a break on the sport, open the window or take a walk.
Make your schedule to account for such breaks and change of activity.
By the way, a change of scenery and method of studying the subject will help you to remember better. Together with the knowledge of the brain is recording information about the environment: the place where you are doing, sounds and thumping in time to the music. Read the notes and books, listen to lectures in the player, change your posture practice sitting, standing and moving about. If you are a visual learner, spend more time with the record information, if auditory, activate the notes on the recorder, start to use audio books and listen to them.
- Visualize and model.
To better remember things, imagine a model of a studied subject. It’s not only about charts, tables, and other methods of visual presentation but also about the mental simulation.
Ways to stay organized: create some kind of logic, mental model, where each new bit of information will logically fit into the existing system. For example, you can study physics, relying on the time axis: first, there were earlier ideas about the world, and then there was the ancient physics and then Newtonian mechanics, electricity, magnetism, the discovery of the electron, theory of relativity, quantum theory, astrophysics, etc. All confirmed or refuted previous hypotheses. This is logical, and therefore easier to remember to hold the relationship and understand. And the understanding is much more important than just memorizing information.
Another better way to memorize anything is to use associative. Develop your own system of associations for each particular subject, will help recall the necessary information, especially in a stressful situation when there is a sudden blackout in the exam.
- Attend lectures and be active on them.
Lectures and classes are not so useless as it might seem at first glance. First, the teacher can deviate from the manuals or a textbook. Secondly, this is a live chat when you can ask questions and get feedback. Finally, the lectures will save the time you would have spent on reading textbooks (often the teacher asks questions on the material covered in the lecture).
Nurture active listening: be attentive, take notes and don’t be afraid to be the weird kid who’s always asking stupid questions. The better you understand the material in the lecture, the less time you’ll need to study it before the exam.
By the way, the lectures and the activity on them is useful because many teachers put tests and/or scores on exams for attendance and your participation. The teacher’s task is not to overwhelm you in the exam and put three on the next retake. He also did not want to waste time on it.
- Take notes correctly.
Develop your own system for keeping notes. It can be anything, but would you feel comfortable to work with her.
One of the most convenient existing systems note-taking system the Cornell. It is to initially write an abstract in the format of flash cards:
Divide the sheet into 2 parts: the left margin, occupying about one third of sheet width, and right the rest of the page.
Keep lecture notes in the right part of the sheet necessarily making bigger margins between paragraphs on various topics.
The left side of the sheet write down all the headings, main ideas and associations – do this after the lecture, during the repetition of the material. Now close the right part of the synopsis sheet of paper and test yourself, based on abstracts from the left side.
Leave the box at the bottom for headings of sections and subsections. It will be much easier to find in the abstract the necessary information.
Before the exam ask the classmates to make the aggregator notes: assemble the best of them and form a single, which will be the most comprehensive material in a structured way. This way you not only prepare for the exam, but also will earn the respect of fellow organized student (will receive plus in a karma), sending them by notes. If a lot of material, you can distribute the work between several people and in the end combine the notes into one.
- Help and use the help.
Create your mini-group to prepare for exams and performing homework. Let it be a group of like-minded people with the same goals. Be active in group: explain material and help others. This will help you not only to review and understand the material (as it is known, we can better understand something when we explain it to others), but also to learn to work in teams and develop leadership qualities.
- Participate in projects and gain respect.
Be active. Participate in conferences, research, create projects, solve case studies at the Championships. This will help you to develop a portfolio, which you then present to a future employer. It will be valued above the honours degree, because it shows that you have not only knowledge but also practical experience.
Case Championships and conference will help to develop communication. Meet new people, chat, be sure to pass the production practice. Tips to organize your life will help you much faster to get a job of your dreams.
