How To Study

Why is it when we go to school, no matter where we are or who we are with, there's always some type of bell curve graph that represent the class grade average? How come certain people do much better than others? Why someone who studies all night and barely pulls out a C on an Exam, but someone who studies only an hour pulls off an A? Are people just really that smart that there's no point in competing with them and just settle of what you get? In this article you'll read about effective ways to study, anyone can do well in school, learning how to study, resting is required, starting from the top and having goals will help you do better.

I always thought this was some type of genetic thing that ran in the family through my years of growing up. Throughout my education year I was really known as that average person who had to study really hard just to barely pull out a B in the class. It wasn’t until I was mentored by some of the best professors I’ve ever gotten in school when I realized that certain people are smart for a reason. When I narrowed it down, I found out that the reason why certain people are so smart was because they had better goals in life and their parents really pushed them.

My Biology professor once told me that the best way to study is to actually study. He told me that you literally had to study everyday and putting out at least a few hours a day. If you start to approach each class you take like a foreign language, how different would you study? It is when you make these tough classes’ part of your language is when you finally understand the material.

The most effective way of studying is to study not only ahead of the class but to ask questions about the material. The reason why you want to always study ahead is because you might hit a few questions you don’t understand and still have time to find that answers to them. If you’re like most college student who waits until the last few days before the exam to study, there’s a good chance you might not do so well. What happens when the night before the exam you arrive with some questions but you don’t have answers to them, what will you do?

The reason why you should study everyday and continue to study the old material that you already studied the following week is so you won’t forget what you already studied. I took my professors advice and practiced this technique of studying, on one of the hardest classes on campus just to see if it will work. I started studying from day one and I know what most people are thinking. Since school just started, you just want to relax a few days and kind of enjoy everything before it starts getting hard. The problem with this is that you start to get lazy and on top of that, you will get lost in class. So I started to study and read ahead of class, so when the professor lectured on the material I already read, it was so much easier to understand. The following week I continued the same method and spared a few hours studying the prior week material just to refresh my memory. As weeks gone by, I pretty much did the same thing until the first exam. It wasn’t until that day that I realized that when I pulled one of the highest grade in the class, not because of I was super smart, it was mainly because I put in a lot of time to actually study. The night before the exam, I actually didn’t have to pull an all night because I knew pretty much all the material and didn’t think I needed to study any further. I found out that I did a lot better with a well rested mind than a mind that is falling asleep during the exam.

Imagine yourself at the top of the hill with a heavy backpack and walking on a straight surface. How easy do you think that would be compare to being at the bottom with the same pack and walking up hill? If you’re at the very bottom, assume that its mountain Everest and it’s impossible for you to reach the top with a 150 pound pack. You should treat your grade in class the exact same way. I know a lot of people who always start off their first exam but putting in half the effort. Well they mostly end up with a bad result and they claim that it is now the time to really study. Keep in mind that if you fail the first exam, even if you pull off all A’s there’s a good chance you might barely just get a B. While the person who started at the top with an A, they don’t have to try as hard to maintain that A. Life in school is a lot easier when you start at the top and stay at the top.

When I started doing really well in that hard class, a lot of people thought I was really smart and asked for my help. I thought it was really weird because I use to be that person who always needed the help, never the other way around. I even talked to the people who got high grades like me and found out that they study all the time as well.

My physics teacher said it best, “Study really hard when no one is watching, that way people think you’re smart when you get an A.” When I heard this for the first time, I laughed. I started studying when friends had nothing plan and when they did; I would go out and tell them I didn’t need to study. I acted like I knew everything and just enjoyed my time. When I was alone, I studied really hard just to pull off that early A. I wish I knew about this method when I was still young. To study everyday and starting off at the top and maintain good grades so people treat you as someone smart. I guess everything does happen for a reason and that I happen to figure it out the hard way.

In order to keep yourself motivated and have a better reason to stay focus, you must have some type of goal. I found out that most smart students have a lot of goals and dreams which push them to try even harder in school. The found out those that don’t do so well in school, they only live for today and don’t care too much about tomorrow. You have to be control of your life and decide which path to take and where you want to be at in the distance future. If you don’t have goals than that’s probably the reason why you may be doing badly in school, it’s because you don’t know why. Have a goal will push you to try harder and do better and in the end, it will definitely be well worth it.