Guarantee Yourself College Success

Photo by Dheepak Ra

What guarantees you success in college? Excellent study habits, of course! Adult students with families need to be even more on top of their studies because,invariably, some kid-related disaster will arise to disrupt your study schedule. If you've been out of the classroom for a long time sitting down to study seems even more daunting. So how do you get excellent study habits?

Studying is an art, a science and a discipline. Firstly, you have to know what time of day you study most effectively. If you're an early riser, as many moms are, don't plan to catch up on your studies by pulling all-nighters. You will retain very little if you're exhausted. If you're just too beat to concentrate, go to bed. Even four or five hours of sleep will do you a lot more good than no sleep at all. I used to get up about 5:00 AM because I found I could get a lot done before my family rose and I wasn't interrupted constantly. But, conversely, if you're a night-hawk, don't plan on getting up at dawn to study. It just doesn't work if you're fighting your body's natural sleep rhythms. Secondly, it takes planning to study.

You need to review your notes and keep up on your class reading on a daily basis. This helps move the information you learned in class from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. You have to discipline yourself to study when you'd rather watch t.v.; fritter away time on Facebook or Twitter until your eyes cross. If you can't easily turn off these distractions at home, try studying in the library with your Blackberry or i-Phone in the off position. There's just something about being in a library that promotes wanting to study. As well, a daily study session quickly lets you know if you understood the information presented in class that day, or if you need to schedule a meeting with your instructor to go over the material. Don't put off getting help if you need it; you'll be sunk quickly in a college class if you can't grasp a concept that is crucial for further understanding of the course material.

A way of taking notes that I found was really effective was to fold my notepaper in half vertically, then use the left side of the page for in-class notes, and the right hand side of the page for notes from the textbook. Implementing this little trick helped me to be sure that I wasn't leaving out any vital information when I studied. This way, I quickly whether the prof had already covered the material in class or not when I was reading my textbooks. I found this method really worked well for science classes because you just have so much material to get through and retain.

Flash cards aren't just for kids. Just the act of writing down information on notecards is a wonderful way to help move that information from your short-term memory to long-term memory. Flash cards are also a convenient way to sneak in a little studying if you are waiting in line, or don't have easy access to your notebooks or textbooks. Flash cards are very helpful for studying for classes where you need to learn a lot of definitions and terminology. Using flash cards directly contributed to my success in my classes in chemistry, biology, microbiology and anatomy.

Lastly, practice makes perfect! If you struggle with math, the best way to get better at it is to practice by answering lots of problems. Check your answers in the back of your textbook to see if you're on the right track. If your not, checking your answer can give you some clues where you went wrong. The same advice to practice holds true for math-intensive disciplines such as chemistry and physics.

Getting excellent study habits isn't easy, or even very fun for most of us. But if you want the best grades possible, it's in your very best interests to cultivate good study habits. Maintaining consistent study habits will put you up with the cream-of-the-crop in all of your classes.

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