my dear friend bill and i were talking, and he asked me to write up some of the things i said so that i could give them as a speech to his calc students; of course, i opted to put it here as well, in case anyone would like to hear ^_^ why you shouldn't "study"; the search for understanding i'm damie, and i'm kind of one of those people who gets dean's list by "just existing" (to quote my roommate) (which isn't true, but i digress). i do well in my classes and i don't even spend a lot of time on it. you might be thinking i'm some kind of academic warrior, but that's really not the case! anyone can do it :o) section i is about the bigger concepts/ values in my approach to learning, and section ii is more measurable actions in case you're confused about how to achieve some of the section i topics. section i 1. fix issues when you first notice them. if there's something i don't understand, immediately i'll ask about it in class or if that doesn't answer, i'll ask the professor after, or if THAT doesn't work, i'll go look it up myself. i get really uncomfortable when something sticks out like that and if i were to wait, the issue would probably snowball and start affecting other things, so i just nip it in the bud! 2. be efficient with your time. this one is a hard one, there's not really a right way to do this. 3. be kind to yourself. ALWAYS at the beginning you will be slower. things will feel harder. that's oki :-) identify when there's a deep issue (like if you can't explain something conceptually) or if you're just getting your sealegs still! if it's the latter, wait a half week or week, check back in with yourself and see if it's still an issue, then you can fix it. but learning takes time! this goes doubly for exams. whenever i get a bad score (and trust me i've gotten bad scores LOL) i just laugh about it b/c honestly there's nothing i can do about it after the fact ^_^b 4. at the end of the day, all that matters is your knowledge. i've come out of classes with a b- where i'm like "ok so i got that grade but i can do everything in that class perfectly so i'm ok with that." if you're looking at grad schools it's a bit different (my condolenscenes) but the truth is the class will not stay but the knowledge will. you might think calc 3 isn't coming back, but then you get to fourier series and you're like oh shit i didn't even know this was where we were headed LUL 5. professors aren't gods. you are the only one in control of your learning. you're allowed to think professors aren't teaching you well, allowed to google things, allowed to learn the knowledge in any way you can. i think of it as sort of a guerilla learning style- use desmos to graph it, use integral calculator, symbolab, whatever you want. if there's a problem you really can't do, look it up, learn how to do it, then do 2 more on your own :-) section ii 1. teach. whether its a group of friends and you take turns doing problems for each other on a whiteboard, or just talking out loud to yourself, talk through your process of approaching a problem. the most important thing this does is you will instantly know the areas where you're weaker (ex: ...i don't know where to go from here, i just did that but i don't know why). fix that issue right after it comes up (go to office hours and ask, ask a friend, look in the textbok/ online etc.) 2. don't take verbatim notes in class. there are some great professors where this doesn't apply, but all professors fluff it up a little. train yourself to identify what the core concepts in a subject really are, and when a professor says something that's kind of left field or maybe repeating something from before, don't write it down, or mark it! also, swapping sentence order/ tense, variable names, or doing the problems along with them and trying to finish before are all ways i take very active notes (which means i don't have to study them that much) 3. after doing a problem for an exam review, write down the area/s or mistakes you made. i like this one cause i make a lot of the same mistakes and seeing them in a different color when i'm going back doing my lil once over before the actual test on the day of reminds me to focus on them! this one doesn't have to be in depth it can just be like "don't miss constants" or "add better" or whatever 4. when you get exams/graded papers back, use them as very valuable feedback! this allows you to tune to what the professor wants, not just the content. you can identify when you actually knew something but the professor's grading is kind of wack, or use it as another data point to see what you didn't know. i don't have a lot of tips on test-taking, but for me it's very much a confidence thing. i go into exams "knowing" (thinking) i'll get an a and i'm excited to show off what i know, because i know that i know the material. bad exams in the past can really make this bit a lot harder, but i promise you, it probably was due to the fact the professor was unfair, you didn't have time to do the course, or you were off that day ^_^