✨✊😔💅

1. Read this It is by Sharon Murchie, a high school teacher who went above and beyond for her students. I’d say read all the stories she suggested. Analyze/look over all of them by thinking “how could you write a story from that perspective?”. Find one you’re most comfortable with to work with and start writing. I’d definitely say you’re going to mess up and going to have to do some rewrites which is perfectly fine! I did that myself. 

2. Watch the word limit. Get your story over in the least amount of words as possible. The overall purpose needs to describe a significant moment in your life and who you are as a person. Don’t mind the fluffly stuff as much (and this pertains to anything that doesn’t have to do with the topic to your essay). Your introduction should be at max three sentences. You need the words for answering your topic is a very memorizing way. 

3. This is your story. Write about the people closest to you or a star you’ve never met but it all has to come back down to you! Who you are as a person and who you want to be at this school. What will you provide this school and how will you take what you’ve learned at said university and put it out in the world? Know, there are many different essays, most popular, why do you want to attend this university? Who are you? Tell us a challenge you overcame? What’s a funny story about yourself? (This was one of my topics actually). 

Why do you want to attend this uni? Be specific, look up facts and opportunities to the school you want to go to. Co-ops, undergraduate research, libraries and the ability to double major are so many good reasons you can talk so much about. Think instead of why do you want to attend this school, think what fascinates you most about this institution? What makes you so excited that on day one you need to join (a club, organization, start prepping for co-ops, or signing up for classes, or minors etc). 

Who are you? This can be formatted in so many different ways but I feel like so many of the Common App essays fall under this category. Using the New York times post above should help with writing who you are with all of the hidden messages within the story. 

All the youtube videos I watched (tbh I don’t remember watching many videos about this because I had a really smart friend and she helped me learn and grow from my writing errors and I also want to note some of these are for transfers because I was looking into transferring)

The Transfer Essay Guide for Dartmouth, Columbia, NYU, Penn, Cornell, Harvard

Transfer From Community College to a Top University: How She Got Into Stanford

how i got into harvard 📚 *stats, extracurriculars, essays, & more* 

how i got into ucla 🐻 grades, extracurriculars, essays, etc

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Computer Science

https://github.com/ossu/computer-science: this literally builds so much for coding and getting someone into programming. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for some classes (I don't know how much it would help with AP Computer Science or Principles, but it has so much information, anyone really wanting to learn about code could get started with this.

https://www.freecodecamp.org/: another win website, I'd def say a little more chaotic (?). It depends how you want to learn you know. Love the web design bs, not really into it, but their tuts and videos were helpful enough for myself.

https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2023/: Another beauty, these lectures really give so much for programming. Classes are held where you can even attend without being a harvard student. Lectures are intense imo, as it is a lot of content all in your face but just love the guy.

https://www.youtube.com/@alexlorenlee: Java. If you need any help in starting Java, I love these videos. He got me through a horrible class in my uni. Love him fr fr.

https://www.youtube.com/@crr0ww: Learning about any sorta malware, educational resources to get started with understanding your network, overall, just a really smart and funny guy. Love his videos. Really good at explaining basic contents.

https://www.youtube.com/@ColinGalen: Recommend his learning videos and how to think almost like a chess grandmaster. My own cs professor talks about drawing out code and being able to actually write what is going on in code.

Physics/Engineering/Sciences?

(sorry, I'm not mechanical engineer 🙈)

Electrical Engineering: Youtuber Michel Van Biezen is AMAZING. Also, dude as a sick ass drip and I love the bow tie. His circuits and physics lectures are so entertaining and helpful to understand. I really really really loved his videos as they helped me pull my grades up. His explanations are top tear, I really feel like he's so good at this.

GaTech Coursera Circuits: There are two of these classes here.

DC Circuit Analysis: First course. Helps you learn almost everything you should have learned in Physics Two and if not, don't worry they explain it somewhat well. Videos are condensed and good enough for someone to watch. Just know they don't do calculations on screen, and those can be pretty lengthy to solve.

AC Circuit Analysis: Same as above, they don't have as many items for this course, but def know it is a good course and necessary for understanding more modern circuit applications.

Every engineer wants to be him -> Michael Reeves , if you've never heard of him, please. This man will make you want to recreate his robots. He's a genius. He's everything every engineer wishes they could be.

NileRed : Do you want to be a fake chemist because Ochem made you want to die?? Well actually I just took chem 1 and changed my major, but NileRed it literally so fun. His chem videos are so fun and cool.

Thought Emporium -> mad biology scientists? Love this guy too! He's trying to be Spider-man and I love him for that. I hope he recreates those spiderwebs, I've been watching it for so long. Love this dude.

Robotics Engineering: Done by a youtuber who love for the anime reps!!! This guy focuses more on VR/AR, but loves carrying the same vibes as Michael Reeves, a Russian youtuber I know, and just overall very fun.

Mechatronics: Things to know for going into the field of Mechatronics (basically this is Robotics, just the more machine side). They recommend having that backbone in the core classes.

Learning for Engineering Students: Love that someone who was an actual engineer made some sort of engineering studying help. Would totally recommend watching, along with some other youtubers,

Tamer Shaheen (Mechanical Engineer) notes and exam recitation guides

British Engineer Loved her video, really similar to my own method of doing repeated practice problems.

My own study method!!! Create a google docs with Three columns:

Topic -> Usually this is how I'd organize the question. I did docs like these for each class, so I instead would put this as some topic within my class OR I would organize it by assignment it correlated to. I.E. alternating circuits or homework

Question -> really self explanatory, make sure to give details, dates, who you think you should ask, etc etc. There are no dumb questions, I'd really recommended these for computer science and would totally give my notes out for that shit.

Answers -> another self explanatory category, however, would recommend doing something a lil different with this box. Don't overwrite explanations. Also, don't take explanations. Write your own understanding of the solution, and a link/cite/provide some evidence for you or someone to turn back to.

Math

Organic Chemistry Tutor: Just, this man is everything. He has so many videos not only for chemistry but for other classes. I put him in math mostly because I used him for calculus I and II.

Khan Academy : Tbh, I loved their calculus course material. I'm not the biggest fan of them overall with some other provided materials (Like their SAT prep, really is only effective for helping students take it online and grading fast, but I'm pretty sure I have another post explaining how I found online materials for that bs and got a passing grade).

3 Blue 1 Brown (Math/ Calculus) : I feel like everyone knows him, he's so good at visualizing concepts. Great but still very complex videos, please understand that before going in. You might not be able to understand everything on first try, but always draw them out.

Studying Pure Math : Once you finished calculus and would enjoy some rigorous applications/learn about higher levels of math, this youtuber has linked a multitude of resources for those mathematical desires lol.

Small ideas of what is mathematics but this is such a beautiful video in explaining how mathematics is built up from each other. I think it changes your idea of how to study math (however, he does say you shouldn't memorize this stuff, but in the next bullet point, I wanted to show how I studied for math which did involve memorizing methods).

Studying thing I learned from youtuber but had sorta done myself, just think showing off this youtuber who's in oxford is fun!!!!

(Okay so I didn't find it, but the youtuber I thought who said the idea was Lucy Wang, still linking channel for the woman in math!!!).

So, in class you should be writing down examples, writing questions to the side, and looking for a pattern. When you find this pattern, you can organize your notes and your test answers. So like when doing an optimization problem in calculus, you have to draw the system, set up equations, ask what are you solving for, and the show the methods you used to solve. I would also recommend this for any numerical questions (for me, this included circuits, physics, and other math classes I've taken for a long time).

Professor Leonard: This man saved my calculus III grade. I love him. Please, he has almost all calculus classes, I don't think he has finished Differential equations and possibly one of his algebra courses, but his information is just great. His method of teaching is also phenomenal. And in the last video of his multivariable calculus playlist, he had the best quote ever. His wife and him were expecting a child, and he stated (this is horribly paraphrased but this was all I was thinking during my own calc III final):

"I'm pregnant- wait no- my wife's pregnant... But damn, I bet you I'd look good pregnant."

Arts/Literature/Humanities

https://www.youtube.com/@Chommang: Beautiful art, really enjoyed drawing alongside. Implores you to find your own style, but helps with anatomy, reference drawing, I literally knew nothing about this bs. But I really enjoy the videos.

Puppet History : Okay. So I know what you'll say if you saw these videos. But really, just if you want to start with history, it's such a good introduction, such a fun cast, and the lore is also something that I really think makes characters funny, long lasting, god. It's just so good and well written for some youtube puppet fever dream.

Reading Analysis: Literally just came up on my rec on youtube. Really nice in explaining the actual analysis of the text.

Japanese: I used it for practicing listening to Japanese, mostly just me trying to recognized sounds and words. I'm still a beginner in Japanese, cannot actually hold conversations, but this has helped me listen to others better.

Geography Now!: Learning anything about countries/ needing to learn about countries relationships, just enjoy knowing much trivia. I'd recommend this for those items. Also like, learning about other countries are so much fun! I would def say, there are countries he doesn't examine as in depth, ie, India. But if you're just getting into geography boom, here you go.

Some other recommendations for history, look up on coursera, edx, I mostly learn alot of these topics on youtube with video essays. Ngl, your own political beliefs will heavily affect how you learn these topics. There's no way around this. I hope for the sake of whomever, just please, learn both sides actual arguments. And if debates ever turn to arguments/yelling matches, leave. You need to have a strong sense of self- and in the end, if the other person doesn't understand or want to, there's nothing you can do about it. You can keep thinking your own beliefs, or feel inclined to research the topic later. If anyone gives you shit for believe in something that turns out to be factually incorrect, accept how you were wrong, why you were wrong, and understand that being wrong is a path of knowledge. If someone else believes you are wrong, however, they can't factual cite this, that is just a disagreement over some topic.

A thing I've said to others, is that everyone interprets the bible differently. You interpret His messages in a way I can never understand. And I the same. Since I cannot tell you how to interpret the bible, you cannot tell me. Something I truly believe is everyone has their own connection with God (not saved to Christianity, I know this is from an idiot in the bible belt in the USA but we'll deal with that later), and that connection guides them through life.

So for building this mindset, some books/videos I'd recommend:

*Please know, these books may contain triggering/unpleasant topics that readers should look into before selecting a book to read.*

The Myth Of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

Everyone's favorite psychopath, No Longer Human Osamu Dazai

Capitalism Realism Mark Fisher

Ecrits Jacques Lacan

Make It Stick Science of Successful Learning

Absurdism: A video similar to topic above, less academia-y language.

Classics Worth Reading: love love love Emmie! Her videos are pretty fun and I really enjoyed her classics recommendation.

Small amount of topics to go look up, search what you love, stay away from what you don't like. In the end, help yourself become a well rounded person by building up those ideas.

first things first, I’ve already talked about scheduling, but summary just make sure you have enough time to actually study and by that I mean review your materials so that you understand the concepts. I think about 50 minutes is a good time however you might need more or less. 

- If studying for a unit test a good idea might be to use this idea of writing all the topics that are going to be in the exam and your comfort level (I got this idea from someone else on tumblr btw, I didn’t save the post sorry). You could have the hardest things be more than 90 minutes (or however long you think they need to be) then the medium hard stuff can be 45-90 minutes, and then the topics you feel good/okay on are less than 45 minutes. This all depends on how many things you have to learn, how much time you have, and etc because other factors always stop us from studying. 

So you figured out your scheduling now we need notes. I really hoped you took notes in class but if you didn’t I guess we can work with that. I would suggest to try and find something similar, probably asking a friend for notes (and dont ask them to send pictures, you need to take your own pictures especially if that class if a humanities course). You could also look up powerpoints online if your teacher doesn’t publish them. (some websites I know others use is this: https://www.appracticeexams.com/ just click your class and then go to notes. Usually they have notes available and sometimes study guides. This is for AP Classes. For IB/A level courses my friend recommended this https://app.senecalearning.com/courses but they also have AP and American coures). Also textbooks are amazing resources, usually you can find someone who has a pdf on reddit or that one website which I can’t name but its that gen lib rus thing... besides that all you really need is a brief knowledge of what you will be studying. Maybe look up some youtube videos that talk about it or you have your notes and some idea of what is going on. Now we can start studying. 

1. Building relationships with the material. I’m not saying you need to proclaim your undying love for your calculus homework (I could never) but I do think it is important to find similarities and bring material together so that they connect and have overarching ideas (think of yourself like Aphrodite who will stop at nothing to get her OTPs cannon). 

- for example, in World History we know that the success of the American Revolution started the age of revolutions in many nations, like France’s revolution and in Haiti. Some could argue all revolutions go back to the American revolution and how it sparked that uprising from a controlling government. It was was the Confederate Americans did. Another example is that when Germany lost the 2nd World War, they basically ended facism- why? because all political leaders and nations saw that facism lead to complete failure. Creating these connections really helps people retain information. Many study channels I see always say to use mindmaps with this, but I don’t know if Mindmapping is everyones direction. I do like mindmaps, I just don’t do them much myself. Honestly I like lecturing and having discussions with my material. That way others could ask questions and it really helps me prove I know this material/ can effectively teach it to others. 

2. Finding what is important. I don’t know how many of you like to study for fun or do it because you’re graded but I think it is still important to figure out what exactly you need to study. If you’re studying for a quiz/test from your teacher then you need to find materials your teacher provides. I think this is a little easier for IB/AP/ any large test company that has practice exams out there. Get the teacher to give you practice quizzes and tests/ ask for your old ones back. If they don’t give you anything back then make questions yourself. You might struggle with this the first few times, but if you pay attention to your teachers enough, I think any dedicated student can find how the teacher writes questions and answers them. Also you could work with a friend or other study buddies to make questions. 

Now for a further explanation: A planner. This is so freaking important I cannot STRESS this enough get a DAMN planner! Please. I am old student and wish the best of luck for everyone, I don’t care what type of planner but it needs to be an actual planner. I do believe that writing down something is better than typing and I do have an electronic planner and a physcial planner and I tell you having a physical one is just so much better in some circumstances. 

- I got my planner from target (it is a specific student one) and I really love it. I mainly use the calander spread and I do have the weekly spread however, someitmes I find myself using a bullet journal or sticky note to write to do lists so I can do an hourly to do list. This helps me see what I need to get done within an hour/ one study session. It helps me see my time in a clear path. 

-A good video explaining all of this is by TBHStudying, ngl I am going to bring her up multiple times just because she is THE ONE who has pulled me down the rabbit whole of studying and academia, I love seo. The two videos: https://youtu.be/zQKsIcDTVL0 (I believe it is this one where she does an hourly plan and it is helpful for others to create a weekly plan) and https://youtu.be/WOjTg1yI_Jo (how to be productive while studying). I think I might have some more ideas however I am not able to find more without searching for an hour. 

2. Google Calander, please I don’t care if it is apple or google I believe blocking your week is so beneficial and like just watch this youtube video: https://youtu.be/Uer_A0grkos I freaking love Nitya because she is such an underappriciated youtuber giving some great advice to her viewers. She helped me studying for the SAT (and don’t worry American students, I’ll be making a SAT/ACT planning thing with all those reddit links ;) ). I can give an example of mine because it really helps me see my time. If you did watch the Lobdell lecture (in the previous post), he says you need to have 8 hours for everything. Sleep, study, and social. Now, I don’t know how some people can split school and social just because I am in high school and I feel like whenever I am at school I can never focus on school material. Also, it just gets very complicated once outside the classroom. His idea though does have good aspects and following the blocking schedule could help people see where they have time and where they might need to put some in. I would also say look at your phone hours. I’m not going to lie, I only use my phone for reading and the ocasional pintrest (I don’t own a tik tok and I barely use any social medias unless it is for communication) and I go on my phone for about 3 hours a day. I know, wow, that’s like crazy. You definitely do NOT need to be me because I go on my laptop much longer or I do other things but create times for you to do this. 

-I would still steer away from tik tok. Like some tik tok groups are good however I know when I’m in a bad mood and I used to go on tik tok, all of it just made me numb and feeling empty. 

3. Last one yay! The bullet journal. I know this can be a big thing in the studyblr community because everyone wants to make it beautiful and so over the top. While I don’t necesarily believe in it, you do what makes you happy and content. I cannot tell you how happy I can get when I write a pretty word and it looks like a million bucks. Calligraphy, stickers, washi tape and all it is very fun to work with. I’d just say you can only do this for small amounts. Please do not spend an hour of your day doing this. If this means you need to wake up an hour early than you need to move your sleep (ex from 11 to 10 pm) to get a good amount of sleep. I do know many many studyblrs who have made nice bullet journal videos (including studyquill, tbhstudying, Maria’s study corner, etc). I believe if you search it up someone’s videos will eventually find you and you can watch them. I like bullet journal’s just cause they offer more flexibility than a planner and because I could never find a cheap hourly planner (I’m not spending 28 on a freaking mossery planner sorry). 

Okay, I’ll be going into more in depth of mainly the first one but a bit of the second.

To start off the bat, if you have time watch this lecture https://youtu.be/IlU-zDU6aQ0 by Marty Lobdell. You have probably heard the saying before and one thing that makes me so frustrated within the study community is that others use this statment without giving any real examples. I feel like Lobdell does this as well as he doesn’t describe note taking and I do believe before putting down a material, you have to take notes. (All he mentions is handwriting notes and I do believe in that. You cannot really type notes and expect to learn the material). 

Another source I would suggest is the Vark Quiz (https://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/) Learn what type you are (I’m a Kinesthetic!) and read what they give you. I’m not going to say you will perfectly match with your description but if you are starting from ground zero, this is an amazing place to see what might work for you instead of you having to come up with different technques on your own. 

I get so annoyed when people use the pomodoro method as a way to study. It is not a way to study. It is a way to schedule your study time. Also, I don’t think you can do much in 25 minutes or maybe it is just me. Usually I work for an hour or 50 minutes and then take a ten minute break. All you need to do is find out what works for you. 

Okay let’s get into classes, first there is an amazing youtuber named Nathan Wu who made this video (https://youtu.be/pdAt8JhBnMU and there is a part 2 but I’ll let you guys find it). He is a very good study youtuber that I do like to watch sometimes and I do appriciate that he is spreading correct information. I can give you guys an example of what worked for me in some of my classes (I also just wanna say I won’t be putting my grades on here nor anything really. I don’t feel comfortable being compared to others because I already have to deal with it at my own institution and peers. Please don’t compare yourself to others).

Chemistry (Wu also does include this subject in his video):

- Write notes and explanations for the love of god. Like please just write notes. 

- Also apply those notes. If you are confused in one area ask someone for help whether that be your teacher or someone else. 

-I would say to use flashcards, but I’m honestly a big quizlet user (I haven’t used Anki I’m a little weird and I get so annoyed when I use something that is popular. I sadly give off the “i’m not like other girls vibe”). When I use quizlet every time I get an answer wrong I write down the definition. I can explain this more because you can do this with notecards as well and probably Anki but I like the mobility of quizlet. 

-Labs... I do like doing some labs. I miss my older ones from Honors Chemistry, I barely do good labs in AP Chemistry, but at the same time you have to do them. This could be for any science class because knowing how to apply your information is the best way to test your knowledge that isn’t practice questions (If you need labs look up a virtual simulation. While it isn’t the same thing they are usually free and if not you can find some on youtube).

- Practice problems (this more or less goes with your grading point instead of studying. While I do believe the overall goal in studying is that you understand and can apply the topic tests are so different in many things). As stated before I have taken Honors Chemistry, so I used test prep from my teacher and was able to form questions similar to how she asked them on the quiz. In AP Chemistry I’ve been able to use the online resources from other teachers and AP Classroom. I will say AP Chemistry it is much harder to write my own questions because AP Chemistry is just really hard in general, but finding FRQ practices I believe is one of the best ways you can work on it (Honestly it may be just me but doing FRQs or written essays for answers is so much better than multiple choice because this allows you to practice giving explanations and learning where your gap of knowledge is).

Another study technique I like to do is called the Feynmann technique. This is such a great way to apply knowledge without doing test prep because you need to essentially master your subject before test prep. This method includes creating a study plan for someone else, you need to teach someone else (or something else) what you’re learning and have them ask questions. Know I know this doesn’t really work well for some people including myself because I don’t really have others to talk to when I study but talk to yourself. (sometimes I talk to a ghost or a plushie in my room. I have little trinkets on my desk of which a tiger egg and a Chick Fil A cow plushie wearing a sunflower dress. Just try it, it might seem weird but you got to). If you can’t have others ask you questions say everything you can remember (and maybe do this on a google doc with the voice chat box open, I would say record yourself but I hate hearing my own recordings). Then, once you have finished look through your notes and see what you got correct and what you got wrong. If you did use a google docs then write what you meant to say like: “I said this... but this was incorrect because of this...”

For study schedule or something related to studying I would say watch these videos: https://youtu.be/-m2Ua5Y0mzc and https://youtu.be/OYuhkaOPKcM. Both are by youtubers who I do like to watch and follow what they do. I would say to look through Alicia’s youtube a bit more if you like electronic organization AND the true studyblr (girl can do beautiful calligraphy). I believe I align more with Keo Tsang, who studies later at night rather than earlier than the morning. Tsang does get more hours of sleep than me (haha). If you are in high school please don’t do what he does though. I try to go to bed by midnight because then I’ll get six hours of sleep, and I can sleep on the bus (it takes me an hour to get to school). I also have a free first period where I can sleep if I need to or catch up on work from last night if I didn’t do it. I do like to work when there is sunlight but also coming home from school and taking a detox or a break is so much better for my mental health. I know it will be different when in university but I’d just say this to any high school student, please do a mental detox. Don’t go on social media and scroll endlessly maybe listen to some music, read a book, take a walk/run, my sister would bake after a long stressful day and her food- while not the best- got her in a good mood. 

Not going to lie, I don’t want to use my real name haha, so as a nickname from my 2nd favorite character ever, I guess I’ll call myself Queens.

About myself:

I’m in my senior year baby!

I struggle with anxiety and depression and I have many health problems that stop be from being a 100% efficient student from time to times.

I tutor and have been doing so for three years! I love it actually and if anyone thinks they can tutor I definetly think you should try it. I can make an organization lists that offers virtual connections, or start a peer tutoring program at your school/ in your community.

I love science and it can literally be any type of science. My all time favorite has to probably be biochemistry- like specifically the chemical compositions of biological aspects. I don’t really know why but I just love all of it and it makes perfect sense to me. I will probably go into a science major in my dream university by I haven’t really decided yet.