Jennifer Diaz

A spiritual continuation to this post

Okay, so Studying is supposed to be easy and everyone’s been doing it forever but like honestly it’s hard to do so correctly. So, maybe I’m not an expert, but I just survived 4 years of college and I wanna share whatever shit I’ve learnt so far: 

IF YOU’RE VISUAL: Bulletpoints!!

You’re gonna love bulletpoints. They are life savers for big complicated themes. 

So next time you get a BIG test, you sit down and break it down in the big main topics. Then subtopics. Then only one or two code words.

MAIN TOPIC 1.

subtopic a: code word. 

subtopic b: codeword. maybe a sentence?

MAIN TOPIC 2… ETC

color code each level (MAINS BLUE/SUB PINK/ETC)

highlight DATES in one color and NAMES in another, since those are the kinda stuff you need to learn by heart as opposed to understanding. 

All this should give you visual cues to remember most of the info in each big topic. Write it by hand in a separate piece of paper that you can later bring with you to study. 

Hand writing them will help you learn them, and then one quick look right before the exam will freshen it all up. 

Honestly I’ve resumed whole semesters word of classes in two pages of bulletpoints. 

IF YOU’RE A SPEECH PERSON: Teach. 

Study groups are your new best friend. 

“But I don’t understand the topics that well yet!”

It really doesn’t matter. 

Take turns to explain the stuff to each other. 

You’ll be surprised. In my experience, some times you don’t need to remember stuff by heart, you need to understand it. And there’s no better way to find the logic behind weird shit than when you explain it to someone else. 

You’ll find connections that you hadn’t seen before, and when you see the question in the exam you’ll remember how you’ll explained it!

History or shit? Story time! Narrate it to your study mates! Find the interesting stuff in it! Find the ridiculous stuff! It’s just a story! We all remember the stories we love!

IF YOU’RE A LISTENING PERSON: Music

Some people totally get distracted, and I get it, but if you can focus through it, this is a great tip

Small playlist on repeat. 

It gets repetitive. 

Yes!! That’s the point!!

You know how some earworms you just can’t get out of your head. That’s what you’re getting. 

And you’re gonna remember what you were studying while you listened. 

Listen to the playlist on your way to the exam. 

Hum while you answer. 

Got stuck? What song where you listening to while you studied this topic? La, la, oh my fuck that’s the answer! 

It works. Promise. 

Other things to do: 

Eat. Carbs and protein, get your energy up. 

Coffee!!!! Sorry if it’s not considered “healthy” but like, that’s how I survived. 

Take breaks. Ten minutes breaks. No more. 

Rewards! Little rewards in between finished topics. One chocolate. One short episode of a light hearted series. Texting a friend. 

Drink water!! 

Give your notes one quick check right before the exam. It’s a life saver.

Things not to do:

All nighters. I talked about it in this other college survival post. Just. Don’t. 

Overstudying: in my experience your brain over heats, you end up freaking out and go blank as soon as you see the exam.

Junk food. Sorry, gonna be the healthy voice of reason here. Sugar up. Sugar down. All your motivation dies. 

Cry. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry :( It’s gonna be fine. 

ZOE (via kaccs-edui)

As i start this weeks tumblr post i cant help but feel anxious about making my own website especially after completing the huge short film project on Monday. But since the semester is almost done, i figured here goes nothing!

Section A: As a writer! I will attempt to integrate the ethos, pathos, and logos in order to make my website stunning and draws the audience to focus more on my thesis provided throughout my website. I will attempt to add credibility to most of my material that is discussed on my website so that I form a sense of ethos to keep the audience interested in reading my website. By adding ethos to my paper I not only provide credibility but everything that I state is not a mere rumor or an educational guess, rather all my information displayed is academic, organized, and completely reliable. By adding pathos, the information displayed can help to persuade the audience to feel a certain kind of emotion based on what I am trying to convince the audience about. For example in my literature review I discussed how the lack of diversity in the quality of care for most veterans that attend the VA, and I approach this topic by persuading the audience to  sympathizes with our US veterans and to get them involved with advocating a solution to this problem. As for logos, I intend in making sure that my papers and paragraphs displayed on my website will be comprehensive and simple to understand, I am not saying that my audience will not be able to comprehend my thesis for each paper but by sticking to simple English diction I can assure that my audience will not have any misconceptions regarding my topics.  

Section B: As a designer! Key elements such as contrast, consistency, balance, grouping, and alignment are very important to ensure that audience’s attention has been captured. To avoid losing my audience I will do my best to adjust the aspects of my website to fit the 5 principles of web design. I will keep my text font and size consistent except for major key points to give compliments to the sections of the webpage according to vital information and other sub-categories. I will also use the same style for each heading throughout the website to ensure consistency and to keep the audience’s attention. Any images or multimedia used on my website will be aligned evenly so that my images are reasonably recognizable among each image, but all my images will follow one main theme so that my audience can see how the images all tie into my papers thesis. I will group my content according to the rubric provided on BB which will have my Homepage, introduction about me; my Assignment Reflections;  my Reading Reflections, as well as the Extra credit opportunities which is the Course Reflection: What, So What, Now What.

Now that my post is complete and i have a simple rubric to use in order to help me assemble my website, i feel confident about putting the whole web page together. This almost feels as good as finishing a race in 1st place.