Studious Panda

1. There are always many distractions in your dorm. Make studying in a library your habit. You will be more focused and productive there and you will have more free time afterwards!

2. Talking to your teachers and lecturers is one of the best thing you can do for yourself. Make sure they know you. In case of a problem, it will be so much easier to get help from them than it would be if they didn’t even recognise your face.

3. Prepare your breakfast the evening before so you won’t waste time in the morning.

4. During finals you will be grateful for having forced yourself to go to your lectures. Some of them might be boring but sometimes being bored for an hour can really pay off.

5. Make sure you make at least one friend in each class so you always have someone to ask for help/notes if you were absent/forgot to note something down.

6. You will do stupid things and regret them later. It’s okay, don’t beat yourself up.

7. If you can make time for that episode of your favourite tv show, you can also make time to call your grandma. Do it.

8. Try to save some money every month. You never know when your laptop will break down.

9. Prepare your lunch/dinner in advance and always make at least two portions so you can have at least every other day free from cooking.

10. People in college are so much different than people in high school so even if you weren’t really outgoing before, try going to a couple of parties or events. Don’t wait for someone to talk to you, reach out first and you will immediately meet new friends.

11. You will spend a shit-tone of money unless you make a budget so download an app, use a notebook or make an Excel document. Write down every penny you spend.

12. No one cares if you wear the same clothes you wore yesterday or if you walk around with no makeup on. Don’t worry about such trivial things.

13. If you’re going to a party, bring someone you can trust with you so if something bad happens you won’t be alone.

14. Do things the day before they’re due.

(I finished my freshman year this spring with a 4.0 GPA, an off-campus research internship, and three professors contacting me suggesting that I apply for a fulbright scholarship.  These tips aren’t coming out of my ass.) 

1. LISTEN TO ME WHEN I SAY THIS: YOU DO NOT NEED TO “GET INVOLVED” IN STUPID CLUBS IF YOU DON’T ENJOY THEM.  Hear “get involved! :)” for the 1000th time and just barf in your mouth a little and move on.  If you work hard and get good grades, and socialize with people on campus when you have free time (it comes more naturally than you think) YOU WILL.  BE.  FINE.  Actually better than fine.  You’ll have time to get a real job/internship, which by the way, is what the real world wants to see you prioritizing.  Moral of the story: Only join clubs if they help your personality thrive and feel healthy.  Don’t do them because you feel pressured.  

2. DON’T TAKE SHIT FROM A N Y O N E. I know you’re trying to fit in and take the stance of trying to make everyone happy to make sure you’ll have plenty of friends.  But you have to realize that you literally just met these people, and they just met you.  If they create an uncomfortable environment for you that makes college harder to cope with, get them the fuck out of your life. Ain’t nobody got time for people’s high school-ass drama.  

3. SKIP YOUR CLASSES SOMETIMES.  If you really have your shit together, it won’t matter.  Your school will say the amount of skips you can get away with before it harms your grade.  Use. Them.

4. BECOME THE MASTER OF WRITING ESSAYS IN ONE NIGHT.  You will have to.  I’m telling you right the fuck now.  And you can get an A, if you work your lil ass off. I’ve done it many times.  

5. DON’T CARE FOR EVEN 1 SECOND WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF YOU.  If you wanna wear sweats and no makeup, do it.  If you want to dress up and take time to put on makeup, do it.  If you want to stay away from partying, do it.  If you want to party, have a good ass time.  If anyone has enough time to judge you, they need to be studying harder or getting a hobby.  Make yourself comfortable and happy as fuck and enjoy your time in college worry-free. 

6. BE THE ASSHOLE WITH A TABLET OR LAPTOP IN LECTURE.  You won’t have time to copy it all down.  You’ll be miserable.  Just trust me.  I know studies say its more effective to write stuff down for memory, but, write them out later or something.  Learned that one the hard way.

7. DON’T REWRITE YOUR NOTES IF IT DOESN’T HELP YOU STUDY.  If you know doing that doesn’t help you memorize, don’t do it, period.  Or, if you have a collossal asston of notes (like I did) it isn’t even worth rewriting them all in the first place. I’ve fallen down that hole and lost motivation and time.  Just reread them or make flashcards or whatever.  Study for effectiveness, not aesthetic.

8. BE PREPARED FOR LAB TO GO THE “WHOLE TIME.”  Yah, you’re gonna see 3 hours on that brand-shiny-new schedule of yours and be like there’s no way it’ll go that long, right? LOL about that.  Just mentally brace yourself.  Eat and drink beforehand for the love of god we don’t need hangry people handling chemicals.  

9. COMMUTING DOESN’T MAKE YOU A LONER.  Just.  No. If you live close to campus, are comfortable with commuting, and know you’ll save yourself MAJOR debt by doing it, do it and don’t feel a fucking ounce of guilt about it.  It’ll be some early mornings, but your fresh out of college broke ass will thank you, and you’ll use your time more effectively.  (Plus you get a non grimy shower like??)

HOW TO: SURVIVE COLLEGE 

Here are some tips that I think are important when it comes to surviving college/high school/secondary school or universities. 

10.4.16 

Personal tactics for studying history:

1. Flashcards of timelines, with colour to illustrate changes in government/control/presidents etc. 

In my first photo, I was documenting the progress of Soviet control after World War two during the Cold War. Key: red - under communist control | blue - communist party in coalition | purple - biggest single party | brown - communist prime minister/president elected | yellow - non-communist government

2. Practice questions

As I go through my notes, I write a list of questions which are induced from each section of my notes, no matter how short the answer is. Some examples include: 

- What are the effects/consequences of_____? - What was post-war ____ like? - Successes and failures of ____? - What happened during years ______? - What did ____ say about ____?

And I would add numbers in brackets as the number of points I should include

i’m going to keep this short-ish and shitty and un-proofread because i only have like 6 followers but it’s finals week and i keep seeing these awful study tips everywhere that are like “drink water” and “don’t get distracted on the internet” and other unrealistic stuff like that, so here is a REALISTIC students guide to pulling ur semester together, written by a truly apathetic student still clinging onto the deans list (me). enjoy and share as u wish

1. make study plans with a distant acquaintance who you think is cooler than you. do you want their first impression of you to be 20 minutes late, saying “oops i just realized i haven’t taken notes all semester?” no u want to impress them! knowing a complete strangers opinion of you is on the line, you can use this to find the strength to make a great looking study guide, or actually add to the google doc instead of just reading what everyone else wrote. bonus points if you make plans to meet at 10am. 

2. fuck the “stay focused” app. if you are anything like me you know it takes about 15 minutes max to download a new browser and you’re back to doing the same exact thing you were before, but on firefox instead of google chrome. plus, we all have cell phones, so blocking tumblr on my computer just means i have to look at smaller pictures. WHAT U HAVE TO DO is find a person you trust, preferably your parents or someone in another state/country who you can’t hound in-person and who WILL. NOT. CRACK. u give them your login information for your social media apps (i do this every finals week with Facebook and tumblr for at least a day or 2 or before my hardest exam) and you have them change your password. it’s life changing. 

3. look at gifs of hermione granger and rory gilmore. literally role play as them, dress like them if you have to. they just have it so together!! how!! 

4. before you leave your dorm ASK YOURSELF “do i reaaaallyyy need my computer?” and if you don’t need it to study, don’t bring it with you. don’t bring your phone either unless you need music. i am an international relations/art history major and the answer for me personally is “no” 99.9% of the time because all my exams are based off readings/in class notes. the next step is to go to the library, or wherever you study, and bring nothing but good old fashioned papers with you.

4b. if you have readings to do print them out. i kill about 8 trees per semester by printing off hundreds of pieces of paper and while environmentally i feel sort of guilty about it, it’s the actual only way i can read anything without my eyes glazing over, or ending up on style.com looking at Diors F/W 2002 collection. plus you can ~highlight~ and annotate better.

5. white noise is your best friend. rainymood.com and white noise generator are 1000x better than the most mellow spotify playlist, imo, or at least work really well in the background. (personally i don’t like studying to music with vocals because the words distract me but if white noise isn’t enough u can do sigur ros or instrumental music) however, when it’s the early morning hours and you feel like you’re about to crash show tunes can and will keep you going. i recommend “you can’t stop the beat” from hairspray and anything from mamma mia.  

6. if possible, make friends with someone who has a car. burger king can make or break you at 2am. 

7. TREAT YASELF. i never eat healthy during finals week and i don’t trust people who do. but if you actually get up early to study you deserve the largest dunking donuts or most expensive latte. and if you are up at 3am, yes you not only can but should get 3 different chip bags from the vending machine. (i swear crunching helps me stay awake anyways)

8. nothing is a better break than a walk outside. this is not an opinion this is a fact. even if you just go stand outside and take 10 deep breaths. or lay in grass for 2 minutes. and if it’s a nice sunset go let yourself watch it. 

9. do not “dress for success,” wear the most comfortable clothes that you own (but not pajama pants or ur fucked. ANYWHERE is a bed when u r wearing pajama pants, in personal experience). also, something to get your hair away from your face/eyes (like a bandana or something stretchy though not a hard headband) is a GAME CHANGER

10. you would be surprised how not-rude people are if you mass-email your class with questions or in need of assistance. whether you need to borrow the book or missed a day (or 5) of notes, throwing an email into the wind usually won’t fail you!! *bonus tip: offer to bake cookies or buy food for who ever helps you. it will make u seem cute/friendly/thankful/desperate and they will NEVER actually ask u to follow through. i once got like 5 days of missed notes AND a girl lent me her flash cards by doing this.*

11. do your bibliography as you research!! there is officially no worse feeling than finally finishing a paper at 3:47am and then realizing you have to add in your citations and make your works cited. save yourself.

12. don’t go out less, but go home earlier. instead of skipping a party or movie night or general get together with friends completely, go from 11pm-1am. it gives you the literal entire day to still study, if you get back at 1am you can drink a gallon of water and watch a 22 minute episode of something, be asleep at 1:30am and still wake up at like 9:30 the next day to keep working. those are the best hours of any party anyways and you don’t have to miss out on the memories just for some shitty number grade. 

13. if you decide to take a napping break, do it on a couch or futon with all the lights on, not in your bed. you get ur horizontal time in but it’s much more difficult to actually sleep for an entire night in this position, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally not waking up.

14. if you get really stressed look up facts about how big the universe is and how small and short lived and tiny humans are in comparison. or a ted talk about how grades can’t measure intelligence, or about how all humans are meant to be artists. OR watch an episode of BBC planet earth. this always comforts me for some reason.

- sleep is still highly important

- you need to take care of your mental health too

- one grade won’t make or break you

- yes, even those of us that want to get into grad school

- you can do this