#lilystudies

If you’re in school you know how easy it is to forget about taking care of yourself. With deadlines, homework, projects and everything in between, it seems like there is very little time left to yourself! So, here are some of my tips for taking care of myself during the school year! 

(Disclaimer: This is aimed more towards college students but it’s easy to adapt to those in middle and high school. Also, obviously these things won’t work for everyone, so don’t beat yourself up if something doesn’t go the way it’s “supposed” to.)

Leave water somewhere you can see it. It’s super easy to get dehydrated in general, so add in limited focus on anything other than school and bam, a recipe for disaster. To remedy this, try leaving a glass or bottle of water in view and every time you look up from studying and/or your eyes pass over the bottle, take a sip!

Pre-pack healthy snacks. In-between classes it’s easy to stop at the campus store, dining hall or vending machine to resolve your hunger. However, often the options available are things like candy and potato chips. By packing healthy things in advance it saves you money and also saves you from the empty calories. (If you don’t have a dependable way to get fruit, etc. take some extra apples or bananas from the dining hall every time you leave and store them in your room!)

Pre-plan out your outfit the night before. Pack your school bags too! That way you can sleep in a little longer and your morning is a little less stressful, because you won’t be scrambling to get everything together!

Avoid hangovers. Drink a huge glass of water before you start drinking and before you go to bed, and make sure you eat a lot during the day. Not only do hangovers suck, but they also take away valuable study time!

Go to the gym with a friend! Working out can suck, especially if you’re not used to it. So go to the gym with a friend! It keeps you motivated and can even make things fun!

Take a multi-vitamin! Even if you never had to take one during high school, it’s easy to eat horribly/not enough, and getting your daily vitamins is really important!

Don’t give up your morning/bedtime routine for anything. This one might sound a little dumb, but trust me. Skipping a face wash or shower might sound okay at the time, but when you start breaking out or feeling less than your best, you’ll see what I mean.

Buy some Melatonin! Even if you don’t have sleeping problems, college takes away a lot of your sleep and has a lot of distractions that make it hard to fall asleep (ex: noises neighbors). Melatonin helps you fall asleep and sleep better, so even if you only get a few hours, it was a few hours of better quality sleep than it probably would have been. (Because Melatonin is a tablet, it’s important to read the warnings on the packaging and consult a doctor before taking it!)

Buy earplugs. Trust me. They’re a miracle worker when you’re trying to go to sleep, stay asleep, or get some work done in a noisy/distracting place.

Keep your surroundings sanitized. Wash your hands on a regular basis and disinfect your room (focus mores on the things you, your roommate and friends come in contact with a lot like light switches, door knobs, etc.). Carry a little pack of sanitary wipes or a thing of hand sanitizer with you in your backpack at all times. It may sound like I’m going overkill on all of this but the plague is real and consistent in college. You remember how in high school everyone would come back from school breaks sick? Well it’s the same way in college but 24/7. You’re going to be surrounded by people from all over the country (most likely) that come in contact with things you don’t, who will bring them back to school with them. Being sick during college is one of the worst things ever, so try to avoid it if you can!

After finishing my first year of college and starting to prepare for my second year, I thought now would be a good time to go over all of the study-related things that I learned during my college experience so far!

There’s a good chance you can find the reading material for free online!  Before you jump on buying the reading materials you need for class (whether it’s a high school class or college class), take a peek online! Often there is a PDF version of the material somewhere online that you can find by simply Googling the book or textbook’s title and author with the words “free PDF” after it! If you can’t find it free, some websites allow you to rent a PDF of the material, which saves a lot of money especially if it’s only something you’ll need for a limited time!

Flash cards can be your best friend! Now, it took a lot for me to admit this because I used to avidly believe that flash cards were useless, but boy was I wrong! I used them to study for a midterm and only got 1-point taken off! They’re extremely useful for vocabulary, for obvious reasons, but I also learned that they can be really helpful for remembering full concepts! For example, one flash card helped me remember the entire nitrogen cycle! Just write the concept on the front and a couple key points on the back and boom!

Weekends can be the most productive time of the week! I know weekends are usually kept for relaxing, but when you have a lot to accomplish waking up early in the morning to get a head start on your work for the next week can do wonders! I’ve had countless times when I was ahead of homework for the first couple days of the week, which left me plenty of time to study and finish the rest of my weeks work.

Have at least three people read over your essay before you turn it in! And have them read it multiple times, even after you’ve changed or tweaked what they suggested the first time they read it! It could sound good to you but other people will notice more if something doesn’t flow quite right or you made a spelling error, etc.

Make sure you have due dates written in multiple places! Most professors provide a syllabus where you can find due dates but it’s super important to write the dates down in at least one or two other places! Syllabus’ get lost so quickly! And there’s always the chance you may have left your planner at home, so writing due dates in your notebooks or a different planner will ensure that you have the dates as least somewhere.

Make up your own short cuts for note-taking. During lectures especially, professors and teachers often speak so quickly that it’s extremely difficult to write fast enough to keep up with them! That’s where the shortcuts come in! My person favorites are drawing the “and” symbol (&), using arrows to show that something led to another (->), etc.

Highlight at the end. If you’re like me, highlighting important terms or ideas is key to figuring out my notes! However, often there isn’t enough time while taking them to highlight so when that occurs, do it at the end! This also gives you the chance to read through your notes, clarify ideas, etc., because highlighting after the fact often sends you hunting for the ideas again, therefore making you read over your notes again!

Always have loose paper and extra writing utensils with you! Not only is this good for helping out a classmate when they’re in need, it’s also handy if you have some down time between classes to sit and get some work done! Often if you have only one pen with you, it’s lost before you even remember you had it!

Sparknotes is your best friend. Now this is not me promoting not reading the material. Sparknotes, and similar websites, are wonderful to look at if you’re confused about what you’re reading about or need a bit more information.

Make use of the library. Seriously. And especially the quiet study floors. Many colleges and universities have a 24-hour library, which is perfect when you’re roommate is asleep and you have to crank out a couple more hours of work! Not only that, there are so many resources available to you that you probably have no idea about!

Go to office hours and go through the questions you missed on tests, quizzes, etc. with your professor. Everyone always says that office hours are crazy beneficial, and I’m going to say it to. Office hours are crazy beneficial. Bring your work with you and sit down with your professor and have them go through and explain the questions you missed. Write down what they’re saying. It’s no use even going if you don’t write down what the actual answer is and why it’s that. Having that information helps you avoid making the same mistakes twice.

Keep all of your old tests, quizzes and graded work! This one is so, so important. Old tests are so good to study from, especially if you got the questions you missed explained to you. Reading through them can help avoid you missing the same questions on a midterm/final, and can help you understand the material better! They also can give you an idea on what your professor might have on the midterm/final or upcoming assignments!

When reading material, mark on the page what you want to take notes on and go back when you’re done to write the notes! I’ve noticed, for me at least, that stopping to annotate or take notes on the material I’m reading interrupts my flow and makes it harder to understand the material. Mark on the page with a pen or little sticky-note the places you want to take notes on and when you’re done reading all of the assigned material, go back to the marks and take the notes you want. Not only does it keep you going, but re-reading information is a good way to remember key points!

Ask your professor to send you the lecture. You’re not bothering them by doing so. This is super useful, even if you could keep up during class and understand the material. While a lot of professors post the lectures online, some don’t, and they’re very good to have for studying and note-taking purposes at a later time!