#study ideas

04.09.25

24|12|2023

happy christmas eve!

Study Inspo 🌞

For the first time in my life I’m living in a tropical climate! Which is lovely, but since the Studyblr/academia communities’ aesthetic is (for the most part) very dark a dreary, I’ve felt a bit left out of the romanticisation of rainy UK weather. So for all of us living in the tropics/oceania, these are a few academia-related things I’ve adored doing while studying over here :)

Listening to a podcast/reading by the pool

Making sketches of the all the pretty wildlife & nature

Doing my recommended reading at the beach

Studying underneath a palm tree

Going to galleries and seeing all the local & Indigenous art

Reading outside at sunset in the city when the temperatures cooled off

Getting iced coffee on a study date

Taking a break walking in the botanical gardens/nature reserve

Listening to my lectures at an outdoor space at the library

Drinking coffee and writing on the balcony during the rain

Not having seasonal depression <3 <3 <3

When I was a freshman in university my first and second year advisor told me that studying 3 hours per credit hour per week is an adequate amount of studying.

I had 15 credit hours at the time. That would mean I’d have to study for 45 hours a week. Which is just under two days of studying. Divide that over 7 days and it’s about 6.5 hours of studying a day.

Maybe this sounds a little realistic to some of you. Okay, you’d go to class for 2-3 hrs, spend the rest of the night in the library. Maybe you could get away with doing that much studying on one day, a Sunday afternoon where you don’t have any plans. But for everyday is incredibly unrealistic. When you are in university/college, you are going to have friends that want to spend time with you doing things other than studying. You are going to get mentally drained from studying and you are going to want time to yourself to relax and watch tv. Studying for over 6 hours a day is just not possible.

After tracking my weekly study habits, as a senior in university I usually only spent 1 hour per credit hour studying, sometimes even way less. My course load was a bit lighter this semester but even as a first or second year, never did I study for 45 hours a week, let alone 40. It’s recommended for law and med students (people already in med school, not pre-meds) that they study 30-40 hours a week, which is still less than the advice I was given as a freshman in uni.

Trying to study for too much time will only lead to burnout.

So how much time should you study for?

Do all that you need to in one week plus a bit of extra studying each week for each class in preparation for exams, and create a base average weekly study time from that.

Using a timer and track how much time you studied for in one session can help you create this average weekly time. I use the Forest app.

You might need to study more for harder classes, so realize you’re going to be spending more time on those classes over your easy ones.