#study preparation

Hello! There are a couple of things I do, I’ll list them below:

I clean my laptop: I delete every document, recording, PowerPoint, video, etc. of previous academic year. I only keep my final summaries in PDF-format so I can send them to peers if they need it. I don’t keep any separate notes in a word-document, except if I have a different file with exercises for a certain course or something. Of course, this only counts if I passed the class. Basically, I only keep what I need to keep. It creates more space on my laptop and makes my laptop slow down less.

I clean my backpack: I have a bad habit of keeping loose pens, bits of paper, markers, etc. in my bag, so I completely empty my bag and throw away all the trash. I only keep what’s necessary: a couple of pens, markers, a ruler, a pencil, ... and a notebook just in case I need to write something down.

I clean my mail: my university has a habit of sending a lot of mails, so I’ll clean up the inbox and sent mails of my student mail account. I’ll keep the important mails (like money related stuff), but besides that, I’ll delete everything, so my inbox doesn’t get clogged.

I clean my phone: I delete downloaded files like notes or PowerPoints and delete all pictures I took in class like a scheme a professor has drawn on the board or a picture of a peer’s notes.

I clean my desk: I throw away my printed summaries if I used a marker in them. If it’s a clean and reusable summary, I’ll give it to another student or reuse it as scratch paper for eg. writing down groceries. I throw away my planners, I clean up my pencil holder and my shelves. I wipe down my desk, so I can start fresh.

I make a new folder on my laptop: in my first year, I didn’t really use folders on my laptop, so it was hard to find notes (especially if I named them ‘ufiozefozehi’ instead of ‘Law EU lesson 1′). Now, before every start of a new semester, I’ll make a new folder. This semester, it’ll be ‘MAS1SEM1′. Inside that folder, I’ll create new folders for every subject and give the folder the full name of the course, eg. ‘Law of the European Union’. If I want to save my notes, I can immediately put it in the right folder and they’ll be easier to relocate.

I sell my text books: since I study law, I find it useless to keep text books, since law changes all the time. What’s written in a textbook from 2018 often won’t be up to date anymore in 2025. By selling my books, I have some extra money and more space in my room. If I do need to look up something from previous years, I use my summaries to look it up, since I made or at least have a summary in PDF-format from every course I’ve taken.

I don’t buy new text books: I often see students buying all the ‘recommended’ books before the academic year has started (sometimes buying them from other students), but sometimes books get an update (which is often, because law is very dynamic), so the book from the year before is useless or the book ends up being unnecessary to pass the class (because notes of what the professor says are enough), so it’s wasted money. I always wait til the professors themselves announce if the book has been updated or ask peers if they needed the book to pass.

I buy new stationary: even though I barely write on paper, I like to buy a few cute and cheap things for the new semester, like a cute pencil case, pretty markers, etc. It makes the start of the new semester more exciting, because I look forward to using my new stuff.

Hi! Thanks so much for the compliment :) in university I’ve had to do a couple resits so you could say I had to raise my grade for those classes. I hope you’re looking for advise to study for resits and not for raising a grade during the semester. :)

Allow yourself to relax after your finals: go on a vacation, meet with friends, do fun stuff. Do everything but school related stuff. Just forget about school for a bit. 

But, it’s important to know when you have to start studying again. Relaxing for a month and then making a planner could end up giving you time management issues. You could make a planner a couple of days into your summer holidays: how many days would you ideally take to study the subjects and how many days do you need to prepare for the actual studying? Based on that, you can make a planner and know how much time you have to relax without getting yourself into trouble.

It’s important to figure out why you failed. Depending on what caused my bad grade, I’ll have a different approach.

Failing because I studied too little

It’s important to take your time now that you’re able to! Make sure that when making a planner, you plan enough study time this time to pass.

If the resit is for a course you took in the first semester (so often almost half a year ago), do not underestimate how much you’ll have forgotten! I made this mistake last year. I thought I wouldn’t need a lot of time to study for my resit, ‘because I had already seen the course’, but boy, I barely knew anything anymore. 

Failing because I had too little time to catch up on the course during the semester

When I had too little time during the semester to catch up on certain classes, I sometimes decided to focus on the rest and do the other class during the summer.

You’ll have to learn an entire course by yourself in one month or a couple of weeks, so it’s important to start on time!

It comes in handy to have passive knowledge, which I find more helpful than just starting to study a subject from scratch without knowing what the course is actually about. You could watching class recordings, read the textbook or a summary, etc.

If you decide to drop a course during the semester and do the exam in the summer, you got to have the discipline to study during summer holidays! If you know that you won’t study, please don’t use this method! A friend of mine has been using this method for two years: she only takes a couple of exams and she’ll do the other courses during the summer, BUT then she’ll say she doesn’t feel like studying during the summer holidays and thus she doesn’t do her resits. This is not a good method!

If you do decide to drop a class, I’d advise you to still take the exam. By doing that, you know what the exam will look like when you’re taking it in the summer (multiple choice, essay questions, etc.).

Failing because you hate the subject

If you’re having a hard time with a subject because you don’t find it interesting, make sure to pick enough days to study! 

By spreading the amount of work, you’ll have to study for a couple of hours a day and then you can reward yourself with some relaxing time. You’ll have to get through the subject anyhow, but if you give yourself only a couple of days to study ‘to get it over with’, you won’t be motivated if you have to study a subject you dislike for hours on end.

Failing because I did not understand the course material

Understanding a course takes time, so start on time!

Ask yourself if your previous study method worked. If not, change it.

At my university, some classes are recorded. Those recordings can be very useful to rewatch if the teacher can explain the course in a clear and understandable way. If not, don’t waste time rewatching! 

You could try studying from the textbook if that’s a method that suits you. Textbooks are sometimes more clear than the explanation of a professor. But, be sure what study material you have to know to pass: does the professor expect you to know the textbook, or is the textbook background information and do you need class notes to pass, because not everything the professor says is written in the textbook?

Look up videos on YouTube, there are a lot out there!

You could ask for the link to the recordings of the same class taught by another teacher who is actually capable of explaining things clearly

Ask a family member to tutor you if they know a lot about the subject

Try to find old exam questions and try to solve them 

Ask your teacher if he/she could send you more exercises

While studying, focus on the parts you’re having the most difficulty with. But, if you’re really not understanding a subject or two, leave them be. It’s better to know 80-90% of the course really well than spending too much time on 20-10% and not having enough time to cover the rest of the course in depth.

Failing because I made avoidable mistakes on the exam

Go look over your exam to see where you went wrong. Don’t just assume ‘it’s because I studied too little’ or something like that, you might have made mistakes that cost you a lot of grades, so by looking over your exam, you’ll know which mistakes not to make  again!

Write down which mistakes you made and what the correct answer is. Try to understand why your answer is wrong. There is no use in just learning the correct answers by heart.

Reread / study what you wrote down before your exam and write it down on a piece of scrap paper as soon as your exam starts.

Failing because I had too little time on the exam

On your exam, start with the questions that will get you the most grades IF you know the answer to those questions. For example, if there are two essay questions  that are 60% of your grade, and twenty multiple choice that are 40% of your grade, start with the essay questions first! 

If you don’t know the answer to those questions, start with the questions you do know. Don’t waste time, instead spend more time on trying to get all the grades on the questions you do know. If you have time left, try to write down what you know for the questions you left open.

Learn from why you failed. If you spent more time having fun during the semester (which is also important, don’t get me wrong) than studying, try to re-evaluate for next semester. 

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