Study Tips 101: Science

As mentioned in my last post, I promised to write a little bit on study tips to help review for tests and exams. Now, it's been said that studying can't be taught, as each person studies differently. However, in my case I also study differently for each class. Today, I'm going to look at study tips for science-based courses. I think I know a little but about this, since my own program is under the Faculty of Science :)

One thing that I've noticed is that a big hurdle in science-based courses is the terminology. From cyclohexa-1,3,5-triene to sternocleidomastoid to plasmolysis - we all have trouble with trying to keep up with what the professors say, and trying to actually understand it at the same time. One solution I've come up with for this is the obvious – flashcards! I love making these little guys – as I’m making my deck, I’m learning the words, so it’s almost like a two-for-one deal! I myself you the flashcard maker from StudyBlue.

Another resource that I’ve used (maybe a little too much…) are online videos. Nowadays, many textbooks come with an online key that let you access a bunch of great online content – such as my much abused videos! If not, a quick YouTube or Google search will likely turn up some results. I consider myself to be a visual learner, so seeing how things work in action with each other has helped me much more than I care to admit.

This is probably going to sound strange… Sometimes I like making mock Wikipedia articles on the subject I’m studying. I find that this technique helps me so much in my kinesiology class, because the notes I study from are just PowerPoint slides with a bunch of scribbles I made on it during lecture. I find that making mock Wikipedia articles really helps me with a few things – firstly, it helps me organize my thoughts. I’ll make a “Table of Contents” in the corner with headings and subheadings and subsubheadings, etc. This really helps me to figure out what is classified where. Secondly, making my own mock Wikipedia article helps me to condense and analyze the information. I don’t allow myself to put pictures in my mock Wikipedia articles, so I force myself to explain the concepts demonstrated easily by a picture in words – this helps to really understand what the picture is trying to convey. Of course, I really don’t want to sit there and copy  out all the notes, so I have to condense all of the information so that I get the juicy bits and leave the extraneous stuff behind.

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This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the ways one can study for a science-based course. Rather, these are methods that I myself find helpful. Hopefully some of these tips will come in handy when crunch time comes along, and let me know how these tips worked out for you!
P.S. If anyone would like to see any examples of the study tools I've mentioned here, just let me know in the comments :)