college study guide

The Complete College Study Guide

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  • Find a bachelor's degree




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  • Find a bachelor's degree




    Bachelors Degree Center is an advertising-supported site. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.

Mov­ing from high school to col­lege is a big tran­si­tion for every stu­dent. How­ev­er, with prepa­ra­tion and dili­gence, this change need not be over­ly dif­fi­cult for a new col­lege stu­dent pur­su­ing a bach­e­lor’s degree. Although the course load will be chal­leng­ing and the change in liv­ing quar­ters will like­ly require some adjust­ment, most stu­dents are ready to embrace these new cir­cum­stances with pos­i­tive atti­tudes. The col­lege course load will present new and for­mi­da­ble mate­r­i­al, but with orga­ni­za­tion, focus, and effec­tive time man­age­ment, it’s pos­si­ble to excel and thrive as a new col­lege student.

Time Management

Time man­age­ment is cru­cial for any col­lege stu­dent. A major dif­fer­ence between high school and col­lege is the need for stu­dents to man­age their own time instead of hav­ing par­ents and teach­ers over­see this process. Insti­tut­ing a dai­ly rou­tine for attend­ing class­es, par­tic­i­pat­ing in extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, study­ing, work­ing, sleep­ing, exer­cis­ing, and relax­ing will help stu­dents fit every­thing into their sched­ules. Record­ing all assign­ments and projects in a cal­en­dar or to-do list will also help with remem­ber­ing and com­plet­ing these activ­i­ties. Strik­ing a bal­ance between work and relax­ation is also impor­tant because hav­ing down­time to reju­ve­nate helps keep burnout at bay.

Organization

Stay­ing orga­nized helps save time and reduces stress. As class mate­r­i­al becomes more chal­leng­ing, it is even more impor­tant to main­tain orga­ni­za­tion. Keep­ing sep­a­rate binders for each class can help keep mate­r­i­al acces­si­ble and orga­nized. A tidy study area with min­i­mal clut­ter also ensures that home­work time is effec­tive. Stu­dents can also ben­e­fit from keep­ing a pri­or­i­tized to-do list of assign­ments to ensure that tasks are com­plet­ed in a time­ly manner.

Focus

Main­tain­ing focus when com­plet­ing course work is cru­cial for col­lege stu­dents. Tak­ing care of phys­i­cal health is the first step to work­ing in a focused man­ner. This includes get­ting ade­quate sleep each night, eat­ing a bal­anced diet, and exer­cis­ing dai­ly. Next, set dai­ly goals to stay focused on the tasks that need to be com­plet­ed each day. While work­ing on tasks, stu­dents should min­i­mize dis­trac­tions to ensure that they use their work time effec­tive­ly. Turn­ing off their phone and work­ing in a qui­et envi­ron­ment can help elim­i­nate dis­trac­tions for the best focus. It may also help to insti­tute a small reward sys­tem for meet­ing goals. For exam­ple, after work­ing with­out dis­trac­tions for one hour, a reward might be ten min­utes of perus­ing social media sites.

Study Tips

Effec­tive study habits will ensure that the time spent on home­work achieves the great­est results. Dai­ly study is the most effec­tive way to learn, rather than wait­ing until the last minute to try to cram before exams. Researchers are also dis­cov­er­ing that when peo­ple review new infor­ma­tion with­in 24 hours of learn­ing it, they are more like­ly to retain the infor­ma­tion longer. Thus, when tak­ing notes in class, stu­dents can ben­e­fit from a dai­ly review of their notes to assim­i­late the infor­ma­tion most effec­tive­ly. Study­ing in a qui­et envi­ron­ment tends to be the most con­ducive to remem­ber­ing infor­ma­tion. Many stu­dents use study tools and meth­ods such as flash­cards, rewrit­ing notes, high­light­ing notes or text­books, and mak­ing up exam­ples of material.

Relat­ed:

The Com­plete Col­lege Study Guide

The Essen­tial Guide to Online Bach­e­lors Degrees

Online Stu­dent Study Skills Guide

From a Dis­tance: Your Com­pre­hen­sive Guide to Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs