My studying method

Studying. Something we all know, but don't love. I thought I would share with you guys my tried and true way of studying. I do want to stress that you should be attending every class humanly possible to and paying attention during them! Even if the teacher puts the material online, it will still benefit you to be there and hear them lecture about it. Most people begin studying a week or less in advance for a test. That's not how I roll. I actually start studying as soon as we start learning the material. I would highly recommend doing this! Even if you don't study in the same way I am about to suggest, just studying as you learn the information is a great way to really grasp all of the topics and build on-top of for the actual test.  There will be times where you just don't want to do it, but keep in mind how much you are helping future you (they will be thankful later on). First, I type my notes on my computer during the lecture. Even if the power-point is online, I still type it. This helps me retain the information because not only am I seeing it and hearing it, I am also typing it down myself. Another important tip is not just to type what you see on the power-point! Type important things you hear your professor say because all of the test info isn't coming straight from the slide, a lot of it comes from what they say during their lecture. Next, I recopy the notes into a notebook! I usually do it the day after the lecture, so my brain has a chance to rest on the information before going over it again. Handwriting the notes down helps your brain not only go over what you learned the day before (because lets be real sometimes we forget), it also helps us study it! Another helpful tip I have found is using colored highlighters and pens to organize my notes. That way when I go back before the test to go over my notes, they are not all sloppy jumble of words; unorganized notes can be extremely overwhelming and harder to follow when studying. I also go in with a good old fashion yellow highlighter to make all of the key points stand out. By using this method, you have reminded yourself what you learned, studied what you learned and organized the information in a way that is easier to study and comprehend. If I have the time, I try and read through my notes rather than just writing them and forgetting about them until it's almost test day. I have forgotten to study until the night before a big test once (I do not recommend), but because I pre-studied during the entire section, I still did well! I feel I owe a lot of my success to this method! It's helped me so much in remembering all the information for my tests. I made a 100 on my history midterm because of it! I would highly recommend you try this method out for a few weeks or a semester and let me know what it did for you!