hey guys it's Kaitlyn and today I'm going to be showing you how I study for
college finals before we get started don't forget to comment like and
subscribe and comment down below if you turn on that notification bell so I can
thank you personally and with all that being said let's just get into the video
so the first step is to order your classes for most attention needed to
least attention needed you can do this roughly by how you did in the class if
you're in high school or if you're in college you can calculate the percent
needed on the final minimum to hit the grade that you want in the class so if
you want a 4.0 in the class and you need a 50% on the final exam minimum to get
that then you'll study way less for that class than you would for a class that
needs a minimum of 90 percent on the final to get that 4.0 in the class this
also prevents productive procrastination which is what I call doing something
productive to avoid studying for classes you need to study for I do this all the
time I study for classes that I really want to rather than classes that I need
to and if you know the percent you need on the final is really high then you'll
be more likely to study for that class and less likely to procrastinate for it
so this really helps with that
so the next step is to write to-do lists for each class based off of attention
needed that you calculated in the first step so classes that need less attention
will have less bullet points and more attention will have more bullet points
so for less attention I might just read over notes and lectures and highlight
key things and then take the practice exam or do the study guide and then for
classes that need more attention I'll have more bullet points these might
include rewriting lectures or notes if it's old material from the beginning of
the semester making flash cards on Quizlet or hardcopy doing a group study
if it's a more conceptual topic and using white boards for the group study
and taking the practice exam and study guide as well because that should be
done for every class the to-do lists are the epitome of my studying and my study
schedule this really helps me keep on track and know what I need to do so I
don't waste time trying to figure out what I need to do one and what needs my
attention
so the next step is making a study schedule you can use your to-do lists to
make these I either make this in my planner or I draw my own study calendar
in my brain dump notebook this will just ensure that you have goals to meet and
you stay on track with your studying so you still have at least five days after
you go over the material to just really engrave that stuff in your brain and
build those pathways so you do the best on your exam as possible just know it's
never too late to start a study schedule even if you're cramming and you only
have three days before your exams you want to make sure you know what you have
to prioritize and have that in a organized manner so you can get all
those things done and do the best possible on your exams the next step is
to start on your to-do list so for this you will prioritize your heart classes
or classes that have closer exams you'll really have to balance your priorities
here and figure out which bullet points on your to-do list are the most
important for each class you don't have to do a whole class at once it's okay if
you jump around from class to class that is the most effective way to get the
most valuable study time in you may not completely finish your checklist and
know that that's okay I always make my checklists way more thorough than I need
to just so I always have something to do even if I finish them early I never
finished my checklists because I make them so over ambitious no matter what
your checklists are going to be so important and help you study so much
now that I told you guys the basic steps that I used to study I want to give you
guys some study tips and tools I usually rewrite old lecture notes by
hand because it's older material from the beginning of the semester if you
typed out your notes it's really beneficial to write the notes out as
well when you're studying because this helps build the pathways in your brain
and helps you really retain the material more than if you type it if you're
cramming and you don't have enough time to rewrite all the lecture notes then
reread and highlight your notes for key concepts and then make a master list
with bullet points of little concepts or topics that you just really didn't
remember or retain that you need to either study further or just writing the
list is actually studying as well when you make flashcards you can make them
hard copy or you can use an app called Quizlet which makes your flashcards and
helps you study them as well so keep in mind that making flashcards is studying
but you want to leave time to go through the flashcards and learn them as well
memorizing the flashcards is really important if you use Quizlet they have
little games you can play that really help you retain the information that's
on the flashcards so the best tip that I have for studying things that are
conceptual like a science based class or something like that is explaining the
concepts out loud and a bonus is recording yourself because if you record
yourself you can listen back to those while you're sleeping or on the bus when
you have to explain things out loud it makes your brain build those pathways
and think really hard of what's the best way to explain it then if you have
something like free response you have those pathways built of how you
explained it and it'll help you write down those free response answers so well
and so much easier another thing that I do that I'm not sure if other people do
is I use a stopwatch app on my iPhone to time myself I make sure to take a break
every hour just go on my phone for like 20 minutes
timing myself helps me prioritize my classes that need more attention so if
I'm have a four hour period to study I might spend two hours on one class that
needs a lot of my attention and then the other two hours on to other classes that
need a lot less attention timing myself really helps me keep myself on track and
when I have a timer I noticed that I spend a lot more time on studying
and I'm less likely to goof off or get distracted so timing yourself really
helps keep yourself accountable now I'm gonna give you guys some tips on how to
save time when you're studying if you're cramming this is really important so if
you're deciding between Quizlet or hand-drawn flashcards choose Quizlet
over the hand-drawn because Quizlet takes a lot less time and you'll have
more time to study it thoroughly take notes and pencil not pen when I use
pen I tend to be more meticulous and try to make my notes perfect which takes a
lot more time than if I do them in pencil so taking them in pencil really
helps me get my notes done quicker and more productively make sure you're real
with yourself about studying with friends I know during finals week it's
really fun to suffer together but studying with friends can be a really
big down turn in your studying if you're not productive with your friends so if
you have to study by yourself then study by yourself it's really better to just
be real with yourself and know who you're gonna study well with the last
thing is to make sure that you still take care of yourself during finals week
I know that finals can seem like they're the most important thing in the world
and that you need to sacrifice everything to study for these finals I
tend to do that and I just have to remind myself to eat drink water take
breaks and make sure I get enough sleep it's also important to stick to your
usual daily routines so if you work out in the morning stay working out in the
morning if you go to bed at 10:00 p.m. go to bed at 10:00 p.m. unless you're
really desperate because staying to these usual routines will help you keep
a healthy mental state and will help you overall just study better for your
finals okay guys that's it for my study tips video I hope that you guys got some
valuable information from this and I wish you all the best of luck with your
finals don't forget to comment like and subscribe to become part of the Kaitlyn
films family I appreciate and love you all so so much I will see you guys next
week in another video peace out guys