Ironically,
I was forced to self-study throughout my high school and college years.
It now became a habit for me to the level that I could hardly learn
anything in lectures and prefer to self study.
Before providing you with several tips, I should provide an information about myself to make it easy for you to decide if you want to read the rest or scroll down to the next answer, which is perfectly fine.
In high school, I studied damn hard for the International Chemistry Olympiad (ICHO) for 4 years. What made the process even harder were that
(1) there was no professor to teach the subject
(2) no internet to watch online lectures
(3) the (university level) books were in English and my English was terrible
… so on.
What I did was basically to put in as much of sweat and tears to studying as possible. Particularly in my senior year at high school, my schedule was to get up, study, and go to bed for every single day of the week. The only free time I had was Sunday after lunch (which I spent playing soccer).
I would've done so many things differently, had I had a chance to go back.
To make things more challenging, I ended up going to the best school in Korea for undergrad (where I finished double major requirements in 3 yrs). The best comes with a price. It was an ordinary thing to see people sleeping in the library, or it feels so natural seeing the library full of people at 4–5 am in the morning.
The students are the best and the brightest in the country and I assume you are familiar with the hardworking culture in East Asia (or have probably heard of the work culture at Samsung, LG, etc.).
The reason to mention all about this is to give you the glimpse of competition and hard work, which, obviously, reflected on the class atmosphere and test scores. Since the grades are relative, your achievement is judged based on how well the other students do. So the competition is on fire!
Besides, I skipped most of the classes in college (plz don't do it "if" you find the class interesting). For me, classes were really boring and I was back to self studying again.
Plus, after being to several institutions across the globe, I was lucky to observe and experience how others study/work as well.
Here are the several tips I use.
Connect with real life applications to trigger the curiousity.
I have met so many people with perfect GPAs who have no clue about how to utilize what they know in real life. I have always found it boring to study or read something that I don't see any use of. Let me elaborate.
Let's say, I am studying the Mass and Heat Transfer course (which is considered as one of the toughest courses in Chem Eng). I go through the chapter and see that we are manufacturing electronic chips for smart phones by the end of the chapter. This turns me on! Then I start questioning what are the important factors to manufacture an electronic chip with desired properties and how do I get there (there are so many other examples I can list).
On the other hand, most of the classes start with providing you with certain equations and how you could use them to solve problems from the book. Although the course was (and still is) considered tough, it was full of applications and I couldn't wait for the prof to teach me and rather finished the chapters on my own in couple of days.
Because, I was curious. Because, it is the boredom that's the seed of laziness, not you.
Laser sharp focus and tight windows to increase the efficiency
I am against the conventional notion of studying for 45 mins and taking a break. I used to follow this rule/tip in high school (one of my mistakes).
If I do that now, I feel like I just finished the appetizer at a restaurant and am now asked to leave before the main dish.
The reason is that I don't get to enjoy the pleasure (that pain turns into a pleasure "if" the curiosity is turned on) of learning. I feel denied from going deep into what I am studying/reading. It feels incomplete.
Most of the hardworking people I have met study for solid 3–4 hours (fully focused) and then go do something else (and don't give a damn about what they are studying). Come back after a while and focus on their study again.
On the other hand, I have met people who spend the entire day in the library without getting anything solid done!
The psychology I observe behind this is that the mind keeps telling you to postpone your main responsibility and do something else for a while since you have the entire day to study in the library. This leads you to procrastination.
If you know that you only got couple of hours to get your homework/study done and you have no luxury of spending an additional minute, then you are fully focused and on fire! Because, you have no other choice but to get the job done. This is where the stress is useful in life. To increase the efficiency!
Move on
One of the mistakes (or I would call an "inefficient method") I see with some people is to stick to a certain point for hours and hours.
Sure, I get it that some of the advanced topics sap too much of energy out of you.
But there are other things to think about. It is possible that that particular book doesn't explain the topic in the best way for you. Researching other (online) sources make it more efficient to grasp the topic.
Besides, the equation or the topic you are stuck with on a particular page looks way easier once you go through the next few pages.
Question
I usually scan through (with a bird's eye look) the chapter or whatever I am gonna read. This makes it easy to see the big picture and connect the dots.
Then, questioning the concept makes it easy to (1) understand and (2) remember.
Also, I take lots of notes and write weird stuff/comments on notes to remember them. Although I don't (almost never) read my notes again, writing down some stuff increases the efficiency.
For memorizing, read before bed.
Personally, I found this pretty effective. Because, whatever I read or memorize before bed, I could usually vividly recall it in the morning. So it is quite natural for me but, I also came across a scientific article approving this, claiming that it is has something to do with the way we sleep (I cannot confirm how accurate this is).
On the other hand, if I study to understand a new concept, a fresh start in the morning works the best.
Warning: it is highly likely that you would end up dreaming about whatever you memorize/read before bed (at least it is the case for me). Few examples were that I ended up wrestling with 3D chemical structures, investigated space shuttle with Richard Feynmann, solved matrices to decide if I need to wake up (d=0) or not (d is not equal to 0) and so on.
I don't claim that these are the best tips or they will work out for you. I developed these methods (for me) after couple of years of inefficient study habits and learning from my mistakes. I would've done things differently had I learned/analyzed enough about myself.
Hope that helps!
-Perman Jo, Ph.D Chemical Engineering, University of Cambridge (2021)
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