The University Study Tip Thread
Getting grips to university can be quite difficult for us students; so here I will explain how I managed to turn my grades around and put myself on track for a first class degree.
I didn’t take my first year at university as seriously as perhaps I could have done. Having said that, I did work hard enough to ensure I passed every module with no retakes! I spent much of my time enjoying thee xcellent social life at university, rather than concentrating on the academic side. The highest grade I achieved in my first year was 51%, not ideal.
Once I finished my first year, I had time to reflect and think about how I could improve my grades. I was spending 3-4 nights a week enjoying the student life, whilst spending just 1 day per week actually studying outside lectures and tutorials.
With the help and advice of my university’s Student Services,I cut down my socialising and spent more time reading, studying and more reading.
My socialising went down from several nights a week to, on average, twice a month. My first semester results came back, and after all the changes I had made to my lifestyle, my lowest grade was 73% and highest was 86%, to my delight! I carried on with my study timetable right the way through until the end of my second year, where I now have an average of 79% and am on track for a first class honours degree.
So, my advice to any new undergraduates, is, if you want to go places in your career, party out of term time and study hard in term time.You will be surprised to see what you can achieve with a little bit of dedication and commitment.
- If anyone else has any study tips that they have used, and has worked, please share!-
I didn’t take my first year at university as seriously as perhaps I could have done. Having said that, I did work hard enough to ensure I passed every module with no retakes! I spent much of my time enjoying thee xcellent social life at university, rather than concentrating on the academic side. The highest grade I achieved in my first year was 51%, not ideal.
Once I finished my first year, I had time to reflect and think about how I could improve my grades. I was spending 3-4 nights a week enjoying the student life, whilst spending just 1 day per week actually studying outside lectures and tutorials.
With the help and advice of my university’s Student Services,I cut down my socialising and spent more time reading, studying and more reading.
My socialising went down from several nights a week to, on average, twice a month. My first semester results came back, and after all the changes I had made to my lifestyle, my lowest grade was 73% and highest was 86%, to my delight! I carried on with my study timetable right the way through until the end of my second year, where I now have an average of 79% and am on track for a first class honours degree.
So, my advice to any new undergraduates, is, if you want to go places in your career, party out of term time and study hard in term time.You will be surprised to see what you can achieve with a little bit of dedication and commitment.
- If anyone else has any study tips that they have used, and has worked, please share!-
(edited 8 years ago)
You guys are ruining my content plan for August and September! 
:fuhrer:
Great thread!
I'll see what we can do to promote it.
:fuhrer:Great thread!
I'll see what we can do to promote it.
All brilliant advice @CharlieK94
my advice for good grades:
Start as early as you possibly can, you never know what life might throw at you.
Read widely (this got me from getting 45-60 in 1st year to all my essay grades above 70% in the second/final year of my HND, graduated with a 68% average
)
Learn how to use boolean logic (especially handy to make sure you dont miss out on any articles in american english).
Be critical of what you are reading.
Read the module handbooks thoroughly, i lost count of the questions asked by my coursemates that could be answered from reading the handbooks:P
Most of all, know where to get help if you need it, if life throw a sudden bad circumstance at you, dont deal with it alone go see your personal tutor, student support or module leader as soon as you feel up to it,getting help as soon as possible means anything is less likely to derail you from good grades.
my advice for good grades:
Start as early as you possibly can, you never know what life might throw at you.
Read widely (this got me from getting 45-60 in 1st year to all my essay grades above 70% in the second/final year of my HND, graduated with a 68% average
)Learn how to use boolean logic (especially handy to make sure you dont miss out on any articles in american english).
Be critical of what you are reading.
Read the module handbooks thoroughly, i lost count of the questions asked by my coursemates that could be answered from reading the handbooks:P
Most of all, know where to get help if you need it, if life throw a sudden bad circumstance at you, dont deal with it alone go see your personal tutor, student support or module leader as soon as you feel up to it,getting help as soon as possible means anything is less likely to derail you from good grades.
oh and learn how to use the dewi decimal system (very sad of me) but i swear give me the code and i can find any book in the uni library now without a doubt:P
Original post by CharlieK94
Getting grips to university can be quite difficult for us students; so here I will explain how I managed to turn my grades around and put myself on track for a first class degree.
I didn’t take my first year at university as seriously as perhaps I could have done. Having said that, I did work hard enough to ensure I passed every module with no retakes! I spent much of my time enjoying thee xcellent social life at university, rather than concentrating on the academic side. The highest grade I achieved in my first year was 51%, not ideal.
Once I finished my first year, I had time to reflect and think about how I could improve my grades. I was spending 3-4 nights a week enjoying the student life, whilst spending just 1 day per week actually studying outside lectures and tutorials.
With the help and advice of my university’s Student Services,I cut down my socialising and spent more time reading, studying and more reading.
My socialising went down from several nights a week to, on average, twice a month. My first semester results came back, and after all the changes I had made to my lifestyle, my lowest grade was 73% and highest was 86%, to my delight! I carried on with my study timetable right the way through until the end of my second year, where I now have an average of 79% and am on track for a first class honours degree.
So, my advice to any new undergraduates, is, if you want to go places in your career, party out of term time and study hard in term time.You will be surprised to see what you can achieve with a little bit of dedication and commitment.
- If anyone else has any study tips that they have used, and has worked, please share!-
I didn’t take my first year at university as seriously as perhaps I could have done. Having said that, I did work hard enough to ensure I passed every module with no retakes! I spent much of my time enjoying thee xcellent social life at university, rather than concentrating on the academic side. The highest grade I achieved in my first year was 51%, not ideal.
Once I finished my first year, I had time to reflect and think about how I could improve my grades. I was spending 3-4 nights a week enjoying the student life, whilst spending just 1 day per week actually studying outside lectures and tutorials.
With the help and advice of my university’s Student Services,I cut down my socialising and spent more time reading, studying and more reading.
My socialising went down from several nights a week to, on average, twice a month. My first semester results came back, and after all the changes I had made to my lifestyle, my lowest grade was 73% and highest was 86%, to my delight! I carried on with my study timetable right the way through until the end of my second year, where I now have an average of 79% and am on track for a first class honours degree.
So, my advice to any new undergraduates, is, if you want to go places in your career, party out of term time and study hard in term time.You will be surprised to see what you can achieve with a little bit of dedication and commitment.
- If anyone else has any study tips that they have used, and has worked, please share!-
I've just finished my first year at University and averaged at 84%, giving me a First for first year (shame it doesnt count really!).
The study tips I would give to freshers are:
1. You're never going to regret studying more than partying. Yes enjoy freshers and do have fun, but come results day you see the consequences. Balance out work and play, you only get out what you put in.
2. PLAN! Make a timetable for your week, first putting in your lectures/seminars, then add in any societies you want to go to, add in time to do laundry/food shopping and see what time you have left. I split my free time 50/50 (until nearer exam time that is) studying and socialising. Closer to exam time I changed this to a 70/30 split, but it depends what grade you want as to how much work you need to put in.
3. Prioritise! Make a list of all the assignments you have for each semester, their weighting and their due dates. Once you've got your list, order them in date order - this is the order you need to complete them in. If for some reason you end up with 2 assignments needing to be in the same day and you can only do 1, pick the one with the higher weighting!
4. Actually read the recommended reading, it isn't just there for the sake of it. I made sure I had read the recommended reading for each of my lectures before going into them, that way I knew what was coming and familiarised myself with the key concepts. It makes the lecture so much easier and interesting when you already have a basic understanding.
5. If possible, write out the lecture notes before you go into the lecture. At my uni lecture slides were available to see 1 day before the lecture took place, so I would make the notes I needed. Don't just copy the slides word for word. Make them into notes that you understand. I then took these notes into the lecture with me and annotated them with important info being said by the lecturer. If you already have your notes with you then you can spend more time listening to what is being said
I would agree with everything said above, and the best thing to do as soon as you get to university is make friends with people who have already done first year, and get their advice on student life and studying. It's always hard to find a balance but if you're organised and forward-thinking (i.e. if you now when your lectures and deadlines are, keep files in order, plan social occasions tightly, etc.) you'll be able to strike that balance.
This is a good advice article written by a second year which covers similar points and a lot more besides - deffo worth a read!
http://www.talentcupboard.com/employability/how-to-survive-your-first-year-at-uni-advice-from-a-second-year/
This is a good advice article written by a second year which covers similar points and a lot more besides - deffo worth a read!
http://www.talentcupboard.com/employability/how-to-survive-your-first-year-at-uni-advice-from-a-second-year/
1. Start work as early as possible. Cannot emphasize this one enough, especially if you're a person who gets easily stressed out, like me. This often leaves you time to leave a piece of work you're stuck on and come back to it later with a fresh mind, but still enough time to get it done.
2. On a related note, do leave time to proofread your work, and also get other people to have a look at it. Sometimes you can be so wrapped up in doing something, or get so bored of doing a piece of work, that you don't spot the mistakes or things you could improve, so it helps to get someone with an outsider perspective to give their opinion on it. You don't always have to follow their advice but sometimes it can improve a piece of work by a lot.
3. If you're in a productive mood, work for as long as possible, until you run out of steam. Try to work out what time of day you're at your most productive, and try to work then. Another thing I found useful to stop myself spending too much time procrastinating was to work for say 50 minutes solidly, and allow myself 10 minutes for procrastination to get it out of my system, then repeat.
4. If you're really struggling to focus, take a break and come back to it later. This is where starting work early comes in useful.
5. Look at any mark schemes you're provided with so you know what you're expected to do to get the higher marks.
6. Don't work constantly and let yourself burn out. Pace yourself. Again, this is why starting early is good. Give yourself enough time to relax and de-stress. Learning to do this will help you later in life too.
2. On a related note, do leave time to proofread your work, and also get other people to have a look at it. Sometimes you can be so wrapped up in doing something, or get so bored of doing a piece of work, that you don't spot the mistakes or things you could improve, so it helps to get someone with an outsider perspective to give their opinion on it. You don't always have to follow their advice but sometimes it can improve a piece of work by a lot.
3. If you're in a productive mood, work for as long as possible, until you run out of steam. Try to work out what time of day you're at your most productive, and try to work then. Another thing I found useful to stop myself spending too much time procrastinating was to work for say 50 minutes solidly, and allow myself 10 minutes for procrastination to get it out of my system, then repeat.
4. If you're really struggling to focus, take a break and come back to it later. This is where starting work early comes in useful.
5. Look at any mark schemes you're provided with so you know what you're expected to do to get the higher marks.
6. Don't work constantly and let yourself burn out. Pace yourself. Again, this is why starting early is good. Give yourself enough time to relax and de-stress. Learning to do this will help you later in life too.
I try to finish essays a week early to leave time to come back after a couple of days for proofreading. I didn't do this for my final assignment of 2nd year (wanted to go home early for summer!) and the marker's comments really picked up on it! I still got a first, but if I'd proofread it, I could have got a higher mark, therefore improving my overall 2nd year mark!
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