studying efficiently

[eyelovepuns]

Hi!

I'm finishing up undergrad this spring and start optometry school in the fall. The last few semesters I have been able to get into a study groove that has helped bring up my grades, but my current study strategies involve me slowly working through each textbook chapter, taking an outline, and recopying lecture notes to help get info into my head. However, sometimes I feel like the retention of this info isn't very long term. What are some ways that I can maximize the amount of material that I can truly learn & retain while working quickly (so I can get through more content before getting burnt out)?

Thank you!

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[WhyNeedAName]

Hi!

I'm finishing up undergrad this spring and start optometry school in the fall. The last few semesters I have been able to get into a study groove that has helped bring up my grades, but my current study strategies involve me slowly working through each textbook chapter, taking an outline, and recopying lecture notes to help get info into my head. However, sometimes I feel like the retention of this info isn't very long term. What are some ways that I can maximize the amount of material that I can truly learn & retain while working quickly (so I can get through more content before getting burnt out)?

Thank you!

Just replying because I'm interested too. I study the same way but I retain stuff and am wondering how to shorten it while having the same effect.

 

[percyeye]

I'm a "newer-ish" (Been working 2 years now) so I still remember school well. For one everyone will study different so you will have to find what works best for you.

It took me a few quarters in to find my groove but I can share what I did and what worked well for me. I had some classmates that could just read a lecture slowly and thoroughly and really retain quite a bit of it, but I just could never do that.

And for one there probably won't be many textbooks/ or notebooks because almost everything nowadays is done on a computer. Every single one of our lectures was given to use usually in PDF or power point form.

The way that I would study would be when I got the slides I would go through them the first day I got them, and then when another lecture was added a couple days later I would again go through the first lecture (more quickly this time) and then go through the new lecture. By the time a test has come up you probably will have anywhere from 8-12 lectures. But every day I would go through every single lecture, but the first lectures should be pretty quick because you have seen them many times already. I found that by test time I had gone through the lectures a decent amount that I just had to barely brisk over most of them and I really could concentrate on the stuff I didn't understand well and nail that stuff down. It was probably overkill compared to some classmates but sometimes I'd get questions on the test and I could literally tell you where and which slide the answer was on. It really is more efficient to study on a computer vs notebook.

So as most says starting early is always better. And you will have to find what works best for you, and this way just worked best for my study habits.