By Tiffany Xu, Staff Writer

As it’s now a new year, it’s time to start this semester right. One good way to improve this year is to improve your studying. This will start 2022 on the right track, and to end up in a successful and proud year.
When improving the way you study, looking back from last year semesters may be an effective way to study. Thinking about the way you study, figure out which parts helped you and which didn’t. You can emphasize on the ways that helped you become most successful. Get rid of the methods that don’t seem to help, it’ll waste time and won’t do anything to move you forward. Looking back from my own studying methods, I realize that I should spend less time procrastinating over the thought of studying and to just do it.  Before studying, I would think about assignments I need to get done and upcoming assessments that I need to prepare myself for but it always ends up being unsuccessful. Another habit that I have is always studying at the last minute. I have learned that it is a poor way to prepare myself, so I know that I should learn to organize my schedule.
Sometimes, to-do lists don’t always do the job to get everything done. It may be very satisfying to cross things off a list, but it also gives an illusion as you could finish the rest another day. A more effective way is to schedule time for each assignment or topic. This ensures that you’ll get more done and more efficiently. Another method is the pomodoro method. It’s a time management system where you work for 25 minutes, take a break for 5 minutes, and after four rounds of those, take a longer break of about 15-20 minutes. A further tip is that if something you think you need to do before studying, ask yourself if it takes less than 2 minutes, if it does, then do it, if not, don’t.
This may be obvious, but try to avoid being near your phone or any device that may distract you. You’ll end up procrastinating, losing focus and losing momentum of studying and getting your work done. Multitasking can also form poor study habits. It may seem like a practical idea, getting more work done at once and taking up less time, but in reality it’s not the best way to study. To enhance your studying to the top, it’s best to know what type of learning you fit best with; visual, auditory, writing/reading, and kinesthetic. Personally, I fit most into the visual learning category, followed closely by kinesthetic learning. This means most of my studying would be using videos, diagrams, and patterns. Sometimes just doing practice problems might not help as well because if you can’t solve it you won’t be able to solve any problem. It’s better to learn and try one practice problem to see where you get stuck and learn to solve the problem.
I find it easier to understand concepts by pretending you’re explaining it to someone that doesn’t know anything about it. If I’m able to explain it easily, it signals that I fully understand. I also find that writing notes can be very helpful but at the same time, can be time consuming. When I write notes, I learn as I write and end up not really needing the notes after. Sometimes writing notes takes a lot of time, by the time you finish writing all the notes you would need for an upcoming test, I wouldn’t be able to actually use the notes since I spent all of the time writing them. So the best option is to make the most important notes, and if I have time, to add more notes. Another method would be to make the notes as you learn them during class, so you don’t waste as much time.
Using new tips and techniques, you should be able to ensure you will get a more fortunate year. This could help along the years of school there still is left.