5 university study techniques

The university stage is one of the most important in any student’s life. A new world to explore, the beginning of adult life. It is undoubtedly a complicated thing to face, especially if it is the first time you find yourself taking on this kind of responsibility. That is why, in order to help you cope with this stage of your life, we present the following 5 most effective study techniques for university students today.

1.- Create a realistic study timetable

The first thing you should take into account is the distribution of time that you are going to implement in your day to day. It is therefore highly recommended that you establish a timetable that is neither pretentious nor generates a situation in which one activity clashes with another.

Thus, we call this ideal timetable a «Realistic Study Timetable» where all your activities are balanced and at no time does the time you devote to one activity prevent you from applying your due attention to another of your daily activities and obligations as a university student.

Although this schedule can vary significantly, the most important thing to consider is your whole picture, for example;

If you have a class schedule of 4 or 5 hours a day and no other obligations, you can dedicate at least a couple of extra hours to delve a little deeper into the topics you are dealing with in each subject.
If, on the other hand, you have a schedule of 4 or 5 hours a day and a part-time job, it is probably quite difficult for you to get enough sleep and at the same time devote the necessary attention to your classes at the university, so you should probably dedicate between an hour to half an hour of study to the subjects where you have more difficulty, so you will continue resting a little, and in turn you can answer those doubts that have not been settled in class.

2.- Make use of mindmaps and outlines: one of the best known study techniques

You have probably heard about the effectiveness of mindmaps and diagrams for daily organisation and for preparing complex subjects, and the truth is that it is one of the best study techniques we can recommend.

In this sense, consider applying them to organise your time and study. This way you will be able to understand and cover much more in a short time, being more efficient in your studies and also in your day-to-day life outside the classroom.

But don’t forget what each one is for;

Mindmaps are diagrams commonly used to represent ideas or other similar concepts, arranging them around a key word or a central idea. As such, they are a very effective method for extracting and memorising information.

Diagrams allow you to design an orderly arrangement of the most important points or issues of a topic or subject, describing how these points relate to each of the other points that make up the chart.

Bearing this in mind, we can say that these tools are among the most effective study techniques for university students.

3.- Do you know mnemonics?

This is one of the most common memorisation techniques used by university students. Thanks to this technique, you can associate certain words or information with certain gestures or images that your brain will relate directly. Therefore, you will remember much more easily at the time of an evaluation or an exam in the faculty.

It is undoubtedly one of the most effective. But it requires particular study as it involves learning to deal with each of the ways in which your brain is influenced by external agents. In this sense it allows you to establish a more effective and direct link between your gestures or keywords and the content you wish to learn.

4.- Give yourself tests and exercises

Tests and self-assessments are one of the most direct and effective ways to improve your learning of theoretical content. If you want to make progress with a subject that has a lot of bibliographical content, after dedicating a few hours of study to it. Consider a short test or exam to check how well you have mastered the topic you need to learn before heading for the actual assessment.

The same applies for assessments in more practical subjects, although in these cases tests with simple questions are not as effective. Practice through exercises may be one of the most effective undergraduate study techniques.

In conclusion, learn when to apply these techniques. As we have stated in the previous paragraphs, both are very effective, however, each one has its own speciality, so to speak. Example;

If you have an evaluation of a topic full of curious facts and a lot of bibliography, you can use the test. Because its distribution is more effective to evaluate theoretical topics.

However, if you have a mathematics assessment, the best thing to do is to test yourself with exercises.

5.- Explain the subject out loud to your partner

Another very effective way is to get together with your classmates in a study group and one by one start explaining the subject you have to study. This is very easy, as it does not require that the answers are always correct, but rather that a particular reasoning is given for each point of the subject to be studied.

Thus, with each intervention and as if it were a Socratic mayeutic, they will be able to arrive at the correct answer.