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How to Study in College

If you’re wondering how to study in college, it is all about developing a system that works for you! But there are also skills everyone needs when it comes to reading efficiently, preparing for discussion sessions, taking excellent in-class notes, and reviewing your notes before exams and writing papers.

When I graduated from my public high school and started college at Yale University, I discovered that I needed to learn to study in new ways. I faced a lot more assigned reading, complex and lengthy writing assignments, and advanced lectures. My high school study skills didn’t help me enough anymore, and I had to develop new ones. So, what’s the trick for how to study in college?

In this blog, I’ll focus on my tips for two study skills that every college student needs: active reading and strategic note-taking.

Active Reading

So much of studying in college takes the form of reading. Heavy reading loads don’t only appear in Humanities classes. If you’re a STEM student, you might be surprised by how much you’re expected to read to prepare for your classes.

In STEM classes, you’ll be expected to read to prepare for lectures, read after lectures, read to prepare for labs, and read to study material for exams. In Humanities classes, your grade will be based on what you write (about what you read) and what you say in class (about what you read). I think it’s clear that reading is the most fundamental skill for success in college.

Many college classes have a lot of reading assigned each week, and if you fall behind it can feel like an overwhelming challenge to catch up. So, in talking about how to study in college, I’ll focus on how to succeed at college reading and managing your reading.

1. Know your syllabus

Where do the major assignments fall? How much reading is expected per week? You need to look at your syllabi together to understand when during the semester you’ll be busy and how much reading you need to do per week across your different classes.

2. Make a reading game plan

No one can do all of their weekly reading for a class in one sitting. If you’re figuring out how to study in college, be sure to break this reading up. If you have a study plan, you’ll start your reading early. The most intimidating thing is to feel like you’re behind and trying to do a ton of reading at once.

3. Learn to prioritize

But the reality is, you’re bound to fall behind at some point. What should you do if your study plan goes awry? If you leave reading until the night before the class, it feels daunting. If you don’t get your reading done for a class one week, it piles up. In this situation, you need to prioritize. What is most important for you to read? Were there certain chapters with key ideas? Review your lecture or discussion notes. What came up often? What did the professor focus on? Start there.

But, managing college reading isn’t only about the number of pages. It’s about reading comprehension. How do you figure out the important parts of what you read? How do you assess what you’ll be tested on? How do you prepare for a discussion based on what you’ve read?

4. Markup your text

Because you’re starting early, you need to remember content for the next discussion and test. This means being “an active reader.” An active reader reads with a pen in hand and “marks up” the text as they go. This is a lot more than just underlining. Write questions in the margins. Mark 2-3 passages that seem incredibly significant. At the end of each chapter, write a few bullet points on the last page with the main ideas of that chapter (and sticky note mark that page, so you can quickly find it again!) Then, when you review for tests, you can easily find the main ideas. 

5. Go to office hours

If you’re struggling in a class, show up at office hours with a marked-up book. Ask your professor to look at the way you’re marking-up your text as you read. Ask them questions! Are you missing key ideas? Do you need to be more detail-oriented? This is about learning how to study for that specific class. Professors love these kinds of questions that show your work. This also gets you real, concrete advice from the person grading you, which never hurts.

6. Be ready to participate

For a Humanities class that is discussion-based, you must markup the text in advance so that you’re ready to talk when you get to class. Participation will be a big part of your grade and no one can participate without processing what they’ve read.

Your reading goal should be to generate 2-3 good points you could make in class. As you read, mark passages that can be used to support your ideas about the text. Write down the 2-3 main claims you’d make about the reading you did. What’s your understanding and interpretation of what you read? State that in your own words! (Again, write a few bullet points at the end of each chapter to help you remember).

Strategic Note-Taking

If you’re reading efficiently and productively, you’ll be well-prepared for each class. But in class, you’ll need to take excellent notes. Your lecture notes, plus your assigned reading, will be the main items to review for any college exam.

A lot of time can pass between a particular lecture and the exam on that material! Writing information down and organizing it visually will help you in the long run. Think of your notes as both in-class practice of your comprehension and a record for your personal study and review.

1. Outline your notes

Before you arrive at a lecture, you should have a good idea of what will be covered that day. You have basic information about the lecture content from your syllabus and you have completed the assigned reading for the class (if you’ve followed the tips above). Now, try making an outline of the lecture you expect to hear before you even hear it.

What are the main ideas from those chapters of the book? How are those ideas connected? What are the sub concepts and principles within those main ideas? If you go into class with an outline, you’ll be prepared to map new content onto ideas you already know.

2. Review your notes after every lecture

A good college friend of mine, whom I considered one of the best “studiers” I knew, reviewed every single set of lecture notes the morning after the lecture. He scheduled in 30 minutes per lecture to review his notes. Through this review, he was quickly testing himself and reviewing the material that had been taught the previous day.

This is an amazing strategy, which requires diligence and organization, but saves time in the long-run. Waiting until midterms or exams to start studying means you have a lot to re-learn. Studying in small chunks along the way will help you retain information and will mean you’re well-prepared already when you start reviewing for an exam. 

3. Audio record lectures

I used to underestimate the value of lecture recordings until I saw a friend doing this in college. This strategy, of course, requires you to ask the professor for permission, and often means you need to sit up front to capture good audio. But recordings on your laptop (as you take written notes) are incredibly valuable.

You can combine this strategy with your day-after review. During that review, fill-in any gaps in your written notes by revisiting the lecture. Your notes will guide you to your places of confusion and further questions in the lecture. You don’t need to listen to the full-lecture again if you’ve taken good notes. If you’re recording on your laptop, you can even write down the timestamps for sections of the recorded lecture that you found confusing.

Hopefully you can apply some of this advice to your own study habits! Most importantly, if you’re not succeeding with your college studying, try something new. It takes time and trial-and-error to really figure out how to study in college.