Studying to Understand and Remember

Work Together

One way to enhance your memory is to study with others. Each of you can check specific facts and details and share strategies you use for remembering them. You can also motivate and support one another.

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• Pay attention and avoid distractions. This suggestion is the most basic but the most important. If you’re sitting in class thinking about everything except what the professor is saying, or if you’re reading and you find that your mind is wandering, you’re wasting your time. Force yourself to focus. Review your responses to the questions in Figure 6.1.
• Be confident that you can improve your memory. Recall successes from the past when you learned things that you didn’t think you could or would remember. Choose memory improvement strategies that best fit your preferred learning styles: aural, visual, reading, kinesthetic. Identify the courses where you can make the best use of each memory strategy.
• Overlearn the material. Once you think you understand the material you’re studying, go over it again to make sure that you’ll remember it for a long time. Test yourself, or ask someone else to test you. Repeat what you’re trying to remember out loud and in your own words. Explain it to another person.
• Make studying a part of your daily routine. Don’t allow days to go by when you don’t open a book or keep up with course assignments. Make studying a daily habit!
• Check the Internet. If you’re having trouble remembering what you have learned, Google a key word and try to find interesting details that will engage you in learning more about the subject. Many first-year courses cover such a large amount of material that you might miss some interesting details unless you look for them yourself. As your interest increases, so will your memory about the topic. Make sure to check multiple online sources.
• Go beyond memorizing words, and focus on understanding and then remembering the big concepts and ideas. Keep asking yourself questions like “what is the main point here? Is there a big idea?” Whenever you begin a course, review the syllabus, talk with someone who has already taken the course, and take a brief look at all the reading assignments. Having the big picture will help you understand and remember the details of what you’re learning. For example, the big picture for a first-year college success class is to give students the knowledge and strategies to be successful in college.
• Look for connections between your life and what’s going on in the content of your courses. College courses might seem unrelated to you and your goals, but if you look more carefully, you’ll find many connections between course material and your daily life. Seeing those connections will make your courses more interesting and will help you remember what you’re learning. For example, if you’re taking a sociology class and studying marriage and the family, think about how your own family experiences relate to those described in your readings or in the lectures.
• Get organized. If your desk or your computer is organized, you won’t waste time trying to remember where you put a particular document or what name you gave to a file. And as you rewrite your notes, putting them in an order that makes sense to you (for example, by topic or by date) will help you learn and remember them.
• Reduce the stress in your life. Many two-year college students experience stress because they have to juggle college, work, and family life. To manage the stress that arises, take another look at the strategies in the chapter on Managing Time, Energy, and Money. Stress-reducing habits such as eating well and getting enough exercise and sleep are especially important for college students (see the chapter on Managing Your Health, Emotions, and Relationships in a Diverse World) Remember, too, that your college probably has a counseling or health center where you can seek help in dealing with whatever might be causing stress in your daily life.
• Collaborate. In your first year of college, join a group of students who study together. Your instructors or the college learning center can help organize study groups. Study groups can meet throughout the term or can get together only to review for midterm or final exams.
• Get a tutor. Tutoring is not just for students who are failing. Often the best students ask for help to make sure that they understand course material. Most tutors are students, and most community college tutoring services are free.