Studying Doesn’t Have To Be Aesthetic

How to Finish

I drew this poster for Jon Acuff and his FINISH book tour. Big thanks to Jon for this collaboration, his book has some great ideas about how to complete creative and life goals.

How to Hermione the Shit out of Your Studying.

(Some Hermione inspired study tips.)

Want to study.

Hermione studies as hard as she does because she wants to. So try to think about WHY you want to study, is it because you are interested in the subject? Is it because you want a certain grade? Is it because you want to pass the subject to go on to something else? Once you figure that out, then you can go from feeling like you “have” to study to feeling like you want to study. Remember that you don’t have to study if you don’t want to, but usually you will want to, because you would rather study than face the consequences of not studying.

Read EVERYTHING.

While it may not be necessary to read every word of every textbook before your classes even start, it will be extremely helpful to read any chapters, articles, websites or extra information your lecturers give you. Do any extra questions as well. Usually your lecture would have gone out of his/her way to get this information to you, this is because they think it will help you, and it probably will.

Answer questions in class.

Trying to answer questions in class will help to keep you concentrated on the topic at hand, you can’t answer questions if you haven’t been paying attention. This will not only show your lecturer that you are interested in learning (and they may be more lenient on you if you are ever after an extension or miss a class) it will also help you to identify when you don’t understand something, and gives you the chance to clarify.

Help others.

“Its leviooosar, not leviosaarr.” … Okay, so maybe try help others in a more understanding way. But when you see someone struggling with something in class or an assignment, help them. This is something that pretty much everyone will appreciate, and it can also help you to solidify your own knowledge. There have been heaps of studies that show that you are much more likely to retain information once you have taught someone else about it.

Get things done early.

This is one that pretty much everyone knows, but very few ever do. Try to be one of those few, if you get assignments or readings done early, then you can always ask questions if you get stuck on something, have more time to work on other things, not feel stressed about it, you’ll have the chance to polish up anything you aren’t super happy with and more. Trust me, it is worth it.

Find a nice environment to study in.

Some people like their desk while others like their bed and some people fall asleep if they study in bed. Find something that works for you. I find that if I take a trip to my local café or library I am much more motivated because I have gone there for the purpose of studying.. Whereas at home I sometimes I find it too distracting.

Don’t forget to take time to have fun.

While Hermione does study a lot, she also has fun and enjoys herself. Studying and learning is awesome, but give yourself some time to unwind. Don’t let yourself get burnt out, take regular brakes during long study sessions, and try to set bigger chunks of time aside some days to relax, play games or see friends. You might feel fine after the first 2 hours, but after an 8 hour study session with no breaks.. You may not feel so motivated…

i think one of the biggest problems i have with getting stuff done is i assume it’s easy for other people. like “she gets up at six every morning because she’s a morning person” or “yeah, he can run five miles every day but he likes running” or “she knows five languages, her brains just wired differently than mine” when in reality it’s all about discipline for everyone. like yeah, some people have natural aptitudes for some things but anyone that’s accomplishing anything is putting in the work. achievements don’t come easy, and i think if i start acknowledging that it’s like that for everyone i can stop making excuses

one of my lecturers printed us a step-by-step guide to writing an essay for an assignment we had. i decided to type it up and share it with you guys. i think for the most part it is really useful and a super simple way to break down your essay. hope this helps :~)

I’m pretty sure I haven’t left my desk for the last 12 hours but it’ll all be worth it tomorrow! My mildliners arrived and they are SO cute, I can see what all the fuss is about now ^.^

“Until the very end” | promotional pictures from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

How I Got Straight A’s in My First Year of University

I was so proud of myself when I received firsts (that’s A’s for those not attending uni in the UK) on all of my assessments in my first year at university. Here are some tips for y’all to try at any point in university. They may be specific at times to my experience—my degree is in the social sciences and humanities, and I’m studying in the UK—but I did try to make them more generally applicable, and hopefully they should be helpful to someone out there.

Part One: Everyday Study Routine

Before the start of the academic year, try to get in a little bit of preparation. See if there are any syllabi or reading lists posted online. You don’t have to pour over them, of course, but do attempt to do something, and have a basic grasp on what will be covered in your classes.

Go to all your lectures and seminars. Unless you absolutely have to miss class because you are ill or have an important obligation to take care of, it’s really important to attend your lectures every day. (Note: if you are struggling with mental or chronic illness or a disability, don’t beat yourself up if you keep missing class. Please take care of yourself.) You may be tempted to just look at the PowerPoint presentation online, but it’s much more effective to be there in person. Often the lecturer may include information or extra explanations which are not included in the presentation. It will also allow you to process the information aurally as well as visually, and you will have the added benefit of taking notes too. You may also be able to ask questions.

Do all the pre-reading for lectures. I know it’s tempting to put it off, but try to work it into your daily routine (because you will have reading to do every day). Inevitably, there will be times where you slip up and don’t have time to finish. If this happens, make sure you catch up on it at some point, because it’s very important to solidifying the concepts you are learning about. Also, the more you read in general, the better you will become at reading (and also writing).

Take diligent notes (for both your lectures and pre-reading), and keep them organized. I prefer to handwrite in a notebook, as it helps me synthesize information rather than just typing it out verbatim—but it is totally up to you. If you do use a notebook, make a table of contents on the first page, where you write the date, topic, class, and page numbers of each set of notes you take. I think it’s a great idea to include your own thoughts and opinions in notes, or linking concepts you are learning to concepts you already know about.

If you have the time, make sure to be reading books/essays/articles and engaging with ideas outside of your regular syllabus. This is one of the most important techniques (in my experience, at least) when it comes to writing essays and answering exam questions. Evidence of wider reading around a topic is a great way to boost the credibility of your argument. It also does wonders to solidify and broaden your conceptualization of certain ideas you may have covered in your classes.

Where possible, try to contribute (as much as you feel comfortable) in seminars. If you are very quiet and reserved, that is totally okay too. I’m with you. But it has helped me tremendously in the past year to push myself to speak up more often in seminars. Talking in seminars allows you to clarify concepts and engage more deeply with the material being discussed (and it might impress your seminar tutor too, though this is secondary to the learning in my opinion).

If you have some nerdy-ass friends, talk with them about your ideas and what you’re both learning in your courses. I can’t tell you the number of essays I’ve written which actually have blossomed out of conversations I’ve had with friends, where they’ve exposed me to topics I’d never heard of before or broadened my view of a concept. Learning from each other in a casual and fun setting is amazing!

Part Two: Assessment Time

When you are given notice about big assignments coming up, such as essays or group projects, try to start working on them ASAP. Trust me, I know how hard it is. This is coming from someone who has dealt for years with chronic procrastination issues and nearly didn’t graduate from high school because of it. But you must start planning as soon as you possibly can, because the due date will come screaming up and before you know it, it’ll be the night before the deadline and you won’t have a clue what you’re writing about. Work it into your daily schedule if you have to. One great tip is to write down the deadline as being earlier (say, a week earlier) than what it actually is. This will prompt you to start earlier than you normally would have.

Do a shitload of reading, widely, from multiple sources. Read everything you can on the topic you are doing your assignment on. For a basic literature review, this means looking through at least 20+ sources. That doesn’t mean carefully perusing each one front to back; it means looking through all the relevant literature to find a few great sources which will really give you a coherent argument and a big picture of the topic at hand.

Keep your sources organized. I use Paperpile, which is a Chrome extension that allows you to save and organize academic sources. I make a folder for each assessment I am working on, and anything I find relevant to my topic, I save it to the folder. This will be a life saver for you when you actually go to plan your paper and also do the referencing.

Content is important, but perhaps even more important is your argument and structure. This mostly applies to essays, but you can apply it to other types of assessments too. Try not to structure your argument in terms of blocks of content—e.g. Paragraph 1 is about Topic A, Paragraph 2 is about Topic B—but rather in terms of how you are laying out your argument. Make sure each part of your essay flows into the next, so that you are, for example, setting up a kind of dialogue or narrative between the different sources you’re using. Also ensure that any point you are making clearly relates back to your main thesis.

If you’re a perfectionist like me: train yourself to remember that there is no such thing as perfect. Try to imagine what the perfect essay would be like. Can you imagine it? It’s probably pretty difficult, right? That’s because there is no such thing as a perfect assignment. Remind yourself of this, constantly. Tell yourself that you will be okay with just doing your very best. If you think about it logically: handing in something that is perhaps not your best ever, but handing it in on time and doing pretty well, is infinitely better than attempting to have a “perfect” essay but handing it in late and failing the assignment.

I hope this helped some of you! Best of luck and happy studying this year—go knock ‘em out! xo

Nerdy carb humor 🤓 in celebration of me getting carbs today 🤗 DFC (down for carbs 😂)

Life can give me all the goddamn lemons it wants, but I’m not giving up: not now, not ever. 💪🏻🔪🍋

Source.