Student Blog: What I Learned from My First Midterm Exams

As I near the last of my midterm exams for my first semester of college, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned and what I can improve for next semester. 

Study

This might sound like a given, but you do need to actually study. As someone who breezed through a lot of school, I, admittedly, haven’t always had the best study skills or habits. In the last few years, I have really learned the value of repetition in studying. My weakest subjects have always been STEM, and believe me, I wish there was a better way, but doing practice problems over and over again is really the only way to hammer those patterns into your brain. Luckily, I’m not in any pure math or science classes this semester (and hopefully never again), so I apply this practice to my coding and data science problems. 

As much as I protest the “nerd” label, I almost always prioritize school over social engagements. I’m what my therapist calls “a textbook introvert”, so it’s not like I’m out partying instead of prepping for my exams, but it can be hard to self-motivate to start looking over the material a few days in advance rather than cramming it all at once. Procrastination is definitely one of my worst habits, so this is something I’m trying to work on, especially now that I have tons of unstructured free time. I’m trying out this new technique where I put my phone far away and tell myself that I have to work for twenty consecutive minutes (or some other arbitrary time period) and then I can have more phone time. Although it doesn’t completely stop me from falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes or getting distracted by YouTube, it’s been pretty helpful so far.

Change Your Environment

During the pandemic, I commandeered my family’s dining table for virtual school since I was the only person without a desk. Then I stayed there until a few months ago when I moved to college. This arrangement worked well back in 2020 when all of my teachers were still feeling out remote learning and had us mostly doing online Google form quizzes and printing out our own worksheets, but as I reached my junior and senior years of high school, my workload called for a lot more writing, which is when I started to have problems. My workspace was situated in one of the most central parts of my family’s house: right in the center of the open concept kitchen/family room and in direct eyeline of the TV. As a notoriously tortured writer, I had trouble conjuring the right words if I was distracted, and let me tell you, I am so good at getting distracted.

When I really needed to lock in and focus on my college applications or AP Capstone papers, I would move to the living room. I was holding myself accountable by turning my computer screen so that anyone could see it, knowing that if my parents caught me on some random website instead of my Google doc, I would never hear the end of it. But other than that, there was something about the change in environment that made me more productive. I’m sure there’s some psychological reason behind that, but that’s not really within my scope of practice so I can’t tell you why it works, but it does. 

Rambling aside, the point is that you probably need to study outside of your dorm room. Personally, I’ve never studied in bed, but there are a bunch of studies on why you shouldn’t, so I never do it (also because I find that it’s impossible to do it comfortably). My roommate is my best friend, so we’re pretty good about respecting when the other is working and I do most of my work in my room instead of at the library. I’m also lucky that I don’t need one of those huge whiteboards and an eight-person study group to do my homework on a regular basis (I’m not trying to jinx myself, but hopefully I will never need that). However, once or twice a week I find myself working on the first floor of the University of Illinois Armory. The Armory is where the ROTC trains and is known as an annoying place to have class because the hallways are laid out in a disconnected and unintuitive way. On the first floor, outside of the sacred track and training space, there’s an oddly wide corridor painted dark grey with neon accents and outdated furniture. Between classes, I like to hang out there because it’s quiet and not many classes take place there, so there isn’t much traffic. Last week, I sat there for two hours and I was so productive it actually shocked me a little bit. So my advice to you: find a quiet study spot. Somewhere with outlets, a good wifi connection, and clean bathrooms is a must.

Drown Out Distractions

Personally, I can get distracted by anything that remotely reminds me of any thought I’ve ever had, so headphones are a must for me when studying. Especially on a college campus, where it isn’t really quiet anywhere, even in the library or the dorms. Usually, I go for my normal playlists, but if I really need to focus, especially if I need to read an academic journal or I have a major deadline, I will listen to the music from the HBO series Succession or Spotify’s Atmospheric Focus playlist. Unfortunately, music with lyrics distracts me a little too much and interferes with my reading comprehension (and when listening to my musical theatre playlist, it’s too tempting to dramatically lip sync to every song). So figure out what works for you. For me, it’s Nicholas Britell’s eerie soundtrack to ruthless acts of greed and capitalism; we’re all different.

It’ll be interesting to see how my study habits evolve throughout the next few years and my classes get more difficult. For now, I’ll be applying these tricks to finals season. Wish me luck!

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