Similar to Keeping Up with the Kardashians —minus the celebrities, family drama, gorgeous women and well, everything – this blog will “keep up” with Pinterest trends, especially those related to stressed college students. Last week, I reviewed different ways to keep awake during class — and this week my plan is to review various study methods.
This week’s post, courtesy of lovethispic.com is “36 life hacks every college student should know.” While I would love to sit here and go through each of the 36 life hacks — with my stack of anthropology textbooks staring at me from across the room – you, lovely readers, would most definitely stop reading. So I will review the top three and go back to pretending to understand the branching of our evolutionary tree.
First up, the “snack incentive.” Beneath the “life hack” in bold font is a picture illustrating this particular method of studying. A nondescript college textbook — 2 pages of writing .05 size font with not a single picture in sight – is separated into sections by colored gummy bears placed strategically across the page. Every paragraph read is a gummy bear eaten. While genius in theory, this method is a little lacking in practice.
I had the gummy bear bag open next to me so that I could place gummy bears on every freshly turned page. However, my hand found its way into the bag between paragraphs and I’d read less than two pages of my ten page reading assignment before I’d depleted the bag. Strike one.
Next, I tried to “save time studying by listening to recorded lectures at twice the [regular] speed.” As you might have guessed (or might not, I don’t know you) this went terribly. I don’t know if this method worked for the original author, a user who uploaded the post under the username Dreamer and baby fist meme profile pic, but it certainly did not work for me. At all.
With nothing in front of me and the bumblebee buzz of my professor's lecture droning endlessly in my ear, I'd found my strike two.
The third “life hack” was to take notes using different colored pens. Needless to say, my notes looked cute, but my studying habits did not. I write in cursive naturally, and I don’t think I need to tell you that neon pink and curlicue writing do not go well together. I couldn’t read my writing, and I spent a good chunk of my brainpower picking out which color would go with which lecture and which notes would go with which pen. Strike three.
Scrolling through the rest of the post, I noticed the following “life hacks” had less and less to do with studying and more and more with how to survive as the laziest human being on the planet. So what was I supposed to do? With an exam on the horizon – and a Tri Sigma beach trip planned for the weekend, woot woot! – I did what I do best. I panicked.
Three days and a few chocolate binge-eating episodes later, I had a life hack of my own: just freaking study. Cheating gets you nowhere. Trying to “hack” your way out of studying will get you nowhere (neither will worrying, but that’s a message for another blog). The best way to study is to sit down and do it. Read your notes, make flashcards, write yourself a practice test if you need to. Take breaks, drink water, but don’t try to incentivize your studying with gummy bears — or at least try to put the bag somewhere you can’t reach for it!
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
