Spring Break beckons with its tantalizing promise of uninterrupted naps and unscheduled daytime hours. But we have an excruciating bridge to cross before we can finally enter into the promised land. Hey there, midterms.

If you’re taking your tuition’s worth of classes and workload, then this time of the semester is a rude wake-up call: you need to begin paying attention. Catching up on the syllabus and imbibing all there is to know is no joke at this point, especially if you have avoided the depths of a dimly lit lecture hall for the last few weeks. But never fear — Pulp paid a visit to Professor Marlene Blumin of the School of Education, who is trained in college learning strategies and can help you thwart all your midterm fears with these gems of learning:

BEFORE CLASS:

Download notes and slides: If your Blackboard account is full of PowerPoints and PDFs, then take full advantage. Download these, skim through to get the general gist and strike up a friendship – the learning can happen at a later time.

Highlight the bold terms in the text: Remember that heavyweight book that brought tears to your eyes and dust to your shelves? Now is the time to shake it off and pick up a highlighter. Most texts have bold terms that hint at their importance. Introduce yourself to these terms, as they will likely make an appearance in exams.

Anticipate and Ask: Create some questions you think will be asked in class, and then find out if they are. One, you find out if you have identified important themes, and two, keeping an ear out will sustain your interest further.

DURING CLASS:

Take notes: That roughly translates to “Kindly do some justice to your five-subject notebook.” Taking notes in class serves three purposes: it engages you, it helps you stay organized so that you can refer to these notes later with success and you can use your own wording to better refresh your memory.

Take snapshots of the slides: Make sure you get the permission of your professor and under no other circumstances. As long as you’re not getting on the Campus Story, you might as well be learning. And while taking notes, include that which is not on these slides, so that the information is complementary and not the same.

Sit in the front: This helps swat off distractions (it gives me anxiety to watch high-stakes video games being played in laptops directly in my line of sight) and it familiarizes the professor with your face – this makes them more willing to answer your questions after class.

AFTER CLASS:

Create more questions: Frankly, just be full of questions at all times henceforth. After each class, create five questions pertaining to the content discussed. You can even make it easier by putting question marks next to your well-documented notes.

Office hours: Use office hours generously to get your questions answered, and confirm with the professor that your question marks are on the right track. Ideally, you should both be on the same page where important questions are concerned.

Study in groups: Create your own study guide on Google docs wherein each person contributes their five questions and builds it. That way, you don’t have to depend on a last-minute study guide on Blackboard – get ahead of the game.

FINAL TIP FOR THE MIDTERMS:

Spend time on what you don’t know: Studying what you already know is comforting but utterly useless on the day of the test. Tackle content that challenges you — after all, college is not for the faint-hearted. Take that warrior attitude to your studies too.

Now reel in your concentration from the other side of your attention span, use these tips to knock your midterms out of the park and make your way to the promised land of Spring Break. Happy studying and good luck.

dmurthy@syr.edu

Published on February 28, 2016 at 1:22 pm

Contact: dmurthy@syr.edu