Hi again! I’m not sure how much this drawing counts as “people watching”, but who says “people” has to mean “strangers”? I’ve been spending a lot of time this past week opposite my friends just studying and I think today’s post portrays that rather accurately. Drawing on notebook paper instead of my sketchbook felt particularly fitting. The top image took place in the LSA building (where I spent six and a half hours today), and the bottom was in my friend’s apartment. I loved noticing how much stuff we surround ourselves with while studying: laptops, tablets, water bottles, my two indispensable pens, so many notebooks, planners, and… a french press? I suppose caffeine is a must. Good luck to everyone taking exams this week (I know I’ll need it)!
Like many students, Hal has an ideal study setup. Readings printed out, hot tea ready, pens in place, lo-fi beats playing… Unfortunately, in the now-times, it seems like even small tasks take up a lot of time and energy! Hal got all the way to being ready to study before having to call it a night.
Hal’s gonna try to get up and study in the mornings instead. What do you think? Do you prefer studying in the morning or at night? (Or, do you study between classes like a daredevil??)
If this is your first time here, Hal is a U-M student! He’s staying remote this term, but he’s around every week to share his experiences. Check out the Study Hal tag to see more!
There are many components to the perfect study environment. How many people are there? What is the temperature? Are you wearing comfortable clothes? Can you fall asleep in your study position? Will you be hungry and need to move soon? And lastly, what type of music do you want? The answers to all of these questions will differ per person. Some people like to study in groups and others alone. It also depends on what a person is studying for on what type of environment they want.
Most college students listen to something when they study; Whether that’s music, tv or something else. The music that people listen to differs based on the subject and type of homework that they are doing. The one thing that most people have in common is that they don’t want to have to sing along to the songs as they are studying because that easily distracts them. This means that you need a different playlist for studying than for driving, where the whole goal is to perform a concert in your car. People try to achieve this goal in different ways. It’s hard to find a balance between music to listen to for fun and music to listen to for studying.
This is because you don’t want to listen to music that you know and like to dance to when you should be concentrating on calculus. Some people listen to music in another language so that they are not tempted to sing along and they just listen to it in the background. Others listen to a different genre of music that they don’t know well so that they can’t be too distracted by it. Another option is listening to instrumental music.
Once you figure out what type of words you want in your study music, you then have to decide how slow or fast you want the music to be. Perhaps you want it fast to keep you awake when you are reading a particularly boring textbook, or you want it slow when you are trying to concentrate on a long specific problem. You also need to choose if the music is relaxing or intense, or upbeat, slow, or somewhere in between. All of these decisions depend on the type of work you are doing at the time and can also vary depending on your mood. The seemingly simple task of choosing a playlist to study is actually much more complicated than you initially think.
Monday is the last day of classes and we all know what that means—finals time. Like any good little student, I’ve perfected my finals studying schedule. I’m a senior, so be warned. This method is not for everyone.
First, I look at everything I have to do. I write every assignment in my planner and make sure to include due dates and a realistic timeline of how long each final assignment will take me to do. Keep in mind the word “realistic” here. There’s nothing worse than pretending it’ll take you three hours to write a paper knowing full well it’ll take you more like six once you fall into that dark hole of the Internet.
Second, write down the dates and times of your final exams in your planner, on your phone calendar, on your hand, whatever works best for you to remember to be there. This is an important step as not taking your exam generally leads to a very poor grade in the class.
Third, and this is my favorite part of my finals study schedule, choose which television show to start unnecessarily binge watching until it becomes really late and semi-stressful to do your work. I usually choose a show that has been on my list for a while or is easy to finish so that once I’m done I won’t have any distractions from my schoolwork. Most of the time this even works.
This year I decided to focus on the Marvel Universe, so I took a dive into Hell’s Kitchen and followed around everyone’s favorite PI, Jessica Jones. The amount of stress it caused me to actually sit there and watch probably didn’t help relieve any of my finals anxiety, but it sure was a hell of a show, and I am in no way upset I spent 10 hours watching it. (See, 10 hours. Totally manageable.)
For those of you who don’t know, Jessica Jones is one of those Netflix original series that makes you glad Netflix started making television instead of just streaming it. It’s really that good. I loved the story. The characters, like almost all superheroes and super villains, are interesting and exciting, lovable and despicable. Krysten Ritter plays Jessica, a truly strong female lead that you can’t help but despise a little bit while you root for her. David Tennant (I know, Doctor Who fans rejoice) is an excellently evil purple-loving Kilgrave who makes you kind of sick to your stomach and at least a little sorry for the way humanity can sometimes act, even in fictional stories. Together, they make one of the best match ups I’ve ever seen in a good versus bad story, and I had the hardest time every time I had to shut my computer before it was over.
You may think, how does this help me pass my exams? Well, the TV watching really doesn’t. It just makes you take a break and relax a little bit at a particularly stressful time in the semester. So I admit it, there is some actual studying in my finals study schedule. Once I’ve finished binge watching my show, I actually get down to business and study it up until finals are over. Maybe I’m just lucky, but so far this schedule has worked well for me. I can’t actually suggest putting off all of your homework and studying until after you watch endless hours of television, but I can tell you that Jessica Jones is a great television show. If you haven’t started it yet, it just might be the perfect addition to your finals study schedule. Tell yourself you’ll use it as a break if you have to. Whatever you need to convince yourself Netflix is not the enemy, because it’s not. It’s just a method to slow down, that’s all.
To those of you who opened this to actually learn some good study methods, I’m sorry if this isn’t what you wanted to read. However, I really have done very well on my examinations and papers over the past three years, and I think taking some time for yourself is a really good thing. If you don’t want to watch Jessica Jones I understand. (Not really. It’s so good you really just should.) But please, do something to break up your studying so you don’t try to jam everything from the last semester into your brain all at once. Who knows, you might actually learn something that way, and even enjoy these last couple days of classes and exams.
