Studying in uni and beyond

TLDR 

• Get used to your university’s citation style 

• Set a calendar for studying and find somewhere dedicated to doing it 

• Find a balance between consistency and kindness to yourself 

• Try and find the sweet spot between confidence and caution 

By the time I have finished suffering through my master’s in research (all a part of the natural process, right?) I will have written 70,000 words of academic writing. This doesn’t include my essays or practise tests, this is solid 10,000-word dissertation on urban technology, 40,000-word master’s thesis and contributions to a chapter of an academic book on satellite technology applications for human rights research. Due to this I think I’ve got a decent bit of experience on studying within the context of social sciences, technical report writing and dissertations (sorry maths people I can’t help you; you’re doomed). Below are little pieces of advice and strategies for studying I’ve developed along the way. 

Set a calendar for studying and time off 

I remember when I was younger (I’m old now, uni is over) I watched a TED talk on scheduling. Especially as a teenager I hated scheduling I thought it was stupid. It turns out I was stupid, scheduling not only helps consistency it also helps students who are anxious about time off from studying relax a bit. The first thing you schedule, and it may seem contradictory, is your breaks. Find times you don’t want to work, for me if working on academic work or when I worked as a freelance technology consultant, I would schedule a break around 3pm consistently for 30 minutes to an hour depending on how lazy I felt that day.  

Find a balance between encouraging yourself to work and not bullying yourself into burnout. My ideal schedule (which admittedly I only hit 60% of the time on a good month) was this, wake up at 6 – 8, exercise (in covid this was a run around the university campus or a gym session) and study from 8 30 – 12 after breakfast, then 12 – 3 and break at 3 to then study until 6, after dinner working until 9 or 10. Long days are easier when someone pays you to do them so for studying expect results that vary based on interest and how well you are looking after yourself.  

Looking after yourself is essential for studying. I hate caffeine because I am worried, I’ll get an addition to it rivalling my sugar dependency but if you need the energy then go for it. However, also sleep, eat, drink plenty of water (I am also terrible for this) and take time to exercise. If you are studying for a test I advise against cramming, instead start revision earlier, review topics on a bi-weekly and monthly basis. It will differ between degrees and test formats but moving things from your short term to long term memory is about distanced repetition and teaching. Cramming usually while it seems effective is less effective than a good few nights sleep and relaxation before a test. A lot of your brain power is restored and utilised to code information to your long-term memory through rest and relaxation so make sure to take advantage of it.

Setting times to rest also means you can balance a social life with doing well in your degree and this disciplined approach will pay off dividends when it comes to the intern, placement and graduate grind (oh, that’s our next three blogs! Look how organised we are). 

Organise yourself 

Take a page from the CMD playbook and organise your studying, not just by the times you set to do it but by topics and methods. It is also worth having studying methods for passive studying and active studying. For example, in geography you spend a lot of time reading (or you should be, that’s why we have less contact hours for lectures) so a good portion of my studying was this passive method of reading articles, books and grey literature (newspaper articles, reports and technical specifications). Then when exams arrived the active studying was academic writing practise through writing about subject concepts, producing summaries of key readings and practise tests.  I really like Notion for organising notes, timetables and revision resources.

However, any organisation tool is useful. I would make sure the tool has an online platform so you can benefit from cloud storage as this means less of a need for data management concerns (losing USB drives etc). By having one space for all your university work you can effectively review concepts and map your understanding. Also, if you want to get creative you can set up practise essays and mark them with chat GPT. Be careful with this as chat GPT is a robot it doesn’t know anything and while it is a useful resource it can be wrong do not use it as a short cut for studying but a tool to scope out points of knowledge.   The second part of organisation is finding a dedicated space to study. I get it we have all been there studying in bed or in a noisy distracting environment. However, if you have serious work to do and want to do it well, find a space to study keep it clean and organised. If you get distracted by your phone, then don’t bring it.

A spare desk in your room, coffee shop, library or booked study space at university work great for this physical zoning of your studying.  The last part of organisation is learning to cite and reference. While I think there is a benefit to learning how to reference and cite manually so you understand what the tool is doing but once you understand the style use a citation tool. I like mybib but there’s loads of options group citations by projects and essays. It can also be useful to save your essays so you can see how similar research questions are answered if they come up again (make sure to avoid self-plagiarising) and inform the structure for bigger pieces of work like a dissertation. 

Find a balance  

There are two sets of balances it is important to consider when studying. First, the balance between consistency and burn out and second between confidence and caution. Often in motivational speeches consistency is the strategy put forward to achieve goals and work effectively. This is true, but there should be a balance between consistency and burn out. This balance is found through effective scheduling and taking frequent breaks. A range of frameworks for studying exist that can help develop habits to concentrate and take refreshing breaks. The pomodoro technique separates work sessions into 25 minutes with 5 minutes breaks but if this feels too short to get into a routine, I like to do 45 minutes of study and a 15-minute break.

If you find yourself getting distracted by a phone or device look at do not disturb modes or physically removing the distraction from your study area.  As you develop academically you will navigate the line between being knowledgeable about your subject and realising that with increased knowledge you also learn about your former ignorance. This leads to students feeling overwhelmed especially when reading academic papers which can feel like joining a conversation halfway through. Be confident in your ability to master the subject during your time at university but be aware of overgeneralisation, lazy frameworks and biased research. Always argue confidently and research tentatively. 

Remember a lot of these practises are connected, good discipline with studying leads into good discipline for early careers hunting. Practising organisation and time management helps use your study time effectively allowing you to achieve more in the same amount of time and then pursue other interests (societies, networking events etc). Good luck with studying and if you want to have a chat about your career preparedness fill out our booking form at CMD_Careers.com and our team will be in touch to confirm your free 20 min careers chat.