The average person spends nearly a quarter of their life in school going through primary, middle, high school, and post-secondary education. Growing up, one of the most common things you hear is
"If you do well in school, you'll get a good job and do well in life." – Your mom, probably*
Why should I care?
While doing well in school is not a must to have a great life, pursuing higher level education is still a very effective way to increase your income in Canada and the United States.
Who am I, and why is my advice worthwhile?
I recently graduated from McMaster University with an 11.4 GPA (out of 12. I know it's a weird scale), which is around 3.8/3.9 if you're using a 4.0 scale. I think my advice is helpful because I've done pretty well academically and also know how people smarter than me study.
Note: My perspective is that of a person who studied Software Engineering and mainly dealt with classes focusing on Mathematics and Programming. My advice may not be ideal for people in medicine, arts programs, or colleges for the trades, but I'll try to keep it as general as possible.
Tip 1: Invest in tools that save you time
Time is money, and money can save you time. While I know that not everyone can afford to buy new things for school, I feel if you're dropping 10-30 grand on tuition, you can spare a few hundred dollars on some used equipment that'll help you a lot long-term.
What tools to look for?
Students generally need 3 things for school.
- A device to take notes on
- A device to do work on (this can be the same as device 1)
- Some stationary for when you do work on paper.
Devices for note-taking
You can either write your notes or type them out, but to be honest, almost every program I can think of will benefit from having the option to write things by hand, such as diagrams, tables, and equations that are much harder to make with a keyboard and mouse.
When looking for products to help you write down notes, there are three approaches you can take
- Get a tablet like an iPad with a stylus to handwrite notes. This comes with the downside of usually needing a separate device to do work as a lot of times (especially in engineering) certain classes will need you to download software unavailable on tablets.
- Get a touchscreen laptop with a stylus. A good example is Microsoft's Surface Pro which is what I used. I got it refurbished for about 300-400 CAD and bought a cheap stylus from Amazon that lasted all five years of school.
- Get a drawing tablet and connect it to a laptop.
Additionally, for students in memorization-heavy programs, consider spaced repetition systems and/or flashcards to help you study. Spaced repetition systems leverage the spacing effect to drive things into long-term memory. Anki is probably the best for making your own spaced repetition flashcards and it's free on desktop, but don't be shy about spending the money on the app as it can help you do a lot of studying on the go. Anki additionally has many existing decks for things like learning languages, medical terminology, etc.
Tip 2: Figure out how you study
Just like how every artist has their own unique creative process, you have your own unique process of absorbing and learning information. Some people learn best from reading, some from audio recordings, and some from video guides. Next time you're studying try watching videos by others explaining the same topics, maybe, instead of just reading notes skim through practice problems.
Tip 3: Make friends in your classes
Having friends in your classes has many benefits. Having friends in your classes means you now have people to study with, compare answers with, and even motivate you to go to class. For assignment-based courses having someone double-check your work can go a long way, especially if you're like me who makes a lot of typos and small arithmetic errors 😅.
Try to make two to three friends in your classes so you can compare answers, or just make friends with 1 person who has a lot of friends who's willing to help you out.
Tip 4: Organize your info and make it accessible
In higher academics, there are a lot of things you need to keep track of. This includes assignment deadlines, exam dates, classes, etc. It is crucial for you to have a spot where you can keep track of all of your things that can be accessible to you anytime and anywhere.
Leverage the cloud ☁
A lot of software today comes with the feature of syncing it to the cloud. This means that as long as you're logged into the same account, any device can view the information you've stored so any schedule or notes you've taken can be accessed by any device and won't be at risk of being lost.
I used Google Docs and Google Drive to keep my assignments and typed notes accessible from any of my devices. This also made it easy for me to share notes with others and revoke access when needed. Additionally, I used Drive for Desktop to sync specific folders on my computer with my Google Drive so I can work on something on my desktop and it would be automatically stored on the cloud.
Alternatives to the Google Suite?
Yes, there are many. A majority of my friends used Notion and I honestly would've used it too if I hadn't found out about it so late. Notion is a very powerful software and can be used as an all-in-one tool to keep a calendar, notes, meeting minutes, etc. There is a learning curve to it, but there are many existing templates, and once you get the hang of it, it's very rewarding.
If you want something more open-source Obsidian is an open-source, customizable note-taking software that can also be synced to the cloud (for a premium, or you can do it yourself using GitHub, Google Drive, etc.). I tried using Obsidian, and while I found it very cool, it took a lot of time and effort to customize it and I needed something simple to get off the ground, but it's definitely worth looking into especially if you take a lot of scattered notes which are related to each other.
TLDR
Optimizing your efforts in school is a mix of investing in yourself and exploring how you best study effectively. This includes exploring writing/note-taking/studying software like Anki, Google Docs, etc. Additionally, having others to rely on and motivate you is a great way to improve your experience and work ethic.