YouTube Gallery – Social Work Shorts

Starting university next week? Learning is more than highlighting and rereading.

One of the easiest traps to fall into at university is thinking that studying means spending lots of time looking at information. You read a chapter, highlight the important bits, ...read it again before the seminar and then wonder why, a few days later, you can barely remember any of it.

That’s completely normal. Reading something is not the same as learning it. The first time you encounter an idea you might simply become familiar with it. Understanding develops as you return to it, encounter it somewhere else, connect it to something you already know and, most importantly, start doing something with it.

So occasionally close the book and ask yourself what you can actually remember. Try explaining the idea in your own words. Draw a mind map. Make some questions and test yourself. Tell someone else what you’ve learned. If you’re feeling particularly desperate, explain it to the dog. Mine has heard several of my lectures over the years, although her feedback isn’t particularly constructive.

Learning requires your brain to do some work. It’s a little like exercise: watching someone else lift weights won’t make you stronger. Simply looking at information doesn’t necessarily make it stick either.
So when you start university, don’t measure your studying by how many pages you’ve highlighted or how many hours you’ve spent reading.
Ask yourself: what can I do with what I’ve just learned?

It’s one of the ideas I explore in Study Smart: Everything They Forgot to Tell You About University.
https://amzn.eu/d/0d9pbCg4
#studysmart #studentlife #newstudent #universitylife #readingtipsShow More