Goals

Take some time to determine your big goals. Remember, it's all relative. Know what success means to you. Give yourself context as to why you're doing something. Perhaps, it's to get a better job, open better opportunities, etc. Determine if these reasons are strong enough to keep you motivated and on course through the long road ahead. It can be your anchor and help you weather tough times, when others doubt you and even when you begin doubting yourself. Once you have these goals, learn what you need to do and how to do them into actionable steps. Break it down and keep working backwards until you've arrived at basic tasks, modify as necessary (e.g., studying in the library every other day in order progress toward these goals).

Start off with things you know to be objectively true and break them down until you get to steps that are subjective. The subjective ones are difficult. You will have to be honest with yourself, modify and tweak. Having these will help you know where you are going and how you're going to get there. Otherwise, it can feel like you're moving aimlessly changing ever which direction based on what people say or what you see other people doing.

Here's an example: Big Long-term Goals : Medical school (Objective Question: what are the requirements?)

• Breakdown: Take the MCAT (Objective Question: What is the MCAT?)
• Breakdown: Take premed courses (Objective question: what are the premed courses?)
• Breakdown: bio, chem, ochem, etc. (Objective question: what courses can I take next semester?)
• Breakdown:Bio 1, Chem 1, etc. (Subjective question: what subjects am I strong/weak in). ...etc.

Available Time

One of the biggest mistakes we made as students was taking on more than we could handle. It's tempting to imagine unrealistic conditions where if we slept only 5 hours and studied the rest of the day it could work. More often than not, doing this resulted in doing worse than what we were capable of or dropping the course(s) wasting time and money.

To avoid this, you need to have a good grasp of your available time. After having determined your goals and broken them down to basic tasks, determine the "theoretical" hours you have in the day. This means the amount of time left over after you've done the necessities (e.g., eat, sleep, drive, go to class and/or work, etc.). It will be the maximum amount of time you have available. For example:

On Mon/Wed/Fri:

• Hours for necessities = 18 hrs
• 8 hrs used to sleep
• 2 hours for showering, using the restroom etc.
• 3 hours for eating
• 2 hours driving to and from school
• 3 hours in class
• Hours left over = 6 hrs*

On Tue/Thu:

• Hours for necessities = 16 hrs
• 8 hrs used to sleep
• 2 hours for showering, using the restroom etc.
• 3 hours for eating
• 2 hours driving to and from school
• 2 hours in class
• Hours left over = 7 hrs

Always overestimate time to complete necessities in order to give yourself a cushion for unforeseen events (e.g., insomnia, accidents, traffic, emergencies, etc.). You will use the hours left over to divide it among all the other activities you have planned (e.g. studying, organizations, going out, Netflix, etc.). This will require being realistic and honest with yourself. If you end up not having enough time, you need to cut things out of your schedule like taking a lighter course load or participating in less activities. Avoid cutting time from necessities like sleep. Consider how you have handled previous semesters and use it to guide your decisions.

Learn your limits and give yourself some down time. It can be easy to imagine attending every class, completing all assignments early, studying, and as a result making the road to earning an the grade we want deceptively easy. Yet, it is almost always much more difficult than we imagine. This is because we often forget to factor the fatigue and the duration and repetition to which these behaviors must be performed. The difficulty comes from carrying them out day in and day out without fail, regardless of whether having a bad day, feel under the weather, had an argument, broke up with a partner, there's a big game, concert or any other event. It is the dedication and discipline that makes it difficult. Because of this, we had to know our limits. This helped us from burning out. It gave us the ability to schedule convenient times to take a break, recharge and work more efficiently.

What to study and how to study

Identifying what to study, how to study was a long and frustrating process of trial and error. As students, you will be given countless recommendations on how to study. We do not pretend to know what will work for you, rather we try to present steps we believe are objective/helpful for all students, such as reading your class syllabus (Step 5), and techniques that are backed by research and evidence.

Before delving into how to study, you need to know what to study. It is important to correctly identify what to study so you can target the things you need to know and the degree to which you need to know it. As your classes progresses, you will (hopefully) start to see what is important for each class. This may seem ridiculously obvious and yet so many students inadequately identify what they need to study and fall back to reading the textbook, word for word, front to cover, again and again. There are a number of ways that can help you identify what is important. Some of the most obvious are listed below:

• Identify what is emphasized in class
• Identify what is emphasized in lecture notes
• Use homework, quizzes, problem sets, etc. to see what to focus on * Use past and/or practice exams to see what to focus on

Once you have identified what to study, explore ways on how to study that is most effective for you. By effective, consider not only your understanding or your grades, but also the time required. For instance, as an undergrad I would study by reading the the textbook once casually, then reading it again focusing and highlighting, then going back and reading it again a third time with emphasis on the highlighted sections to make my own notes. Finally with what little time I had left, I would use those notes to study for the exam. I did well on the exam but it was not very EFFECTIVE because of the the time and effort required. It put me behind in all my other classes, prevented me from doing other things (clubs/organizations, volunteering, research, being with friends), and/or drained me so much that I’d get burned out.

Now, I do not believe there is a right or best way to study, be it reading the textbook, creating concept maps etc. Rather, the one that is most effective for YOU is the right/best way. Having said that, there has been a great deal of research in learning sciences that identified retrieval practice and spaced retrieval as two of the most effective studying techniques. Though these two are often oversimplified and interpreted as flash cards and do not cram, there are important details to consider. It is recommended you do your own research into these two techniques as to design your practice material and study schedule.

Other Factors

Try to minimize or eliminate factors that have affected you negatively in the past and maximize those that helped you succeed. These are often overlooked, and it was not only later that we realized how important it was. Routinely reflect and take inventory of these factors (perhaps every semester) in order to position yourself for success. Below are a couple common ones.

Support Network
Having a support network was essential for all of us. These are people (or pets) that we would turn to for comfort or depend on if there was an emergency. It was important to surround ourselves with individuals that we could build positive reciprocating relationships. They studied with us, encouraged us, suggested resources and pushed us to do better. On the same note, we tried to avoid people or relationships we knew would be unhealthy (this may differ from one person to the next).

Distractions
From our phones and laptops to friends and family, an important part of being successful academically was our ability to navigate through the distractions in our daily lives. You may find it easy to convince yourself that you need your computer to study in the library only to find you've been spending most of the time on Facebook. Below is a list of our common distractions and how we dealt with them.

Cell Phone

• If you don't absolutely need your phone on, then turn it off before studying. If you need to know the time, get/wear a watch.
• Disconnect from the internet.
• Tell people not to contact you during certain hours because you will be busy.

Computer/Laptop

• Only use if necessary
• Disconnect from internet if being online is not needed
• Set timers for study and break sessions
• Be aware when you check Facebook, Youtube, the game score etc. while you are supposed to be studying. If necessary, use apps to block these sites for a certain amount of time