Whatever course your are doing a school, college or university you will at some point have to do some sort of studying, and setting in place some good study skills at the beginning of your course can really benefit your when it comes time for any written or practical exams. Here are just a few top study tips to help you study more effectively.

1. Schedule – a schedule is essential to help you make the best of your study time, and is also very important if you have more than one subject to prepare for. A schedule is just basically a way of allocating sufficient time to study throughout your course, and helps you to maintain personal discipline. Schedules should incorporate not only personal study time but also all of the classes, seminars and lectures you will need to attend, and also any social time. Try to avoid making schedules too restricting, as this will make it more difficult for you to stick to them, and make sure you offset study with other activities to ensure a varied work/life balance.
2. Study Time –to make study sessions really count think about what times of the day you are most alert and rested, and try to fit some study in then. Studying when you are feeling bored, restless or in a rush to go somewhere else is a waste of time, as you will not remember anything useful and it will feel like a penance, putting you off studying in the future.
3. Where to Study – you can study anywhere, but it makes sense to find a comfortable, peaceful spot either at home, in the library or at a student study lounge so that you can really concentrate. If it is nice outdoors go outside and find a quiet spot to study, and although it is nice to study with friends sometimes, make sure you set aside private study times as well, so that you can carry on working at your own pace.
4. Reading – if you have a lot of textbooks to read then make sure you do this properly, by taking notes on important points as you go along and spending some time at the end of each chapter to think carefully about the content, ensuring you have thoroughly understood it before moving on. Just quickly reading a textbook from cover to cover will not help you study, as you will be unlikely to have absorbed the information properly, and make sure you buy the textbooks you need whenever possible rather than borrowing them from the library or friends, as then you will not have to worry about returning them, and will always have them on hand to refresh your memory whenever you need to.
5. Note Taking – textbooks and handouts will not be able to tell you everything you need to know, so make sure you take plenty of notes in your classes and lectures, and in your next study session review these notes and condense them into the main points of interest, and organise them so that you can find them easily when you need to in the future. It is impossible to write down everything that is said in your lectures and classes, so just write a few lines to summarise the main points, and also you may want to jot down any questions that arise, so that you can ask them at the end of the class/lecture, or follow up on them in your textbooks when you next study.

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