A Summary On How To Take Good Lecture Notes (and Get The Most Out Of Lectures)

Hey! I like to prepare classes with my computer. And I want tell you few useful apps for education.

1. Evernote. I like to write lectures in it. 2. Pocket. With this app the way to prepare become much easy. 3. OneNote. Here I like to make notes in class when I haven’t my notebook with me. 4. My study life. Here is my schedule in tablet and computer. 5. TimeDoser. Same as Pomodoro. 6. Biodigital human. Good website for learning anatomy. 7. Gmail. Keep in touch with your teachers and colleagues. 8. Coursera. I’m interesting in different knowledges so I can listen lectures from all the world. 9. Youtube. Of course, a lot of good and interesting video can help in your study. Here are not only PewDiePie and video about kitties and fools. 10. Microsoft Office. Well, you know, reports and presentations and stuff.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself!

What to Do When School Gets Hard (for the first time)

Total honesty time: I was a slacker in high school. I don’t mean that in the sense that I got bad grades, or that I didn’t do extracurriculars. I mean that in the sense that I was the kid who got good grades without having to try, so I never did. Try, that is. This meant that when I got to college, I got a surprise: professors want you to actually study! Like, with the textbook and everything! Needless to say, I had a rough time figuring out how to do this “studying” thing, and I know I’m probably not alone in this boat. The good thing is, I’ve figured this out, for the most part, so now you can learn from my mistakes.

Assume every class is going to be your hardest, going in. The day you don’t assume you’re going to have to put in five hours minimum studying for the first real test in a class is the day you will really regret. Until you get a feel for a certain professor, treat it like it’s super hard.

Schedule in studying time and STICK WITH IT. DO THIS. Or else you will end up like me, making friends with the other lone person who inhabits the study lounge at 1 am. Don’t be me, guys.

Never underestimate the power of teaching others. Seriously, I definitely have kinda taken advantage of my classmates, because I’m the person who tries to explain stuff and writes out the impromptu study guides. By teaching them, though, I’m actually prepping MYSELF to wreck the curve. Basically, once you know it well enough to explain it to others, you’re golden.

Do ALL the readings. The professor that assigns the most readings is also the professor who expects you to have learned the most from them, in my experience. Also, don’t just highlight stuff: write important points that you would want to highlight in your notes. Highlighting is just coloring for grownups - it’s fine, but it’s not going to help you learn. It’s just going to catch your eye later.

Don’t judge a professor’s tests by their lecture style. Imagine: a sweet little 5 foot nothing professor, dressed to the nines every day and super kind to everyone. My professor who fits this description causes about a third of her students to retake her classes every year. Bigshot business guy with a ridiculously high consulting rate and a weird robe he always wears? 98% pass his classes. Focus on the material, not the prof.

Save your homework assignments. It turns out that in college, homework is 95% of the times something that you can actually study from. Do it, do it well, then hang on to it.

Know your preferred study habitats. Do you like to study around a lot of people or by yourself? Are windows a distraction or a necessity? Is the library great or just too far away to bother with? Keep an eye on when you study best and then try to replicate it later.

Get rid of unnecessary distractions. Turn off your phone. Notifications are Bad for concentration. Close your email unless you absolutely need it. Have a drink and someone to nibble on if you use that as an excuse to avoid studying. Maybe avoid studying with that one person if you are distracted by existing near them.

Plan out regular breaks. Tell yourself every half hour you can go on Facebook, or wander down the hall and talk to someone, or read a chapter of that thing you’ve been working on. Just have something planned out that you can actively work towards. Not just having an abyss of time to fill with studying can be really useful.

As for studying itself:

Notecards, re-writing notes in a different format, having someone quiz you, making study guides, and writing practice essays about stuff have all been super useful for me in some respect or another.

Other studying help:

Seven 

Study

Moods 

Rain generator

Coffee shop chatter

How to Study

How to Study pt. II

Bullet journal guide

You’ve got this. We can study together.

Feel motivated by Hell yeah! http://ift.tt/17OaFWv

(inspired by this post)

this is a mix of prompts to reflect on 2015 and prompts to look forward to and plan for 2016. feel free to add more to the list! here’s to another year of journaling. happy new year!

biggest events in your life in 2015

things to look forward to in 2016

things you learned in 2015

things you learned about yourself in 2015

health goals and health plan for 2016

a bucket list of things you want to learn

things to leave in 2015 - e.g. attitudes, habits, mindsets

things to adopt in 2016 - e.g. habits, mindsets, hobbies, self-improvement

2016 personal goals & philosophy

mental, physical, social, financial, academic, spiritual

2016 goals action plan

things you love about yourself

favorite pictures you took in 2015

favorite drawings of 2015

little things worth getting out of bed for

things worth staying alive for

beautiful moments of 2015 in pics, descriptions, and mementos

list of self-care regimens

places you want to go in 2016

parks, cafes, book stores, stationary stores, art stores, thrift stores, hiking trails, beaches, road trips, museums

review 2015 like a restaurant review - give it a rating out of 5 stars, review the experiences, moods, culture, aesthetic, etc

rate everything from 2015 on a scale of 1 to 10

mental health, physical health, spirituality, social life, sleep, grades, finances, work, relationships, etc

reflect on each rating

events you want to attend in 2016 (concerts, festivals, conventions, etc)

favorite songs of 2015

favorite bands/singers of 2015

new music for 2016

favorite art you discovered in 2015

foods you loved in 2015

foods you want to try in 2016

hobbies you want to try in 2016

activities you want to try in 2016

DIYs you want to try in 2016

list of things to reward yourself with when you’re feeling sad

favorite places you went to in 2015

don’t break the chain habit chart

stationary shopping list

clothes shopping list

room decoration shopping list

things you like to do outside of school and work

songs that make you happy

things worth your time and money

best and worst purchases of 2015

future plans from 2016 onward

news headlines that affected you the most in 2015

things that annoyed you in 2015

things you hope to see happen in the world in 2016

dates in 2015 that you want to remember

Hello, On september 2nd, i got the news that my mom had passed away, because of that, i missed almost 2 and half weeks of class, i take 4 college classes and was wondering if you have any tips on getting back on track. I could really use motivation

I’m so sorry for your loss, sweetheart. 

Here are some things you should do first:

Ask your teachers for advice: You can ask them for any hand outs you might have missed, ask them for practice tests, ask them what you can do to catch up, ask them to explain difficult bits after school,…

Ask friends/ classmates for their notes or help: If they don’t want to give your their notes, just ask them to explain things if your teachers don’t have time! 

Read through your textbooks and start making summaries: If you’re pretty much alone on this one, start by annotating and summarising your textbooks. You’ll be able to study and learn on your own.

some links:

a guide to motivation

v nice printables

the studyspo tag

how to start studying right after school

some good study playlists

buy some cute stationary

self care masterpost

self discipline 

motivational quotes

motivational wallpapers

How I learn languages

So, depending on the level of interest people have in my way of doing things, I might create a more thorough guide in the future. However, in the interest of brevity I will create a very rough step by step guide for people because why not.

1. Pick a language - Pick one you like; don’t worry about it being “practical” or “useful.” If you don’t like the language you’re studying, it’s going to be a miserable experience and learning languages should be fun!

2. Learn IPA - Learning how to read IPA characters (International Phonetic Alphabet) is imperative to being a successful language learner. If you haven’t already, put some time into learning how to read IPA transcriptions because it will save you a lot of time and give you a much better accent when learning the sounds of your target language. Avoid “english-y” transcriptions (e.g. très = TRAY) like the plague. They’re bad and people who make them should feel bad.

3. Learn the alphabet/writing system - Usually it doesn’t take a super long time, and if you’re studying a language like Japanese or Chinese it’s best to get used to using the writing system from the very beginning. You’re gonna have to deal with it eventually so you may as well hop right in. Relying on latin character transcriptions will only put off the inevitable.

4. Learn the pronunciation of your target language - I advocate a pronunciation-first approach. This will be easier or harder depending on how many unfamiliar sounds there are in your TL, but it’s worth going over the phonology (sound system) of your language early and getting used to how its sounds interact. If you don’t learn proper pronunciation in the beginning, you’ll ingrain incorrect pronunciations into your brain which will be hard to undo later on. You don’t have to try to make your accent perfect, accent reduction can come later, but it’s worth spending some time on. This is especially true for language with odd sounds or features (tones, voicing distinctions, etc.)

5. Pick ONE course/book - A problem I see a lot, and one that I have fallen into many times myself, is hording language learning resources. In the beginning, and especially for beginner polyglots, it is better to pick ONE really good course or book to follow, and focus on mastering the material within. If you try to split your time between too many resources or books or websites, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed. Some books/courses/series I recommend that can commonly be found for all languages are: Teach Yourself, Assimil, Duolingo, Linguaphone, and Pimsleur among others. You can always use one of those while you keep searching for more resources, but resist the temptation to dig into multiple books at once.

6. Use an SRS to learn vocabulary/grammar - SRS’s (Spaced Repetition Systems) are my bread and butter when it comes to memorization. Put simply, they are tools for spending your studying time more efficiently, and they warrant an entire post by themselves. Rote memorization is for the birds, so use a spaced repetition system such as Anki, Supermemo, a Leitner Box, or Memrise to avoid wasting your time. (Use Anki. Just use Anki. You’ll thank me later.)

7. Don’t translate - I used to learn vocabulary and grammar using English translations, but you’ll soon find that it’s only useful to an extent as your vocabulary gets bigger and you start running out of unique ways to translate synonyms. A more robust approach to flash card creation can be found in the book “Fluent Forever” by Gabriel Wyner, which I would definitely recommend reading. The short version is: use pictures instead of English translations for picturable words, for more abstract words and grammar concepts, use example sentences with cloze deletion cards (easy to create using Anki. seriously, just use anki.)

8. Speak the language! - Probably the only thing I actually learned from He Who Shall Not Be Named (anyone who’s been in the polyglot community for longer than 30 seconds knows who I’m talking about.) It seems simple but you should really speak the language as much as you can straight from the beginning. “But how can I speak the language if I’m not fluent or if I’ve just started?” Simple, use what you know, and do whatever it takes to make yourself understood. It really doesn’t take much, maybe 100 words or so (a day’s worth of work if you’re dedicated) to start to be able to put sentences together. Learning phrases is even better for this. For this reason, a phrasebook (Lonely Planet is a popular choice) is a worthy investment.

9. Immerse yourself as much as possible! - Watch TV, read books, nespapers, and articles, and listen to music in your TL. Get yourself used to being around the language. Ideally, you’d be able to move to the country or region where the language is spoken and truly immerse yourself, but for many total immersion can be either unrealistic or overwhelming. It’s totally possible to give yourself enough contact with the language and even create a 100% immersion environment all from the comfort of your home. The important thing is to have contact with the language and get used to being around it. This is where you’ll pick up on the rhythms of the language, tonality, intonation, all that good stuff. More importantly, it will get you used to how FAST people talk.

10. Keep looking for things you don’t know. - This is probably the best advice I could give anyone. There are things out there that you don’t even know you don’t know, so the best thing to do is to keep surrounding yourself with new facts, new vocabulary, new grammar structures, etc. If you’re looking for a new course/book, look for one that seems like it has a lot to teach you. Don’t rehash things you already know, it’s a waste of time. This is the basic principle of SRS’s, don’t review until you forget. Going back over concepts you already know is pointless and it contributes to “plateau syndrome” (when it feels like you’re not making any progress in your TL). Review what you need to, when you need to, only so long as you need to. Learning one new concept is worth more than going back over two you’ve already mastered.

11. HAVE FUN - The road to fluency is long. Like super long, I can’t stress this enough. You may not be fluent in 3 months, a year, two years, maybe even 5 years. It all depends on how much time you are willing to spend on the language and to a VERY VERY SMALL DEGREE how talented you are. The important thing is to not rush it and enjoy the experience. If you’re not having fun, modify your goals and your approach until you are.

This is nowhere near everything I have to say, but it’s a start. These are just some things I wish I had known when I started studying languages. So if it helps at least one person well hey that’s enough for me. :D

Hate that horrible silence while you’re working/studying? Perhaps your music is annoying you? Or maybe you just want to relax. Try these to help you fill the silence:

Coffitivity - Coffee shop environement stimulator

RainyMood - Sounds of rain

USS Enterprise - Engine hum

Celestial - Sounds like airplane engines

Fireplace - Sounds of a crackling fire

Nature - Forest sounds

Oceanside - Waves Crashing

Train - Sounds from onboard a train

MyNoise - Customazible background noises

Try these out and you’ll feel yourself focusing a little more.