Study Skills Review

We are nearing the end of our Access course already. It doesn't seem like very long ago we were only just beginning - and indeed, it would be hard to tell as much from this Study Skills blog. However, as we approach the final hurdles, it is now that the lessons learned from our time in Study Skills will really be put to the test, so today I will reflect on just what I have learned that I will be putting to good use in the coming month.

Preparation

Revision, in itself, is rather easy. It is, after all, simply looking over material you have covered previously. Effective revision is a different story though, and to make the most of my time (which is often in short supply), I have learned that I need to prepare for a serious revision session.

At the beginning of the course, Dieca stressed the importance of having a dedicated study space, free from clutter and distraction, with all the materials you will be using close at hand. This is one form of preparation that I have really come to value, as I have realised I am in fact more easily distracted that I had originally believed.

Another way I have found I need to prepare myself is setting time aside purely for study. On previous incursions into Education, I generally done my studying as and when I was in the mood for it. While I find it more enjoyable to learn in this piecemeal fashion, it has become clear to me that it is not well suited to getting through a course with a relatively high workload such as this.

Study Skills has taught me (although most of the credit should go to trail and error...) that I need to plan my studying in advance in order to get done as much as is required. It is better to force myself to do what is needed rather than doing nothing at an enjoyable pace!

Focus

As mentioned above, distractions are an issue for me. When studying alone in my home, I occasionally find myself being drawn away from my desk for various reasons, and my studying suffers as a result. By contrast, when studying alone at the library, where there is nothing to take my attention away from my work, I am able to concentrate on studying for prolonged periods. Finding a place free from distractions could be key when it comes to university and intensive studying is required, and I will certainly be in my local library several times between now and the end of this Access course.

Another distraction I find harder to avoid is company. I cannot study with other people around, whether in my house or elsewhere. As much as my social life may protest, it is clear that many sacrifices will need to be made over the coming years on that front. My work will not do itself while I'm spending time with friends and family - despite being self-evident, I have had to learn that if I have work to do, I can't spend time with friends or family!

I still have a lot of work to do on recognising when I can afford to take time off and when I should really be applying myself, as juggling work and social life is going to get much, much harder at university, as I will need to find employment and I intend to get involved with student societies. I'm not sure how much further I'll be able to improve in this area before the end of the course, but the importance of being focused on my studies is a lesson I will be sure to carry with me to university.

Motivation

This is not so much a Study Skill, but nevertheless something I have found important to the success of my study sessions: keep the goal in mind.

There have been times during this course when I have encountered difficulties, lapses in motivation and general lethargy in regards to studying. At these times, I ask myself what I'm actually doing and why I'm doing it. Worryingly, there are a few times I have almost come up short, when the answers should be obvious.

What am I doing? Well, I doubt this will be much of an issue when I reach university and am studying something I am passionate about... currently, I am doing this course simply to reach that point. While I may have a lack of interest in some of the topics covered in my various classes, remembering the ultimate goal provides the motivation to get through it; I would have no lack of motivation if I could always keep that in mind.

Why am I doing it? I could give many reasons here but the important one is 'because I want to'. No one will make me come to class or do the work because no one asked that I take up this course; it's my choice to be here.

Personal Study

During this sessions of Study Skills, my objectives were:

• to revise the conjugation for the Preterito and Imperfecto forms of -ir and -er verbs.
• to finish the related mini-tests on studyspanish.com.
• to revise new vocabulary introduced.
• to move on to the next section of the Higher course.

I started off looking at recently learned vocabulary, specifically time-frames, occurances and frequencies then successfully completed the Preterite vs Imperfect II test on studyspanish.com.

I then moved on to rewriting the verbs vivir, comer and the irregular ir in their preterite and imperfect form. Doing this revealed that I do not yet know these conjugations by heart, and more revision time is needed here.

I finished off the lesson by looking over the contents of unit one of the Higher course to make sure I was ready to move on to the next. Due to being late to class, I was unable to move on to the next unit today.

Study Plan vs Reality

So we are supposed do a weekly study plan, setting out targets for ourselves to achieve each by the send of week. There's a slim possibility I may have been slacking in this department having missed a few Study Skills classes, but for those I have done: how have my targets reflected in my studies?

I knew previous to this course that I wasn't one for making plans or for following them, I'm whimsical by nature and this hasn't changed - it very likely won't, either. It was easy to assume that doing these target diaries would not be much use to me, but this hasn't really been the case...

The goals I have been setting have been, for the most part, assignments due in or assessments being sat that week. These targets are fairly obvious - fail to meet them consistently and fail the course - but writing them down helps keep everything in focus, and prevents work being conveniently forgotten.

Targets not set by the course have been met with varying degrees of success. It occurs to me that I never actually look at these diaries throughout the week they cover, as stated above I don't have a rigid plan on how I will use my study time, so that's hardly unexpected. However, when writing my targets for a new week, these things shine. Not only do I put down work that must be done, but I look back on the last week and modify my goals, either reiterating previously unfulfilled goals to steering my targets towards sources that I have enjoyed studying from.

Though I may not follow my target diary as a study plan per se, writing and reading them back does draw my focus towards which parts of the course my progress is lagging behind in.

What's Going On

Plan for the week is to finish my essay comparing Shakespeare to Carol Ann Douchebag (bit of a joke if you ask me), finish (and start) the other English essay for Communications. And as ever, need to work on Spanish vocab/grammar.

So what's been going on since the last entry? I've been neglecting it, I know. Well, Maths has always came naturally to me, so I figured it would be best to blast through it as fast as possible and free my time up for other things. Mission accomplished - all coursework done, just a few remaining assessments to go.

We've just been handed a guide to writing our personal statements, as well as the writing for English, I'll try to have a look that and make a start. I'm a really interesting subject to write about!

Week of Learning Ahead

I like to set my sights high, so I hoped to have become fluent in Spanish and a master of flamenco dancing by the week's end. Alterntively, an expanded vocabulary and an improvement to my listening skills would be alright too.

I'm not good at listening. I don't 'enjoy' listening. Hence I don't do it much, and thus don't improve much. Have to predict that I'm going to fail horribly at conversation during one of this weeks Spanish classes, and if so I'll have to step up a gear or two on that front.

Also, since I don't like to get up so early in the morning, I'm gonna try to get as much of the Maths course done as is humany possible so I can happily skip that class for the rest of the term.

A Better Song to Sing

The above quote comes from the (god awful) film Educating Rita, the metaphorical wish of a woman who wishes to better her life through studying English literature, something she previously had no interest in. My arm has been twisted into writing about the feelings evoked in watching this movie. Guess I better focus on something other than how sick the quality of the acting and horrid crew of caricature supporting actors made me.

The permed Liverpudlian, our would-be heroine, wishes to shed the mediocrity of her working class setting, to swap pub songs for literary discussions - "a better song to sing". It probably would have cost less time and money to find another pub and/or boyfriend, but oh well.

She finds herself at University, studying books she doesn't like and surrounding herself with pretentious fools (Yah's to the power of 10). At first she doesn't understand the texts presented to her, doesn't feel as if she is able to do the work, considers herself less than the aforementioned asshats. Her tutor, 'Sir' (lol) Micheal Cane, suggests that perhaps this is not such a bad thing - he knows that despite their understanding of English, they are feckin' idiots all the same - but Rita is determined that going through a university course will broaden her horizons. Why Cane doesn't suggest she studies something she actually enjoys is beyond me.

By the end our our adventure with Rita, she gets to where she wants to be, with a firm grasp of the written word. But as Cane predicted, she sounds like another elitist automaton when she reels off criticism of literary works that's all words and no feeling.

So what are we, the class of Access to Languages, Arts and Social Sciences who were forced to watch this drivel, to take away from this?

Obviously, the moral of the story is that anyone, age or background regardless, can succeed in Higher education. I never had any doubt about this in the first place though, so focused more on possibility that Rita was there simply to learn something, anything, so she could feel... well, learned (perhaps discounted by the fact she seemed to enjoy it at the end, but selective memory suits my argument).

Personally, having already made a crack at university, I found myself thinking maybe I had dodged a bullet in choosing not to continue studying something I didn't enjoy. Might have ended up with my head up my anus at the end like Rita.

This time, I'm going to study because I like the subject matter, not with the aim of getting a slip of paper than makes my more employable. I'm also going to take a large selection of weapons with me in case I get stuck in a class with any of Rita's cronies.