How to Approach a New Academic Year (Tips)

As you may or may not know, I've just started my first year at Helwan university. I am enrolled in the Biotechnology program in the Faculty of Science. This all sounds great and all. Although I initially wanted to study Medicine, I'm actually liking it and I'm really appreciating the path that God put me in, but that's a topic for another time.

What I want to talk about here is this huge new step that we -as the 2002 generation- are getting our self into. In other words, I want to give you really valuable tips that I've learnt from various resources and talk to you about various topics that will interest you if you are doing any type of studying. Bear with me here.. This is gonna get interesting.

Part 1: Organization

There's no doubt that organization will be a key factor in your academic success. There are various ways to achieve a pretty good level of organization. I, mostly, prefer digital ones so, here are my top favorites.

1- For keeping track of all my Lectures, Quizzes & Assignments - Notion

Notion is a really powerful tool. It goes beyond a note-taking application -although it also handles that very good-. Notion goes as far as letting you create Databases, link them to each other and create related databases. Here is How my Notion University Page Looks like.

For your time's sake, I am going to link you to a YouTube video of my good friend Ali Abdaal to further teach you about Notion (link down below), but before I do that, one thing worth mentioning is that Since he made this video, Notion became free for everyone so, don't panic if you see Ali saying that it is $10/month or whatever.

2- For planning and having a visual representation of my Lectures & Exams - Google Calendar

You can really use any calendar you want -as long as you do use one-. I have really appreciated calendars since starting college because since then, I have always known where to go if I wanted to know where or when a lecture is. Google calendar is my choice. You can do you. It really doesn't matter.

Part 2: The Actual Studying (the juicy part)

So, We've achieved the point where you can tell all your classes and assignments at a glance. That's amazing, but you actually have to study.. obviously. So, how are you going to do that?

There are the very common ways of studying that we all know and love but then, there are these relatively uncommon ways of studying that are scientifically-proven to boost the way you learn topics and memorize facts. I came across these studying techniques thanks to my good friend Ali Abdaal who happens to have a YouTube channel where he goes in depth about these studying techniques and other productivity topics and shows the science behind why this works which I highly recommend you check out.. link below.

If you want the exact scientific reasons and researches that have been conducted in any of the areas that I am going to be talking about, Check out Ali Abdaal's YouTube channel. link below.. again.

Other than that, If you don't mind, I am going to come up with my own terminology to explain this as quickly as possible since, you know, I have to apply them too!

With that out of the way, There are basically two key principles to studying which are: (a) Active Recall and (b) Spaced Repetition. These two methods -in a very beautiful harmony- work together providing you with a very effective learning journey.

1- Active Recall

This basically says that the best way of studying is not by trying to stuff information into your brain but, the complete opposite. The best way of studying and/or memorizing information is trying to get them out of your brain by doing questions or testing yourself or using flashcards, even if you haven't learnt the material yet and even if you are trying to learn it for the first time! This should strengthen -be careful of this upcoming, completely made up sentence- "How your brain attaches to this piece of content so that it doesn't go away"

So, In conclusion, Active Recall basically means testing yourself instead of re-reading or writing or highlighting or even making notes.

2- Spaced Repetition

The concept of spaced repetition is to spread out our revision of the topic over time at particular intervals instead of cramming things into a single day (AKA the night before the exam). This is supposed to make the information stick better to your brain because of something called The forgetting curve.

Very Shortly explained, Our memory of anything tends to decay over time at an exponential rate unless we renew our memory of that topic over time at particular intervals.

So, In conclusion, Spaced Repetition basically means spacing your repetition of the topic (which is hopefully done by active recall) across intervals over a period of time.

The cherry on top of the cake (AKA el kholasa)

To study/learn anything, Primarily depend on testing yourself* on it. For best results, Test yourself over periods of time**.

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