I always felt I had a pretty good idea how I retain information the best. I had already finished an undergraduate degree, work full-time in a job that requires me to constantly think on my feet with new ideas…of course I figured I could just ease right back into school…..Yeah, not so much. These last few weeks have been eye opening on many levels. First off, I was under the impression that I could just hammer away for several hours at night after working a full day and retain information like I used to…Nope, not happening. I was also hoping that classes were not going to take up THAT much time so I can have some semblance of a personal life…….sort of, but not exactly.
The biggest things that I have taken away from starting school again is that I have changed. My circumstances have changed, and I have had to come up with a new game plan in order to succeed in an online environment. I learned early on that after working 10+ hours a day, the last thing I want to do is come home and study. I would come home and get myself prepared to do work, but would always find some other thing to distract me because I just couldn’t sit my self down to do more work. So the first part of my routine I changed is WHEN I work. Instead of trying to be up all night reading, I started going to bed earlier and waking up earlier (something I tried from my assessment). I have found that I am able to retain information better in the morning, and stay more focused, then I have after working all day. While this took me about a week or so to figure out, it has enabled me to stay on top of my classes better, and be more efficient and be able to stick to my game plan if set for myself to accomplish my work.
Hello, I really agree with your statement about how you thought you could just come home form work and retain a lot of information. I have tried doing the same thing recently and it wasn’t going well for me. I also agree with how you said your circumstances have changed and that makes your school different too. My schedule with work seems to be changing a lot throughout the year and I have recently realized too that you have to learn to adapt to the new things in your life. It seems like you have learned a lot in the past three weeks and I hope the rest of the semester goes well for you.
-Joey Cramer
I am in a similar boat, I work full time and I come home and expect to study. I think I will adopt your idea and try to do more studying in the morning. Something that has helped me in studying in the evening is finding a place, like my local library or coffee shop, and designated as a study only place. If you get distracted online with time-wasting websites like reddit/imgur the library does a good job of blocking these websites since some of them have “adult” content. Anyways, maybe having a place can really optimize the little studying you do in the afternoon. Also somethings that helps with studying is breaking up studying into small chunks. When I have a 30 page chapter to read in one night any little thing will distract me, so I try to break it up over the course of 3 or so days. I hope this was helpful.