In high school, I was always the girl that didn't really need to study. I would pass tests that I didn't study for with flying colors as my friends studied day in and day out to try to pass. Some of my friends envied me for that, but I also understood the fact that everyone learns differently. This essentially means that I never took the time to figure out the best way to study for tests in the same capacity as my peers.

This would be my downfall as I entered my first year of college.

My first semester wasn't super challenging (aside from one class that I ended up retaking), but my second semester was devastating for my GPA and my mental health. My time management needed a lot of work and I still couldn't figure out a way to study that really worked for me. I would try looking through the PowerPoints and annotating, rewriting the presentations, and trying to line up the lectures with the textbooks. But nothing was working for me, and I got extremely frustrated and discouraged as I watched my grades suffer.

I didn't quite figure out methods that worked until I took a summer semester online. Since I never met with teachers face-to-face, I had to do a lot of self-teaching. For me, this meant listening to or reading the lectures and copying them word for word and later rewriting them in a way that made sense to me. I also called in to the online tutoring sessions offered by one of my classes. However, this isn't effective for many of the classes I am currently in.

This semester I have to keep learning what will work. I write my notes in multiple colors, rewrite my notes, and make flashcards on Quizlet to study with. I have found that repetition is an effective way for me to get information into my head, but I get very bored very quickly. I always have some background noise, whether it's the TV or music playing, to help me concentrate. I think one thing that I need to try to incorporate into my study routine is a game or challenge within each topic I study.

While these things work for me, they may not work for everyone else. Everyone learns a different way and at different paces, and it is a learning process for each person. The most important thing is to not get discouraged as you try to establish a study pattern.

And trust me, the sooner you learn how to study properly, no matter how frustrating, the better off you'll be in the future.