Most of your high school habits that you picked up will serve you well. But, the assumption that these will be able to perfectly translate to your university success would be a huge and costly mistake. Here are four simple habits that may have worked very well for you in high school that will fail you at most universities across the world.
- Starting your studying the night before a test
In a university, the course material is typically much, much more complex and complicated than you were faced with during high school. As such, starting your studying the night before a test will not allow you adequate time to get questions answered when they arise. Starting your study efforts three days before the exam is a better approach in college.
- Studying a couple hours for a test
If you have the habit of studying two or three hours for a test during high school, you will absolutely need to make a huge adjustment when you enter into college. My basic recommendation to students is to study for a given test for 10 hours. Yes, I did just say 10 hours. In fact, building on my comment above, starting early enough that if 10 hours isn’t enough, you have time to do more. If you have high A’s in every class halfway through the semester, cut back and spends more time going to parties.
- Memorizing and moving on
In high school, simply memorizing material to be able to spit it back onto paper on the test is a tried and true method of getting good results. In college, professors will ask questions to determine whether or not you truly understand the material. Straight memorization will still get you a passing grade in most cases, but will not get you an A.
- Studying socially
High school is easy enough that you can typically get away with studying while enjoying Instagram and Snap chat with friends. In college, most of the material is more mentally challenging, so a multimedia study approach will likely be ineffective. Maximize the quality of your study time so you can minimize the quantity of study time — and still achieve the results you want.