3 Quick Ways to Increase Studying Efficiency

1. Explain the concepts as if you were the professor teaching the class.
   • Putting yourself in the shoes of the professor requires you to know what you’re talking about. Instead of blindly reading of reviewing slides, talk to your room, stuffed animals, or even your friends about concepts you learn. Talk as much as you need and however you need to make connections between concepts. Creating flow between concepts allows for maximum comprehension.
2. Ask ChatGPT to summarize and/or further explain lecture slides.
   • Many times, I don’t understand the lecture slides not do I understand my professor. In these situations, I ask ChatGPT to further expand on the lecture slides in easy-to-understand ways. It’s like having a personalized professor and tutor at your fingertips. You can even ask the AI system to give you practice questions to test you on the content.
3. Focus on learning, not note-taking.
   • I used to expend excess manual and mental effort copying down every word my professor lectured into my notes. Not only did I fail to keep up with the professor’s words, but also I retained 0% of the information presented in class. Therefore, I started to ease on the rushed note-taking and instead began listening to learn. This way, I could see my brain receive lecture information as input to be understood, synthesized and create value from instead of words to memorize and copy into my notes. I learned so much more in less time, made more connections between topics, and made lectures less dreadful.

I would love to hear study methods that you find useful to you in the comments below!