By James Cirrone

What are you expected to do as a college student? Eat, sleep, and study. Most of us have the first two down pat, but it turns out we don’t quite know how to hit the books effectively. 

On Oct. 29, Dr. Scott Roberts told the 20 or so students who attended his presentation in Edward St. John’s Teaching and Learning Transformation Center that their study habits aren’t as beneficial as they could be. 

Roberts, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland, repeatedly referenced a 2009 study from UCLA that said spacing out your learning over days or weeks is more effective than cramming for 90% of students.

Rodolfo Castro, a sophomore information science major, explained how he often has too many notes and gets bogged down trying to cram all of the information in his head the night before a test.

“I think where I’m lacking is internalizing a lot of it…and then going back and referencing it too much,” Castro said. 

The presentation laid out five “hacks” to help students retain information better. One of the hacks was to space out your study sessions to prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed. 

Nina Jeffries, a sophomore environmental science and policy major, said she thought that this hack would help her the most.

“I think the hack that will be most helpful for me is probably the distributive studying, like taking breaks. I do a lot of cramming the day before, which I know bad, but it was good to have him [Dr. Roberts] go through that again.” said Jeffries. 

Another hack that resonated with students was to teach the material you’re studying to someone else. The idea is that if you’re able to teach it, then you know it.

“When you have to explain something to someone, it forces you to organize it in a way that makes sense,” said Dr. Roberts during his presentation. 

Claire Hinrichs, a senior physics and astronomy double major, agreed with this assessment, and said that right now she tries to study material in a way that prepares her for an exam rather than preparing her to teach it to someone.

“I think if you’re learning the material to try to have to teach it to someone, you actually have to get to a deeper level of understanding,” Hinrichs said.

The presentation went on to address faulty mindsets that some students possess, which lead to poor study outcomes. Dr. Roberts asked the attendees to predict how two different students would react to getting an F on an exam. Everyone agreed that the student with a fixed outlook of their performance would likely tell themselves that because they did bad on this one exam that they are bad. However, a student with a desire to grow might tell themselves that this one bad grade was a minor bump in the road that they can overcome with more practice.

This part of the presentation spoke to Hinrichs, a student in the STEM fields of study.

“I have some imposter syndrome because that’s just how it is with physics,” she said. “We all think that we’re bad.”

Hinrichs added that she believed it wasn’t productive to just say that she’s “bad” at something, and leave it at that. She likes to remind herself that there are ways to grow and improve.

Unfortunately, test anxiety can still affect some students despite having good study habits. 

Dr. Roberts’ solution for this was to try breathing exercises before a test to calm nerves and sharpen the ability to focus. He led students in an exercise of metered breathing to demonstrate the calming effects of simply focusing on inhaling and exhaling. 

After the event had concluded, Dr. Roberts spoke about his excitement to share his expertise on effective studying strategies to an audience beyond his psychology classes.

“I think it’s a really exciting opportunity to have a direct impact, and to hopefully help people reflect on their process and refine those skills that they’re going to take with them long after college is over,” said Dr. Roberts.

Featured photo courtesy of James Cirrone.