Top 10 Tips For Students

 Going in to second year; you will see a big difference in students…  You will see who’s here to party and who is here to really knuckle down and work hard. It’s fair to say I wasn’t the best example of a second year student. In the first two months I was going out nonstop. But when the work load came it hit me hard. I’m not the most organised person you will ever meet; however, learning from my mistakes here are 10 top tips to help you get organised and not waste time!


H I N T  1: N O T E B O O K S


This will seem like an obvious one but my advice is to either get one a4 notebook and colour code each module and what topic or get a5 notebook for each module. For example, last year I had four modules, so I used four different coloured notebooks to help me find notes for each one. The only problem with this, is if you forget one notebook and then having to write in the another one! So, it’s safe to say this year I will be using one notebook and I will colour code it.


H I N T  2: A C A D E M I C  D I A R Y


In the beginning of the year, you will get the dates of coursework hand ins and roughly a time of exam periods down. Write this down. Knowing the way in which Uni seems to plan hand in dates they all appear so close to each other. This gives you the tine to be able to plan your workload accordingly instead of freaking out last miniute like I did.


H I N T  3: T O D O L I S T’ S


Everything begins to get on top of you. You’ve got bills to pay, you want to salvage any of your social life left. And it all gets too much. Doing to-do list can help. You can see what you need to get done and when. Sometimes having a specific one can be a distraction so maybe only plan to do two things in one week.


H I N T 4: L U N C H  B O X


Gone are the days where you can just walk back to halls from lecture and have food. And spending your money at the SU Shop seems ridiculous! It’s honestly such a cost effective way and you don’t waste time in ques to buy food.


H I N T 5: E A R  P H O N E ‘ S


If they aren’t already; they will become your best friend. When you are powering through an essay at your library. You will need your music to keep you focused or when you’re on the bus to uni, they will wake you up. Or, around exam session you can record yourself saying notes and play it on the bus etc.



H I N T 6:  R E V I S I O N  C A R D S


Exams will hit. And here comes stress. Having your notes prepared before exams will be extremely helpful and useful… Whether it’s a MCM exam or essays, this type of revision tool is effective. It can help you learn Names and Theories, or learning different part's of a pre-essay you wrote also they are interactive as you can use with other course mates or get friends to test you!


H I N T 7:  C O L O U R  P E N S



I mean, if you want to colour code things to make it more visually appealing and make it easy to find stuff then colour pens are the way forward. Whether you use them to underline names and dates or to emphasis a point. They are just fun to use, but make sure you don't over stress on colour coding and stop concentrating on what your lecture is saying.


H I N T 8: L A P T O P  C A S E


You may try and convince yourself you will do your work at home… BUT GOD DAMN IT THERE ARE TOO MANY DISTRACTIONS. You’ll find that the time you need to waste before lectures will become useful to do work and write notes. You may want to do your reading or look something up from the last lecture. But you will end up bringing your laptop in and having a case is so important to make sure you don’t break it.

H I N T 9: C O L O U R I N G  B O O K


It doesn’t have to be a colouring book. But something to help you de-stress yourself before bed. I can tell you, the night before my exam’s I am awful to sleep with. I’m up all night and I pace and I just cannot relax to fall asleep.  Having something to calm you down will be a huge help!


H I N T 10: F O L D E R S


I don’t know about your course, but sometimes in my seminars they would give us sheets and they would end up crumbled up in the bottom of my bag. Then I’d completely forget that they existed until months later and then I would look at them and think ‘Damn that would have helped’. Having a place to put them in will help all that more!

No comments