I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I always struggled with school. Throughout high school and college my grades were never great, I couldn’t study right, and a lot of professors didn’t like me because they thought I wasn’t trying. I have since visited the Educational Access Center and discovered I had a learning difference that was holding me back. Knowing this has allowed me to move on in my education in a much more efficient way. Just visiting there was something that was outside of my typical comfort zone and without stepping out and trying something new, I don’t know where I would be.
There has forever been this notion that you must go through pain and suffering to see results and school has been the closest to that truth that I have experienced.
A lot of my friends have used a similar tactic in the gym, the old “no pain no gain” trope. Now I know a lot of people reading this may feel like they want to step out of their comfort zone but have little to no idea where to start.
I’ll give some examples of things I have done to improve my studying that maybe will give you a head start. Firstly I stopped trying to study in loud and busy parts of the campus. Lunch halls are great when you need a group study session but I couldn’t hold my focus when working alone, even with noise cancelling headphones on. I also used to listen to many different genres of music which I thought helped me concentrate but in fact was hindering me from getting any good work done.
What I changed was I started going to coffee shops like Philz Coffee and Starbucks. I like to find a little cubby hole in the corner of the shop with an outlet, drink some tea (or sometimes a mocha), put in my earphones and play something called brown noise. Brown noise is a constant tone kind of like white noise but with more texture to it. I have found that after about five minutes or listening to it, the entire world drowns out and I am completely locked in.
One thing you have to do to ensure success is putting your phone into focus mode. That way only your actual emergency messages and contacts can get through to you. No more “accidental” doom scrolling on TikTok or Instagram. I’m sure a lot of you knew that last part already but I never realized just how distracted I was until I started using focus mode. All things considered, of course it will take time for you to get used to the new norm and there will be a considerable amount of trial and error with different methods. But if I can leave you with anything let me leave you with this. If I can get myself from a semester average GPA of 2.7 to a 3.4, then so can you.
This article has been updated to correct spelling errors.
