If You’re Looking For Some Journal Inspiration, I Recommend Following Pepperandtwine On Instagram!

PLEASE MAKE A REAL COLLEGE TIPS POST BC I WAS TRUSTING THE ONE FROM THE FIRST YEAR UNTIL NOW

minimize gaps in your schedule if you’re commuting unless you work better on campus, in which case schedule large gaps and stay on campus all day

use academic advising services as early as possible to formulate your post-grad plan. don’t leave it until third or fourth year and risk missing prereqs, work/volunteer experience or references

networking sucks ass but guess what? you have to do it. figure out what your classmates are doing, who they’re speaking to, etc

make sure your profs know you. sit near the front, see them during office hours (make up questions if you have to), attend events, pick their brains. you might get an academic reference out of it or even a grad student position 

you most likely have an online portal. visit it hourly. leave it for even a day and you will miss something

find out what textbooks you need before the semester starts and download the e-book, buy it used, whatever. just don’t fuck yourself over within the first couple weeks waiting for your book to arrive

read your syllabus very carefully. set all dates in your phone with an alarm days prior

get credit audits every year to make sure you’re on track to graduating when you anticipate

don’t take evening classes. you’ll never get anything done prior to class like you planned. ever. 

There are three major approaches to note taking, each of which will be outlined and described in this post:

Outlining:  

Outlining is an effective way to capture the hierarchical relationships between ideas. In a history class, you might write the name of an important leader, and under it the key events they were involved in. Outlining is a great way to take notes from books, because the author has usually organized the material in a     fairly effective way, and you can go from start to end of a chapter and simply reproduce the same structure in your notes. Place major points farthest to the left. Indent each more specific point farther to the right. 

The advantage of this is that level of importance is indicated by distance away from left margin.

For lectures, outlining has limitations. The relationship between ideas isn’t always hierarchical, and the instructor might jump around a lot.

Requires more thought for accurate, understandable organization and, therefore, cannot be used during lectures that move too quickly.

Mind-mapping: 

For lectures, a mind-map might be a more appropriate way of keeping track of the relationships between ideas.

In the centre of a blank sheet of paper, you write the lecture’s main topic. As new sub-topics are introduced, you draw a branch outward from the centre and write the sub-topic along the branch. Then each point under that heading gets its own, smaller branch off the main one. When another new sub-topic is mentioned, you draw a new main branch from the centre.

The thing is, if a point should go under the first heading but you’re on the fourth heading, you can easily just draw it in on the first branch. Likewise, if a point connects to two different ideas, you can connect it to two different branches.

If you want to neaten things up later, you can re-draw the map or type it up using a program like FreeMind, a free mind-mapping program.

If you want to make your mind-maps memorable, and visually appealing, consider using different colours, and incorporating images/diagrams.

Mind maps can be used for just about anything in your degree! A mind map can help you:

Outline your ideas on a subject

Organise your thoughts

Visualise a whole concept

Take and review notes

Plan an essay

Revise for your exams

Here are some advantages and disadvantages to mindmaps:

Mindmaps are adaptable - they can be used for lectures; note-making from books; essay plans etc. as well as less structured tasks.

They are easy to add ideas later, at any time.

They can help you focus on the links and relationships between ideas so you don’t just have disconnected facts.

They can be personalised with pictures and symbols to make things more memorable.

They are a useful tool for condensing lots of information – e.g. a whole topic into a mind map poster, to aid revision.

You can’t incorporate large chunks of text.

You have to stick to the rules of mind mapping to get the optimum benefit from the tool.

Creating the map may take time. However, this will help you to review or recall information and will check your understanding.

When you’ve personalised your map, it can be difficult for others to understand.

Cornell Notes:

About a quarter of the way from the bottom of a sheet of paper, draw a line across the width of the page. Draw another line from that line to the top, about 2 inches (5 cm)  from the right-hand edge of the sheet. You’ve divided your page into three sections. In the largest section, you take notes normally — you can outline or mind-map or whatever.

After the lecture, write a series of “cues” into the skinny column on the right, questions about the material you’ve just taken notes on. This will help you process the information from the lecture or reading. In the bottom section, write a short summary of the material you’ve covered.

Typing Your Notes:

Set up folders for each topic. Create these folders before lectures/class and save your notes into the correct ones. It will keep all of your notes organised and easy to find. You might want to have different folders for lecture and reading notes. Develop a system which is intuitive for you.

Know the program. Choose which program you’re going to use to take your notes. There are lots of options available, including Microsoft Office. If you can’t afford Office, then you can look into (illegal) free downloads of it. If you have Office, you could also use Onenote. Alternatives include free programmes like Evernote which allow you to access your notes from anywhere on any device.

Get a template (M Office only). On Microsoft word, you can download different templates. See if there is a template that you can use for taking your notes. Alternatively, you can create your own template by adjusting the margins, font, size, etc. and saving your preferences. If you don’t want to use a template, you can just use the default settings.

Name the notes. Make sure that you name the notes so that you know what’s inside. On Microsoft word, when saving documents you can add tags. Then you can search these tags for any documents with that specific tag. I’ve found this to be a really useful organisational tool.

Do you need anything to take your notes? If you’re using a tablet, you can buy Bluetooth keyboards which will connect and can be quicker than typing on the screen. You can also buy a stylus which will let you write like you would with a normal pen; some devices also have the option to convert your handwriting to typed notes.

Get to know your keyboard. If you’re using a keyboard, then I suggest looking at this website which will teach you how to touch type.

Become familiar with keyboard shortcuts. Especially for things like bold, italicise, underline, highlight.

Downloads. If the teacher/lecturer puts up any material for the lecture download it. These are typically powerpoint slides. When I take notes next year, I will download these and split screen between word and powerpoint. Then I’ll be able to copy and paste material and diagrams straight from the actual powerpoint, speeding up my process.

Back up. Please, back up your notes on google docs. If your computer crashes you will have a backup of your notes that will be essential to studying! Again, for the people in the back, back up your notes!

Creating your notes. Use the technology to your advantage.

Use bold/highlight/italic. Make your heading and subheadings stand out from the rest of your text.

Use bullet points.

You can even make sub bullet points (like this) using the tab key to follow your line of thought/reason.

Highlight the important things; you could even use different colours for different things. E.g. yellow for important dates, blue for important quotes.

Develop an annotation style. For example, sometimes you might fall behind a bit, and miss a detail. When this happens to me I insert a series of dots into my notes, like this (……..) and I know that means I missed something so I can return to the recordings to find out what I missed. You could use question marks (?) to indicate something that confuses you that you need to do more reading on. There are lots of different symbols so you can develop your own system.

This also works with words. If you have certain words which you’re typing a lot then you can make them shorter and easier to type. For example, the word “participants” comes up a lot in my course, but I use “ps” because it’s shorter and quicker to type.

Choosing between typing and handwriting:

Handwriting Notes:

Is creative; colour/ highlight/draw

Can help memory

Lots of experience using the technique

Can revent distraction

Same format as exams

Lots of paper; bulky

No back up

Environmenta

Difficult to transport

Can be a slow, ling progress

Typing Notes:

Quick; can keep up with teacher

Easy to transport; all ntoes on a single memory stick

Can create back up copes

Can be printed to have a digital and paper copy

Paper doesn’t have to be used; environmentall friendly

Add coliur/highlithg/etc.

Easily shared with other people

Different fonts can make it easier for people with dyslexia

Laptop may be too heavy to take to class

Not everyone has a laptop; expensive

Battery life might not be a suitable for a full day of classes

Can be less memorable

Back to School: Your Help Guide to Waking up Early

1. Set your alarm for waking up early, a week or more before school starts. This will help you get into the habit of waking up earlier and you will ease yourself into it so that by the first day back you can wake up feeling refreshed instead of grumpy 

2. Keep your phone away from you when you sleep… on the other side of the room if possible or maybe inside the drawer of your bedside table. This forces you to actually wake up and be attentive in order to turn off that alarm instead of just being able to roll over and tapping snooze. 

3. Get out of your bed and open the curtains or blinds to let sunlight in, it will energize you and again force you to wake up. Plus, who doesn’t like watching the warm rays of the rising sun, if you are a nature lover or you just enjoy watching the sunrise this will even help you start your day on a positive and productive note.

4. Try to set yourself a regimen, I know this is hard because of all the homework and assignments and jobs  or extracurriculars that accumulate over the school year but if you put in the effort to set yourself a regular sleep time each night you will definitely see the results. 

5. Plan the night before. If there’s anything that you can get done fairly quickly at night so that you have more time to do things in the morning instead of rushing yourself because you’re rampaging through the house trying to find the pair of jeans that you thought was in your closet. The benefit of this is that your subconcious and concious mind will both feel at ease knowing that you are more relaxed about the day to come and it will allow for a better sleep which in turn will help you wake up on time.

Do you guys have any tips for waking up earlier in the morning for school? Reply to this post! 

xo 

// not like anybody cares but here’s my summer study notes //

04:10 PM // Hello! I made these mind maps a few days ago. I’m really proud of them considering I never made one before.

Medical School Resources! (and other human biology,physiology,biochemistry-related resources)

Hi Everyone! 

Update: I am now officially done with my second year! I know i’ve been MIA on here for a while now - but that’s only because I was drowning in textbooks and assignments! I will be writing a whole other post on what my second year in medical school was like - so watch out for that :)

I, for one, can not just rely on one method of learning. Meaning, I’ll jump from videos, to textbooks, to flashcards. In this post I’m going to list some of my holy grail youtube channels that have helped saved me. 

1) Handwritten Tutorials

https://www.youtube.com/user/harpinmartin

Every video in this channel is short, but not so much that you feel like you’re missing out on information. Definitely one to save as a favourite!

2) Armando Hasudungan

https://www.youtube.com/user/armandohasudungan

The best thing about this channel is the fact that there are over 300 videos, covering a wide range of core topics in endocrinology, neurology, physiology and pharmacology. Another pro is the presentation of topics (otherwise considered snooze-worthy) in an artistic manner!

3) Speed Pharmacology

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-i2EBYXH6-GAglvuDIaufQ

Raise your hand if you’ve ever fallen asleep trying to read about the mechanism of action of opioids, their side effects and contraindications. I know I have. Fret not, for this youtube channel will introduce you to a world where pharmacology is actually interesting.

4) Wendy Riggs 

https://www.youtube.com/user/wendogg1

Wendy Riggs is a very down-to-earth professor in Northern California, and she covers a wide range of  topics in Anatomy, Physiology and General Biology. 

5) Anatomy Zone

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAnatomyZone

A better way to learn anatomy is to supplement your textbook information with videos from this channel. The explanations and visuals provided are absolute gold.

I hope you all find these channels as helpful as I did!

Organising a Notebook:

I was looking at methods of keeping notebooks organised and I came across a really interesting blog post (source) that I want to share with you all. All of the pictures in this post come directly from the original blog post.

Make your entry into your notebook. In the example photographs, they have recorded a Chinese recipe.

Go to the back of the notebook and add a tag or title, e.g. “Chinese” on the left edge of the page.

Go back to the first page where the entry was, and on the same line number as you wrote “Chinese” make a black mark on the edge. You make this mark so that even when the notebook is closed, the mark is visible. After repeating this for various recipes, you now have various tags visible on the notebooks edge.

If you ever wanted to find a Chinese recipe, you simply look at the index, locate the label, and look along the visible edge which has been tagged as Chinese. Then just flick to each marked page.

You’re not limited to one tag per page. You could tag a page 2 or 3 times. So if you jot down a chicken stir fry you could tag it as “Chicken” and “Chinese”.

How to Take Notes: from a Textbook

(Be sure to change the post type from link to text post when you reblog, if that’s what you want to do)

This method is best suited for textbook or article notes, and is a version of revised notes. It is also well suited for books you plan on returning to the bookstore or books you have rented, as it does not involve writing directly in the book itself.

First, you’ll need to find a notebook, and the pens you like the best. My favorite notebooks to work with for note-taking, especially for my “revised” notes, are the Moleskine, hard or soft cover, in size extra large. For this specific class (Intro to Gender and Women’s Studies), I decided that lined pages would suit my needs better. For my math, engineering, and science classes, I usually opt for squared paper, as I draw in lots of diagrams and graphs.

My favorite pens ever are Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, so even though they show through the pages a little bit, I still choose to use them. I just love the way they write. I usually write out my notes themselves with a Pilot G2 05 with black ink, as it writes with a finer line and doesn’t bleed through quite as much.

I usually try to set up my notebooks about a week or so before class starts, that way it’s ready to go on my first day of class.

You’ll want to start off by setting up your notebook. On my first page, I put my course code for my university, as well as the course title.

Next, and this is perfectly optional (I just like the way it makes the book look, especially at the end of the semester), I include some sort of related quote to the course. For my engineering courses (which are related to my major), I put a different quote at the beginning of each section. But as this is a two-month long course during the summer, I opted for one quote by Mohadesa Najumi at the beginning of my book.

Next I set up my table of contents and include a page with basic course information. As this course is all online, my course information just included the start and end dates of the course, what time content is posted and on what day, and the name of my professor. For my usual courses, I will include the days of the week the class meets on and where, TA names and contact info, as well as posted office hours for my professors and TAs and tutoring hours either in the library or in the College of Engineering.

Next is one of the things I’m most proud of.

While I religiously use my Erin Condren planner to map out my days, weeks, and months, I have found throughout my college experience that including monthly views for the months my class ranges has been helpful. This way, there’s no sifting through the multiple colors I have in my planner, and everything related to that class is in the same notebook.

On this calendar I include start dates of the class, the end date, the dates of exams or quizzes, assignment deadlines, office hours, etc.

For this course, as I just started a few days ago, I don’t have a lot of dates or information, so my calendars are still very empty.

Next up I go to my weekly overview. At the beginning of each week, I set up a weekly layout, and I include a list of assignments, tests, quizzes, tasks, projects, etc that need my attention throughout the week, and I place the days I plan on doing them or the days they need turned in onto the weekly layout.

Now you’re finally ready to get into taking the notes.

Gather your book, some sticky notes, and your favorite pen or pencil.

I color code my stickies so that the “revision” process later goes a bit smoother. In this case, I’m using blue to denote something interesting, intriguing, or thought provoking, greenish-yellow to represent the facts or important concepts, and pink for important vocabulary words and their definitions.

Read the selection once.

As you read along the second time, write notes on your stickies, and place them in a place of relevance directly on the page in the book. Just make sure you don’t cover up anything you need to keep reading.

Now, once you’ve read all the material in questions (you can choose to break it up however you want, but since Chapter 1 was assigned for the week, I’ve elected to break it into chapters), carefully remove your stickies one by one and lay them out on a flat surface. This is when having a separate color for vocab can be helpful, as I sometimes put all of my vocab at the beginning or end of a section, especially if the section of reading was particularly large.

Organize your stickies in an order that makes sense to you, and use this order as your basis for transferring those notes into your notebook. The order you choose can just be lumping them under similar headings. Some classes even lend themselves to a nice chronological order. Whatever you choose, just make sure it’s something that will make sense to you when you come back to it in the end.

Okay so up there I wasn’t following my own advice, I just thought I would include the picture because my handwriting looks nice…

Now organize the stickies!

Now you just start writing everything from the stickies into your notebook. I like to take each category or subgroup and put them in the book on the facing page, then put them back in my textbook as I finish with each post it.

Moving on to the next category.

Before you know it, you’ve written all of your stickies into your notebooks.

Now you’re revved up and ready to go. You can either keep going and make a note summary page (which I’ll show you next week), or you can leave it. These will also be helpful when reviewing for tests and quizzes. You can highlight or underline, or use even more stickies (which is what I usually do) as you review.

Well, that’s all I have for you right now. Happy studying!

(To view this post on wordpress, click here)

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

writing adult emails is awful

its like

hi [name of person], 

this formatting is making me uncomfortable but I have to tell you something / ask you something that is vital to my career as a student. 

I re-read and edited that sentence for an hour, but you’ll probably just glance over it for half a second.

thanks! 

- [name]

7 things to do when you can’t focus (instead of using your phone)

We’ve all been there : you’re studying for your exam but all you’ve been doing for the last 20 minutes was re-reading the same page over and over without understanding a single sentence from it. 

So you try and try again, but nothing seems to change, it just feels like your brain decided to take a nap instead. 

But the problem is that time is running out because your exam is in few days and you want to do your best before it’s too late !

And the truth is, you need a break. A short break. As a matter of fact, your brain isn’t able to focus more than 45-50 consecutive minutes and thus it needs short breaks in between.

So here’s my list of -less than 10 minutes- things I actually do when I’m not able to focus anymore :

Stretch : it takes 5 minutes. Down-dog pose or anything similar will help you to get more blood to your brain, and as you already know : more blood = more oxygen = more neurons happy = more focus. 

Meditate : sometimes your lack of concentration is the consequence of your anxious/tormented mind. Set a timer and try to focus on your breath for 5-10 minutes. If meditating alone is difficult for you, I suggest you to download HeadSpace app, which has some free 5-10 minutes guided meditations! 

Do another productive task that isn’t related to studying : this could be making your bed, cleaning your desk, or re-organizing your notes! Just do something that makes you move and stimulates your blood flow. Plus, you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something more ! 

Search for the topic you’re studying on Youtube  :  you’ll be able to find almost anything. I’ve done it so many times and it really helped me to get a better understanding and a more global vision of the subject i’m into !  

Play with your pet(s) if you have any! It’ll be beneficial for both you : they’ll get your attention and love, and you’ll be more relaxed after ! 

Go for a walk : around your neighborhood. Or around the library. Or just walk your dog if you have one. Breathe the fresh air and move your legs : your body will thank you, especially if you stay seated all day.

Workout : yes, you can do an effective workout for 10 minutes. And Pinterest is here to prove it to you. Just tap « ten minutes HIIT workout » and you’ll find TONS of them. You can also look for some on Youtube (I suggest Pamela Rf 10 minutes no equipment ab workout, I promise you’ll feel it the next day). 

Bonus tip : STOP STUDYING. If you tried any of these tips and your brain still doesn’t want to collaborate, maybe it’s just time for you to take a real break and do something else instead, especially if you’ve been studying for several hours. It happens to everyone and I think it’s really important to know when to stop. Moreover, it will actually help you memorize what you’ve already learned : your brain unconsciously processes it whilst you’re doing other stuff than studying!  

And that’s it, just know that all these tips have been tested and approved by me :) Let me know if you tried some of these or tell me what YOU do to instead! 

Also if you want to see more posts like this, feel free to give me a follow ! I’ll be more than happy to see your tumblr too :)  

PS : sorry in advance if you notice my imperfect grammar (english isn’t my first language) 

Blog : https://anatomyandcappuccini.tumblr.com