Instrumental

This fake brain actually has the same consistency as the real deal. So now you know how concussions happen! 

Nice notes are soothing and motivating.

Got an Essay to Write?

Here’s how to use up space when you are just absolutely done with life

-make all periods a font size or two up from the one you’ve been directed to use

-put two spaces after every period

-WATCH YO COMMAS you’re prob missing fifty of them

-2.15 space it

-MLA format the header

-use “such as” instead of “like”

-use “therefore” or “as a result of” instead of “so”

-add a space after every indent

-make the margins on your paper a TINY bit bigger

-get rid of all contractions

-see that word that’s so close to being on the next line? put it on the next line

*keep in mind that one or two of these may conflict with the essay’s instructions

*don’t forget to take a break and breathe some non-recycled air and close your eyes and love yoself <3

this has gotten me through several papers so i hope this helps. reblog this please, save a grade and some sanity

Achieving your full academic potential: Things to Avoid Doing

Things you may want to avoid doing in the future. 

 Doing, wait, not doing these things always works for me. 

Staying up late. 

 Sleep is yes.  And as my speech coach puts it “there are only so many all nighters a person can pull before they just can’t”.  Not only will staying up uber-late make the next day a battle between you an a surprisingly pillow-like desktop, if you’re tired, your work probably won’t be the your best.

Over-scheduling. 

 It’s easier to look at a schedule with 3-4 assignments than it is to look at one with 9-10.  When scheduling, if you have a plethora of assignments, prioritize.  Write down the most important assignments, and leave any others off the page or in the margins.  You only have so many hours in the day and it’s better to complete the most important tasks than none at all.

Pro-tip: The Pareto Principle.  The Pareto principle revolves around the 80%-20% ratio.  Allow me to explain, if you have 10 pieces of work, there are probably only two of them that will take up 80% of the work.  And 8 of them that will take up 20% of the work.  The key to prioritizing is finding those two assignments (or however many = 20% in your workload) and doing them first

Working in bed or laying down.

 NONONONONONONONONONO.  This is how “cat-naps” happen.  You swear that you’re going to get straight to work and then your phone on the bedside table lights up.  It’s too hard to organize a book, a notebook, and a laptop on a bed without moving the laptop off of your lap.  So why not check it?  

Working in bed helps the boogeyman grow under it.

Over-working.  

If you take on more than you can handle, you will not get the results you want.  It’s perfectly alright to challenge yourself.  In fact, it’s great.  But, there is a difference between being ambitious and stressing yourself out.  If it’s too much, go back to the Pareto principle and prioritize. 

Drinking excessive amounts of coffee and energy drinks. (Especially in the afternoon.)  

One (maybe two, if you ordered a tall) cups of coffee in the morning is fine.  But in the afternoon or the evening, stick to exercise, healthy snacks, and naps.  Sugary energy drinks as well as coffee that contain caffeine can speed up your heart rate, cause stress, and irregular breathing patterns.  If you become addicted to caffeine these things will accelerate and can end up hurting you detrimentally.

Over-using productivity apps.  

Productive apps are awesome, if used correctly, don’t abuse them.  It was difficult for me to use productivity apps on my phone at first because the other things on my phone would distract me.  If you plan to use productivity apps on you phone and computer make sure that you have the self-control needed o use them properly.

Tumblr. - I’m only half kidding

Those are the general ones, these are a bit more subject specific

Math/science

Falling behind. 

 In other classes falling behind is not recommended, but is usually fixable by reading a few chapters or asking a friend for notes.  Because of arithmetic’s complex nature that relies not only on facts, but applying them it is very difficult to master one a concept while you’re supposed to be mastering another.  Often, learning one key concept can help you with many other assignments, not learning key concepts can make those other assignments 10x harder.

Receiving low homework scores.  

In all of the math classes I’ve been in, the homework scores were more of your grade than your test homework.  Always turn in your homework, even if it feels impossible, try your best, and never leave your paper blank.  Even if you got all of the answers wrong, many teachers will give you serious credit for trying and failing rather than just failing.

Learn everything from the teacher. 

 There are a plethora of online math resources that are awesome, and math teachers usually only teach one method of solving a problem.  Try Khan Academy , For Dummies, or IXL.  Or look around a bit, there are a lot of other great sites, those are just my favorites.

Learn everything. (This is usually for science.) 

 In science (especially in biology and Earth sciences.) you are introduced to a myriad of concepts and vocabulary words that might seem like too much to memorize.  Don’t.  Look at what your teacher puts emphasis on and memorize that. Also, if you are using a textbook, there is a good chance that the textbook is filled with notes on the ‘key concepts’ or learning requirements for each chapter.  These are also things that you should attempt to memorize.

English/writing/history/ other humanities

Not develop an opinion. (Especially in history) 

 If there’s anything a english/ writing/ history teacher loves, it’s an opinionated student.  Textbooks give you facts and figures, and you can interpret them however you want.  So, do just that.  This will show your teacher not only that you are interested in his or her subject, but that you are engaged in the material that they gave you.

Ignore teacher comments. (No matter how small.) 

 It isn’t fun to read nit-picky comments about your work.  Especially on your writing.  But look at them.  Even if you receive a good grade on a paper, applying corrections on your next one will ensure that you get a better grade the next time.  

Staying quiet in class.  

I understand that for some people this one is hard, for some people this one is practically impossible.  But teachers love it.  If you can, voice your opinion and answer questions in class as frequently as possible.  I’ve even received extra credit for being verbally engaged in class more than other students.

Not trying to learn everything.  

This one is a lot like the ‘not ignoring teacher comments’.  A lot of information slips through the cracks (especially in english)  that pops back up on exams.  Because most of what is learned in an english class is not drilled into you like it would be in a math or science class, to do well, you have to drill yourself.  I’ve been told the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ plenty of times, but I didn’t truly learn it until this year when I had to study it for an exam.

Pro-tip: Don’t challenge your teachers.  They determine your grades.  Momentary satisfaction is not worth a bad grade.

Hope this was useful!

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 

Ladies and gentlemen, new guest post on the blog

5 Proved Tips for Witing a Fresh Book Review

“Do you know how to write a fresh book review? You may have already faced with this unordinary task but we have some tips for you to do it at your best. Some basic things you should know is that a book review is intended to describe, analyze and evaluate. It also should…” Read More>>   

The author of the post is http://youreasystudy.tumblr.com/!

Hi I’m really indecisive and I’m trying to create an effective note making system for this year. Do you have any tips on how you take notes or use colours, post it notes or anything else? I'm hoping to do maths, science or language subjects if that makes a difference. Thank you! x

Hello!

Personally during high school I kept two notebooks per subject. In general, I used one of them (notebook A) to take notes during lessons, and the other (notebook B) to rewrite them at home adding information from textbooks and making sure I understood everything. 

For maths I followed the lessons on my book and did most of the notes at home. I kept a notebook to write the theorems and explanations I had to study, and an other one to do all the exercises and problems.

For science I had lessons very full of information, so on one notebook (A) I would write really fast everything I could, and on the other (B) I would rewrite everything checking the textbook. When I saw the teacher was following my textbook pretty closely, I just underlined the parts she explained during the lesson and added the extra information she gave in the margins. Then I would write the notes assembling the underlined parts and the margin notes in a notebook (B). If there were any graphs I had to write, I would do that in a different color.

For language subject I’m n to sure what you mean… But if it’s literature, I took notes during lessons on sheets of paper and combined them at home with the information on the textbook in a notebook. If it’s a foreign language, I personally studied latin, and I had a notebook for grammar and one for exercise.

I used highlighters in my textbooks, and even though I didn’t exactly color-code, I did use different colors to underline concepts of different importance. For example, I would use a more visible color such as a green/blue/pink for the most important concepts, and a more subtle one, like yellow, for less important (but still important) things. If there were textbooks that I did not want to ruin, I underlined with a pencil and a ruler, using a double line or a zigzag line for more important things.

In my notes I use colors to write important words or concepts. It doesn’t really matter to me which color I use, but to keep my notes very clean I tend to use black and blue. I use a lot of colors when I condense a lot of information in a small amount of place, like on one sheet of paper. In that case I use different colors for different topics. For example if I want to condense information about macromolecules, I would use a color for carbohydrates, a color for proteins, a color for fats etc.

I only use post-its in my textbooks to find easily where certain topics are, but I don’t really use them in note taking.

I hope I was helpful!

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!

To be prepared is half the victory

some notes from last exam

Ig: cllalagram