Tips to Stay on Track with Studies in NUS

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It’s almost 3am and you’re paling at the sight of the never-ending mountain of assignments, tutorials and readings that you’ve yet to finish. You chide yourself for not being able to stick to your New Year’s resolution to study harder and pull up your CAP. Everything looks bleak and you are this close to S/U-ing this module.

Fortunately, not all hope is lost. Your studies can still be salvaged with these helpful study tips!

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1 // Start early

Planning your schedule is vital to prevent the suffering that comes from a backlog of assignments, essays and projects. Printing out the syllabus for each module and keying down important deadlines in your calendar allows you to plan your activities around those deadlines. It’s better to be prepared than being in for a nasty surprise. This also gives you ample time to properly research your essays, projects and tutorials and produce your best work.

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2 // Consult your tutor

Often, many students are shy to raise questions during tutorials. However, you should seek clarification from your tutor or professor immediately when you hit a stumbling block. This is essential especially for foundational concepts. Schedule a consult with them, or simply send off an email if you’re hesitant of face-to-face interactions. Most tutors won’t bite and are willing to help you out when you’re stuck.

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3 // Ditch the devices

Let’s admit, our smartphones are the number one reason why we can’t finish our work in time. It’s difficult to exercise self-constraint, but it’s possible! For iPhone users, update to iOS12 and use Screentime located in your settings. It is a function where you can set a time limit for any application or enable a ‘lock’ on your applications for a set time period. For Android users, there’s Forest. It’s an app that keeps you on your tasks by growing a tree. Leaving the application will result in a dead one. Using these tools can boost your productivity hours greatly.

These are some of the study hacks that you can start off with before the next semester! Let us know in the comments what your useful study tricks are.