It really varies from person to person.

Some people can study in groups and do well, some need to study individually to do well. Some need to study a week or two in advance, some can study a day or two in advance.

Try all the methods and see what works for you!

Some of these might have been mentioned already.

1) Be motivated by something. Anything. Maybe you want high marks to get into a certain program, to get into grad school, to get on the honour roll. Maybe you're looking for personal goal fulfillment. Or you have a genuine interest and curiosity in the subjects you're taking. Or maybe you want to impress your family. Whatever, as long as there's some 'force' inside of you that makes you want to pick up your books and learn. Me, I'm motivated by fear, anxiety, competition, and my future career (I wanna be a forensic biologist real bad). As long as you're healthy and happy, I don't believe there's anything out there that's "wrong" to be motivated by. Just do whatever works for you.

2) Begin every course with a clean slate. Just because a bunch of people on a MI course review thread said that a course is a "bird course" doesn't mean it will be (and certainly doesn't mean you can neglect it during the term, like I did for Econ 1B03. Huge mistake). Same goes for supposedly "death" courses. Find out for yourself the best way to learn and study, tailored for each course separately. I find that courses like physics, chemistry and math require practice throughout the year; you should never be more than 1 week behind in any of these courses. Some courses you can cram for in one night. There's no "all-encompassing" rule on how to study. You have to figure it out yourself (and hopefully well in advance of final exams).

3) Sometimes attending lecture is pointless and stupid, if your time can be better spent studying and reading the textbook on your own. My general rule is to attend all my classes for a month, give all my profs a chance, and if I find I'm not learning in lecture/I'm daydreaming or falling asleep, I just stop going (cough, plant bio, cough). It doesn't make you a "bad student" (and going to lecture doesn't make you a good student!). It means you're opening up a time slot for more productive activities ;D

4) Find your study environment. External environment, and internal environment. Silent, or background noise? Alone, or with a group? Home, empty classroom, student centre, or library? Which library? I find that when I'm in the right "environment", I am more calm and just retain information better. Ever since 1st year, the routine has been: walk to student centre, get coffee, climb up to one of the upper floors of mills where it's somewhat quiet during the year, sit near a window, go on facebook, drink coffee, then start working when I'm ready. I'm comfortable enough that I can stay there for hours on my ass, happily studying. Your environment should replicate as closely as possible the environment where you'll be writing your midterm/exam. That's why I like studying in empty classrooms before midterms. Similarly if you're caffeinated while studying, you should be caffeinated while writing the exam, etc.

Be well rested, well fed, and happy while studying. Bring snacks. Take breaks (no longer than 5-10 minutes). Give yourself time to unwind.


I guess here's what I specifically do for different types of courses. These work for me, but may not necessarily work for anyone else, haha.

-memorization courses (biology) : I only read the textbook if I absolutely have to. Avoid unnecessary work as much as possible. I try to understand concepts first, separate the "important testable" information from the "stupid pointless" information, and if anything requires memorization, I'll write it down over and over again, or make charts, or dirty acronyms. I pace around, memorizing relevant things from the lecture notes. Usually one or two read-throughs is good enough.

-practice courses (physics, chem, math) : I start by reading relevant parts of the textbook to expose myself to the information, and to pick up the tools I will need to problem solve, before I "dive in". I jot down stuff that seems important. Then, I practice. For math, it was textbook problems... for physics, it was capa problems... and for chem, it was tutorials, past assignments, past midterms, past tutorials, etc. Basically, I practice till I get bored. Being bored is a sign that you get the concept, you can move on. I never ever look at the solutions until I've tried everything I can think of on my own. That whole process of trial and error is how you learn to problem solve, as tedious as it is. Set aside lots of time for these courses. I needed several hours a day (or a whole weekend if I'm behind).

/hopefullyhelpfulessay

I don't really agree with the "practice" bit for math courses (as in "do all the problems") beyond first-year. I find that it's a lot more important to understand theorems/definitions etc. That's one of the great things about math - studying usually consists of reading & spending some time thinking about the concepts. The important methods will be done to death in lecture & tutorial anyways, so there's no need to fret about those

For first-year this doesn't really apply as much, since it was (particularly for the math geared towards science students) just a bunch of methods being thrown at you without much conceptual structure beyond "calculus". So for those courses, yeah, knowing the methods is more important.

I'd assume that this applies for physics too, but a physics student would be able to provide better input.