how to be an ACADEMIC WEAPON this semester �� non-basic tips, organization hacks

Hey everyone, it's Tonya and welcome or welcome back to my channel. So today I want to talk about things that you can do right now while it's still the beginning of the school year that'll allow you to be successful or as successful as you can be throughout the rest of the term or the semester, because I know that the beginning of your semester really makes a big difference on how you'll do for the rest of the term. Because speaking from experience, last year, my second semester, I spent the first month of that semester kind of focusing on personal and non school related projects. And that really made me play the catch up game for literally the entire rest of my semester. So if you start off strong and you get ahead now, it'll make, it'll make for smooth sailing for the rest of your term. So here are all of my personal tips that I use. They're non AI generated non basic tips. I also picked all tips that I think are applicable to both high school and university slash college students. Also, whenever I make academic related videos, I like to give a little bit of background about myself, just so you know who you're taking tips from. So I've always been a very high achiever when it comes to school. Back in high school, I got grades almost all in the nineties. I was in the very straight A students, my third year of university now, and the past two years of university, I have no need list. So these are tips that normally do work for myself and I hope they will also work for you. My first tip is to put everything that you have on your schedule into one place. Now this might sound kind of like a basic tip, but let me explain. So I know that a lot of people, when they first get like their syllabi, with all of their different due dates, their deadlines for like essays, their midterms, their exams, they'll put them into like a separate place than their normal go-to calendar. So I know a lot of people will use like a Google sheets or they'll put like a Google documents, any kind of separate, maybe sometimes like a notion page. But personally, I highly recommend instead of doing that or on top of doing that, putting it all of those things also into like your personal calendar, where you have like your work schedule, your extracurriculars, your sports, your clubs, different events, everything that you have going on in your life, because it's really insightful to see what you have going on during those due dates. Because you see that you have like two midterms on the same time that you have like, I don't know, a trip coming up. You need to plan ahead mentally put like a note in your head that, Oh, like just because it's two months away, actually should start working on it a month earlier because I'll have all this other stuff going on in my life at that same time. My next tip is to make your own like cheat sheet that you put at the front of your binder. Or if you don't use like a binder, if you just use like your laptop to put at the top of like your notes. And basically I did this so much in high school, especially for my very like STEM related math science classes. And basically you'd be like a full like eight and a half by 11 blank sheet of paper where I just put it at the front of my binder. And I put down anything that I thought personally I would keep wanting to refer back to or things I'd always forget throughout the school year. So it would oftentimes be formulas, but also I remember stoichiometry specifically for chemistry. I struggled a lot with remembering a lot of the things. It's not necessarily things that everyone struggles with, but it's just things that yourself, your own little brain can't always quite keep in your head. Having at the front center place you can easily access is so much nicer than having to go back to your dozens of pages of notes and being like, Oh, like where's that one thing that I can't quite remember even what it is. So I don't even know where to look it up. It's nice to have it at the front and always refer back to. The sixth tip kind of goes hand in hand, very similar to my last tip, but it's to make a mistake log. And basically you keep track of your errors from assignments, from tests that identify patterns to avoid repeating those mistakes throughout the school year. So whenever you get a test back, you're like, Oh, I got this question wrong. Start a new sheet of paper that you can call my mistake log, whatever. And write down this is the question and this is the answer. And then when you're studying for the final assessment, the final exam, you can have your mistake log and you'll see, Oh, like I constantly mess up on these types of questions. And then you can practice those a time before your final exam. My second tip is to take a lot of notes when your teachers or your professors are going over the course outline during your first couple of classes. Now I know a lot of people, especially like university will call this like, Oh, it's like syllabus week. It's not important, but those are honestly some of the most important classes that you'll go to because more times than not your professor or your teacher will kind of tell you how to do well throughout the course. Whenever like I go to that class, like the syllabus class, I always have my laptop open and I'm taking so many notes and I look around or I can just hear I'm the only one typing and no one else is writing this stuff. And maybe it's just because they think, Oh, like this is like common knowledge, but it's very like specific to that class and to that teacher and how they mark because you have so many other classes going on. You're not going to remember two months down the line when you're preparing for that test or for that exam, exactly what your teacher said. For an example, your teacher says throughout this course, we're going to have one big test, one project and one exam. Okay. And then they'll say test and the exam are both multiple choice. All of the content will be in my lecture slides or stuff that I say in class. The textbook is just there. If you want to learn about it further, or only about 10% of the test and the exam are going to be on the content that's in the textbook. Then I would write that down in my notes that when I'm studying for the exam and the test down the line, I'll like look back at my notes that I took in the beginning of this class and remind myself, Oh yeah, like I don't actually need to read these eight chapters that will literally take me like 12 hours to read, save all that time and instead focus on doing active recall and all the stuff that are in the slides and making flashcards and practicing those instead. So all of this information they'll tell you on the beginning days will really help you down the line when you're studying for the big tests. My third tip is to start making your flashcards right now. As soon as your classes start. I know the past couple of years I've been using Quizlet, but I would only make my flashcards like right before the exams. And that just took a lot of time, time that I wish I could have been just recalling them at the time instead of making them for the first time. So after each class, start typing out your Quizlet cards now so you can practice them whenever you have dead time. That's why I recommend Quizlet specifically. It's because yes, there's like the desktop app, but there's also like the phone mobile app where you can practice them on your phone. So if you're just out and about, you got nothing to do. You can pull them up and you can start, you know, recalling the stuff that you learned early on in the school year. And that way you'll be ready when the exam comes. My fourth tip is actually quite basic, but I just want an excuse to share some of my favorite study music. So I'm going to go over a couple of my favorite playlists and songs that I think are underrated. Also, if YouTube will allow it, I will play a little clip bits of the, what it sounds like. So the first one is Audit Slash Fall Indie. It's a playlist by Alex Rain Bird Music. And this person actually makes a lot of great playlists on their page. So if you like like indie folk, very kind of like chill music, I would recommend checking out their page. The second one is a specific song that I actually just discovered a couple weeks ago. It's called Mulberry Moose by Alan Gogol. And it's just a very beautiful instrumental. And then the third and fourth one are kind of based on movies slash shows. The first one is any Studio Ghibli music. I think it's very like kind of quirky, but also good to listen to while you're studying. And then the fourth one is Bridgerton instrumental, because generally speaking, I do like to listen to instrumental music when I'm studying. I think Bridgerton has a really great like set list. This next tip isn't necessarily strictly academic related, but I highly recommend making a vision board every single month of the semester that you set as your background for your wallpaper. For one thing, it's just fun to do, but also it kind of motivates me and reminds myself every day. Whenever I look at my laptop, like what my goals are throughout the year. Right now it's not actually too academically related, but I'll show you it on my laptop. So right now I have some recipes that I want to make this month, like a craft that I want to try doing. Things that I want to prioritize such as like YouTube. I'm going to make more YouTube videos guys, like meditation, daily journaling, some outfit inspo and changing that every month kind of allows you to reflect on the month before, like what you achieved and also what you want to specifically focus on for that month. Because I know a lot of people make vision boards in January and then just forget about them. So making them every month really allows you to focus in what you want to achieve for that month. My next tip is to make a reverse syllabus or Gantt chart. So I'm actually not going to talk about this too much because I personally don't use either of these, but I know a lot of my friends who do like to use them. So it's something that you can look into. A reverse syllabus is where you map out how you'll study or review for major assignments or exams weeks in advance. So you look at, Oh, I have this exam. I know I need to do these flashcards for four days in a row. It takes me this many days to make them. It's just basically backtracking. I also recommend looking into Gantt charts. So if it's something that if you personally struggle a lot with time management and what you've been using hasn't been working, you know, this is a resource that you can look into better than me trying to explain. My next tip is to front load your semester work. So basically finish as much as possible early on to ease in your days ahead, especially during exam season. Again, sounds like common sense, but most of us don't do it. So here is a really great example. A lot of your teachers have already given like your readings throughout the semester. If these are things you actually do think that you need to read to do well in your class, start reading them now. I actually want to highlight an extension that I think you can get. I personally have yet to get it, but I do want to once I start getting to my longer readings and it's called half bold and it basically makes your reading easier because it'll make half the word bolded. And so when your brain is reading it, when it reads the first little bit, it can know the rest of the word and it just makes reading a lot easier for your eyes and also a lot quicker. Apparently it helps with productivity. You know, I'll get back to you if I do actually end up using it, but it's something to also look into. My 10th and my last tip is to develop an academic support network now early on in the semester that you'll have people to go to whenever you have questions and concerns and need help throughout the school year. So it's going to look like a wide range of different people, whether it's an upper year that you know, your professor and going to their office hours, or whether it just means like your peers and create a study group. Do it now while it's early on, especially like upper years, talk to them now if you can, whether you know, like your older sibling has friends or if you go to a university, there's often like mentorship or peer like tutoring programs, sign up for those because oftentimes they'll give you like life hacks. Oh, this is how you can do well in this specific professor class. Or like here are some of my notes that you can use and people are like willing to help you if you look for it. So develop that network now. All right. So that just about wraps it up. I just want to wish all of you a really great semester, really great school year. If you're watching this video, it just proves to me and proves to yourself that you're willing to put in the time and the effort to do well. And also reminder at the end of the day, if you don't get straight A's, if you get a couple of B's, I'm telling my past self this, it's not the end of the world. Don't beat yourself up too much. It's, it's not worth at the end of the day. Your mental health is your priority. It should be your priority. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. And if you like this kind of content, subscribe, hit the bell because although I haven't been posting consistently, I seriously do want to really prioritize this, that this year, as you saw my vision board, I'm going to prioritize uploading videos and specifically I wanted to focus on like university life and also like academic tips. So if you like that kind of stuff, subscribe, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye. Okay.