If you have a full college courseload and social life, it’s probably hard to balance the two already. Add studying for the LSAT to the mix, and you may feel overwhelmed. This post gives you 5 ways to balance studying for the LSAT (or GRE, GMAT, MCAT, etc.) with school and life obligations. I’ll speak about the LSAT in this article, but just apply my advice to your relevant exam.

1. Start your LSAT prep early.
It’s much easier to do a little bit each week over the course of several weeks than to cram all your studying at once. It’s less stressful, and it won’t detract as much from schoolwork or your social life. Plan ahead and treat the LSAT as if it were another college class, and study for it over the course of the semester.

2. Fit in studying wherever you can.
Doing an LSAT Logic Game or a couple of Logical Reasoning questions between classes can keep you in the LSAT mind-set even if you’re not studying for a few hours each day.

3. Set aside specific days and times each week to study.
This will ensure that a few weeks or months don’t go by while your LSAT prep books gather dust in the corner. Create a study schedule and stick to it.

4. Stay off AIM, Facebook, and Gmail, and close your laptop.
I know computers and Internet are ubiquitous on college campuses, especially for socializing. However, you don’t need a computer to study for the LSAT, and having one around will only serve as a distraction. Get rid of these time-suckers and stick to the books.

5. Form a study group.
If you can find people on your college campus (or in your neighborhood) who are also preparing for the LSAT, it may help to form a study group. Try to find study partners whose abilities complement your own so that you can help each other. Meeting on a regular basis will take some of the isolation out of test prep, and, like a gym buddy, a study partner will help motivate you to study.

Steve Schwartz is a professional LSAT tutor living in New York City. He updates LSAT Blog every week with free LSAT tips and tricks.

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GPA or Grade Point Average, is the one deciding factor that compares the quality of your work with your classmates and ranks you accordingly. The higher your GPA the better. But sometimes it is much harder to increase this simple number than it first seems. Thankfully, there are some simple steps you can take to boost your GPA. Pick the Brain has provided a few tips on this very topic, but I have found a few more that prove very useful.

John Wesley’s original 7 tips include:

1. Go to class – You would be surprised how often this is not followed. When you get to university you will learn that nothing is compulsory, and none of your lecturer’s will care if you go to their courses or not, so it is extremely difficult to stay focused and motizated.
2. Sit in the Front Row – Not my favourite place to sit in a class, but it will get you involved, and make it easier to learn more.
3. Take Notes by Hand – I am a massive supporter of this idea. I don’t think that you learn as easily just by following through printed notes. Actually writing the information down engages a different part of your brain, meaning that you are thinking about the concept and memorizing it at the same time.
4. Do a weekly review – I have never tried this, but I suspect that it would work well. Most of the time you do this automatically however, whenever you are studying for an exam or preparing an assignment.
5. Go to office hours – Again, I have never tried this, because I do not think that intruding on a lecturer in their time is of any benefit. If you have any questions, just ask them during your classes or directly afterwards.
6. Find smart people to work with – Working through questions, and analysing key concepts can be a great way to fully understand the topic you are studying. It is for this reason that I encourage everyone to get a mentor. Someone older who can help you out, but have a smart fellow student in your same course can often be just as good.
7. Avoid all-nighters – All-nighters are not the most pleasant experience, but most of you will do at least one of two in the next few years. Sometimes they are unavoidable, but I would try to eliminate them as much as possible.

My three additional thoughts on how to increase your GPA are of a different thought process, but are still highly valuable.

1. Take easier courses – Make sure they are related to your major, but taking a few easy courses is a great way to boost your GPA. You just have to make certain that you will score extremely highly in all the assignments and exams. Remember, most courses are weighed the same, so a quick, simple course can be a great way to increase your GPA.
2. Focus on the important assessment - It can be very irritating, but it is often the case that some of the least important assignments in terms of marks can be the hardest and take the most amount of time. Try to focus on the assignments and exams that will have the biggest impact on your overall grade.
3. Remove distractions - Acquiring a high GPA can mean a lot of study. This is a very hard thing to do for many people, so you must help yourself out as much as possible. A good way to do this is to remove all distractions from your study area – TVs, computer games, mobile phones…

Having a high GPA can mean a lot when you are trying to get your first major job, or if you are trying for scholarships and academic awards. Often it is not easy to increase this number by a lot, but it is worth a try!

It’s very difficult to keep yourself focused when studying for an online degree through an online education course. You can consult from encyclopedias and dictionaries i.e. german english dictionary or the online french english dictionary to take help in your studies. Always choose the best online courses offered by a reputable institution like the University of Maryland.

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1. Download the articles you plan on using, and save them in a single folder. You don’t want to pay the penalty for someone else’s site going down, or free content being transferred to a paid archive. If the source website doesn’t allow you to save the article to your website, there are two workarounds. First, you can hit print as if you were going to print it, and then select Save As File (or something like that). This option will divert the output going to the printer and capture it in a PostScript file, which you can open on any Windows machine. My favorite way to save articles is Yahoo! MyWeb. Find out how to use MyWeb to save your articles
2. Discover new sources using your old ones. Every journal article contains a wealth of research. Look in the bibliography.
3. Take notes with citations.
4. Use Google’s Cited By links to judge a paper’s influence.
5. Read Intro/Conclusion for fast answers.
6. For multiple papers from same author, start with most recent work

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Simplification!

I have used this method for many months and it always works perfectly. The general idea is to write down the heading of the topic, and write down in the simplest way possible what it is about. Try to imagine that you are talking to a younger child. But you also have to remember to include all the complication information towards the end.

The reason this works is that the next time you look over your notes it may have been weeks since you wrote the information down, and you will not remember what you were talking about. Having a simplified description means that you will remember the basis of the notes instantly, and from there you can focus on the complex concepts, equations, or explanations.

While this may sound counter-intuitive, it really does work.

This method is based on the ever popular K.I.S.S idea (Keep it Simple, Stupid). Trying to keep all of your ideas in their simplest form allows you to really understand the principles rather than just memorize facts. It also gives you more time to learn the more difficult concepts.

Learning the basics is key for any student. Most of the knowledge that you will learn are just extensions of the basic ideas given in the first few weeks. Understanding, not only how to use them, but why is very important, and truly is the key to success.

Naturally there are hundreds of different methods of taking notes, but time and time again simplification seems to reign supreme. Although taking notes in an easy to understand manner does not mean that you skip the hard topics. The idea is that you take a hard concept, and re-interpret it in your own words. The use of images or diagrams can also be very beneficial when trying to convert a difficult problem into a series of simple ones.

The main difficulty with converting to this method of note taking is the mental difficulties. Some people will feel that they are leaving out important information, while others will be able to start with little difficulty. The only way to try out this method is to start today. While it may suit some students, others will find it too restricting.

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Most publications and blogs that cater to students will eventually run an article on how to stay awake during class. They offer (sometimes) valuable advice on getting enough sleep, avoiding all-nighters, using caffeine intelligently, cutting down on sugar, etc. I won’t go into details here, because we may decide to run an article of our own

In this article, I will focus less on preventing classroom catnaps, and instead talk about what to do after you wake up. Because let’s face it: some of us can’t do anything about our sleep schedule without cutting into study time, extra-curriculars, or aspects of our social life that are important to us. We know that we are sleep-deprived, but sometimes we can’t do anything about it. We even fall asleep in classes that we love most, sometimes during the lull between two exciting parts of the lecture. If you are like me, and you know that sleeping better and changing your diet isn’t enough, then it’s important that you master the ability to recover from an episode of classroom catnap.

First, a few words on my experience. I’m in my fourth year of college at a very large public university, with three majors and a minor, and since the beginning of sophomore year I have been notorious for sleeping in classes. Here’s the kicker: my professors still like me, and are willing to help. Well, most of them anyway. And it has nothing to do with the kind of grades that I get.

I have a lot of wonderful friends who are excellent students, and every now and then one of them will call me up to ask what they should do, because they either: A) fell asleep in lecture B) overslept and disrupted the class by showing up thirty minutes late C) slept through an exam. In all three cases, their first instinct as to what they should do is usually wrong.

After literally years of experience sleeping in virtually every class, I have developed my very own standard operating procedure (SOP) for coping with the fallout from a classroom catnap. But before I go on, I want to make it very clear what this strategy will and will not do for you.

This strategy will not help you sleep less in class. It won’t help you learn the material you missed, or get stellar grades on tests. It won’t turn you into some slick talker who can convince your professor to give you an A and the shirt on his or her back.

This strategy will help you limit the damage sustained to your reputation from your nap. Very often in college, especially as you get to the upper-level courses, maintaining a good image in the eyes of your professor is an important part of taking a class. In extreme cases, you may care more about whether the professor likes you and thinks you are bright than you do about whether he gives you an A or a B (I’m thinking here about recommendations for postgraduate study, jobs, and scholarships). But even if it’s “just some class with some old professor”, you will feel far less comfortable going to office hours and asking for advice if you feel that you have antagonized your professor (and he or she will be less likely to go the extra mile when providing help and giving much-needed breaks and extensions).

So, without further ado, I present my SOP (patent pending).

1. Open your eyes. Taking long naps is pushing it. The last thing you want to do is start snoring — there’s no forgiveness for snoring in class! Even if you don’t normally snore, when you are on two hours of sleep for the better part of a week, the odds are against you. I learned this the hard way last year.
2. Make eye contact with the teacher immediately, and offer some kind of facial expression. Whether it’s a smile or a wince, all you want to do is indicate that you are embarrassed.
3. Sit up in your seat, with your back straight. For bonus points, lean forward as if you are intensely interested in what’s on the blackboard.
4. Give yourself a few moments to get your bearings. Then, ask the first semi-intelligent question that comes to your mind. Don’t waste everyone’s time, but don’t worry about being wrong either. Your purpose here is to show your professor that you care. If you are stuck here, questions of the form “Professor, I just want to make sure I have everything right: you said x,y,z just a little while ago” are always an option, especially if you are in a lecture that requires taking a lot of notes.
5. Whatever you do, don’t try to act smart by making a pedantic observation or correcting the professor. This will earn you the disdain of both your professor and your classmates. Just don’t do it. On the other hand, if by some miracle you do have a bright idea that actually contributes to the discussion and/or lecture, do share it. It’s always impressive when someone can wake up and immediately join in on the discussion.
6. If you didn’t get to ask a question, then answer one. If your professor asks for hands, volunteer yourself. Unless you are exceptionally bright, or the class is remedial, you will probably be wrong. Perhaps you’ll be horribly wrong. But that’s okay — you’ve just shown the professor that you want to participate, despite your sleeping problem.
7. This should go without saying, but try to get the missing notes from a friend or neighbor.
8. Careful: this won’t work with every professor. If you don’t plan on keeping in touch with this professor after the class ends, you may want to skip this step. I always do it for all my professors. After class, go up to your professor and wait for the students who are busy sucking up to conclude their business. Then, apologize to your professor for sleeping in class. 90% of the time, your professor will respond by saying “I know, I saw.” When this happens, you will be very glad that you chose to speak with him or her. You have two options now. You can either explain how you enjoy the material but simply can’t help falling asleep, or you can offer fervent promises that it won’t happen again. Be honest, and try to choose the explanation that you think will be consistent with your behavior in the weeks to come

And there you have it. It sounds pretty straightforward — even naive. Perhaps many of you think it won’t work — but it does, as long as you are realistic about what it’s going to get you.

So what do you all think? Anyone have a great story to share about falling asleep in class (I’ve can think of a couple good ones myself..)? As always, feel free to post a comment or email me at (uh oh here comes to spam): info@studenthelpforum.com

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1. without re-writing notes, students may forget vital pieces of information as well as what abbreviations and other marks mean
2. re-writing your notes helps you memorize and understand the information you copied during the lecture, the best way to memorize a lot of information is in small pieces over a long period of time
3. if you have questions about things you’ve heard in lecture, re-writing your notes may either help you understand what they were, or point them out clearer, encouraging you to ask about them during the next lecture
4. while you are re-writing your notes, you are also able to re-organize them, put them in a format that works best for your learning style; visual learners can add color-coding and diagrams, auditory learners should read the notes aloud a few times, and kinesthetic learners (me!) learn by re-writing notes into outline formats
5. a note on outline formats: each main point should be on its own line, details for the point should be indented to the right. A fantastic way to either learn or set up an outline is to use a word-processing program’s “bullets & numbering” feature; hard returns and indentations create the next appropriate character for outlines
6. oftentimes, professors speak too quickly for a student to get all the notes written out; by re-writing your notes, you are able to fill in those blanks that you may have had to leave during lecture. The details are still fresh in your mind and you will be able to clarify them sooner. All of the abbreviations that you create during class should be spelled out and explained while re-writing your notes.
7. re-writing your notes prepares you for your next class, reminding you of what you were to learn in previous lectures and cementing the foundations
8. one thing I’ve found particularly helpful in many classes is writing out a short “summary” of the lecture at the end of each set of daily notes. Then, when I go back to study for the exam, I am able to paste all of these summaries together and read a page-long essay about what I was supposed to learn.

It helps best if a student can re-organize and re-copy their notes within 24 hours of the lecture, but if that cannot be done, then at least do it before the final few lectures, just in case you have any leftover questions or misunderstandings. Research shows that 80% of new material can be recalled if you review your notes within one day of presentation.

Want to bring those test grades up? Want to impress your classmates with your typed study guides? Re-write those notes daily and cement things sooner rather than later!

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Don’t surf the internet on study time.

Some buildings on my campus don’t have wireless. I remember being stuck inside the Political Science department once in a rainstorm. My class was still hours away, but I decided to hole up in an unused classroom with my laptop rather than brave the heavy rain.

At first, I didn’t have anything to do. My routine is to check my gmail, then read some news, then check my gmail again, then my RSS Reader, then more gmail. After that, I do some work, and check gmail again. (Does this sound familiar?)

With no internet, I couldn’t check my gmail, and the whole process was stopped before it started. Then, a miracle happened. Wanting desperately to avoid boredom, I started working on the first thing I could find — and finished, rather quickly. Then I found something else, finished it, and moved onto a third task. By the time class started, I had finished three rather unpleasant tasks that I had been putting off for weeks.

Since that incident, I’ve taken myself off the internet on a number of occasions, and it has resulted in productivity gains every single time. One of the secrets to being productive is to schedule uninterruptible periods. Even if you are working diligently most of the time, the thirty second break to check email or facebook can set you back as many as five or six minutes when you consider the time spent getting re-focused.

“Very well,” you may be saying to yourself, “but what if I need the internet for my work? Is there any way I can have the best of both worlds?”

It turns out that there is. Invisibility Cloak is a Greasemonkey script written by Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani. It allows you to create a blacklist of sites and specify a time period during which they will be blocked. For instance, you can block *.facebook.com and youtube.com between 12:00 AM and 8:00 PM, which means that your browser will prevent you from accessing that page except for four hours at night.

You can configure the script in Firefox by going to Tools => Greasemonkey => Manage User Scripts, and selecting Invisibility Cloak from the menu on the left.In order to change the period, you will need to edit the Javascript file with an editor (Notepad works just fine). Just click the Edit button in the lower left hand corner on the pop-up window and it will open the associated Javascript file. Find the following four lines:

// EDIT THE NEXT LINE TO SET THE HOUR AFTER WHICH SITES SHOULD APPEAR
// HOURS IN MILITARY TIME, SO 15 = 3PM
var surf_time_after = 15;
// END EDIT

Edit the value of surf_time_after as per the instructions, save, and go back to Firefox. If you want, you can also change the message that appears when you try to access a blocked site. I changed it to something rather derogatory. Here’s the line you need to alter. Just change the text inside the parenthesis (keep the quotation marks).

alert(“You can surf after “+ readable_time + “; right now, get back to work!”);

Do give this script a spin – it works remarkably well, even though there is a very simple way to disable it (if enough people want to know how to do this, I will post an answer in the comments). Also, if you have anything to add on the subject of going offline to increase productivity, please feel free to comment for the benefit of other readers. I’m also an avid comment reader, so I look forward to it as well.

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My university has a first year program that is designed to help freshmen become accustomed to the college experience. We have a triad of classes that are intertwined. There’s a large political science or psychology class, a smaller composition class and a small seminar class. The science/psych class is a normal large lecture, with about 150+ students, but the others have 25. The coursework is similar and the seminar class is designed to help students with any questions they have and to help prepare for a successful academic career.

My school believes their award-winning first year program helps students and it’s been in use for almost ten years. Texas State University, Ohio State University and the University of Georgia are among schools that have similar programs. While I haven’t researched in great detail the programs of other colleges, I can give you first hand knowledge of the one at my school (name protected for my privacy).

It is designed for students who will not otherwise succeed in college. All classes and instructors in the first year program do not grade or teach on a college level. The classes are on an upper (think Advanced Placement) high school level. For students that do not need to be babied, this program is a waste of time and money. Yes, it’s nice to get easy A’s (assuming you do the work), but it gets you used to easy coursework. Upper classes in college are not easy. Sometimes you will find easier, smaller classes, but for the most part, once you get into your major, you will have to work much harder.

It decreases freshmen dropout rates…

But it increases sophomore dropout rates. These programs get freshmen think college is easy and they can skate by without doing any real work like in high school. Students that otherwise would have dropped out to find a job will stay longer and spend more money only to find out they were misinformed and end up leaving the next semester, when classes get tougher.

These programs do not prepare students for the real world. When you get a job, unless you are the luckiest person alive, your boss is not going to give you a grace period to mess up. He’ll give you the real work on day one. You’re lucky if you get an hour to figure out your way around the office.

High school was the transition into college. Junior and senior year of high school are supposed to get students prepared to enter the workplace or attend a university. Students take advanced placement and honors courses to get used to the type of classes they will encounter in college. AP classes at most public schools are not hard enough, but they’re much better than regular curriculum. Why have another year of that? And why pay an incredible amount of money for it?

Currently, my university does not allow freshmen to opt-out of the first year program, but I wish they did. If you have to participate in the first year program at your university, enjoy the easy work while you can because you’re in for an awakening your sophomore year.

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Second, let’s get down to business!

If you’re anything like me, once finals week is over, your brain shuts down until about a week into the next term’s classes. However, over this winter break, I’d like to challenge you to keep thinking; start thinking about next term, and how you’re going to push yourself to do even better in it.

My first suggestion on how to improve yourself in the new year & the new term is:

USE A CALENDAR

Whether you choose to use a paper calendar, or Google’s wonderful calendar application, write things down, keep track of where you’re supposed to be and when you’re supposed to be there, and then celebrate as you cross things off your list!

I use my calendar to plan telephone calls, to make doctor’s appointments, to keep track of my work schedule, to remind myself I have a blog entry due (or blog inspirations), to write down lunch dates with friends, and even to write myself notes about how my day went.

When you have big events that you need preparation, pre-reminded yourself! I write down my finals during the first week of classes, and then one week before the final, I write “PHE 355 Final – 1 week!” and high-light it to remind myself that it’s coming up.

If it’s your thing, I’ve found that color coding my calendar is incredibly helpful. I have a colors for school, for work, for blogs, for WEGOHealth (where I am a community leader), for photography, for exercise and for personal stuff. It’s a bright looking calendar and even when there’s a lot of stuff going on, at least it’s shown in fun colors!

On paper calendars, sometimes it’s hard to write about your “to-do’s” in detail, but I recommend you write down all the details (address, contact name & information, things you may need to bring, etc) when you’re writing on your calendar. I often keep paperclips in my day planner so I can attach things to the days that they belong with as well.

Another tip that I have, which comes in handy for students is to write down all the family birthdays or anniversaries you need to remember when you first get a blank calendar. Most of us get calendars when we’re home for the holidays and since your mom is most likely to be right there, have her help you out. This will help you remember to send Grams a birthday card and remind her how great she is!

While it may seem daunting to use a daily calendar to keep track of your life, I promise you that in the long run, it will pay off and you will be incredibly pleased (not to mention organized) with the results!

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GPA or Grade Point Average, is the one deciding factor that compares the quality of your work with your classmates and ranks you accordingly. The higher your GPA the better. But sometimes it is much harder to increase this simple number than it first seems. Thankfully, there are some simple steps you can take to boost your GPA. Pick the Brain has provided a few tips on this very topic, but I have found a few more that prove very useful.

John Wesley’s original 7 tips include:

1. Go to class – You would be surprised how often this is not followed. When you get to university you will learn that nothing is compulsory, and none of your lecturer’s will care if you go to their courses or not, so it is extremely difficult to stay focused and motizated.
2. Sit in the Front Row – Not my favourite place to sit in a class, but it will get you involved, and make it easier to learn more.
3. Take Notes by Hand – I am a massive supporter of this idea. I don’t think that you learn as easily just by following through printed notes. Actually writing the information down engages a different part of your brain, meaning that you are thinking about the concept and memorizing it at the same time.
4. Do a weekly review – I have never tried this, but I suspect that it would work well. Most of the time you do this automatically however, whenever you are studying for an exam or preparing an assignment.
5. Go to office hours – Again, I have never tried this, because I do not think that intruding on a lecturer in their time is of any benefit. If you have any questions, just ask them during your classes or directly afterwards.
6. Find smart people to work with – Working through questions, and analysing key concepts can be a great way to fully understand the topic you are studying. It is for this reason that I encourage everyone to get a mentor. Someone older who can help you out, but have a smart fellow student in your same course can often be just as good.
7. Avoid all-nighters – All-nighters are not the most pleasant experience, but most of you will do at least one of two in the next few years. Sometimes they are unavoidable, but I would try to eliminate them as much as possible.

My three additional thoughts on how to increase your GPA are of a different thought process, but are still highly valuable.

1. Take easier courses – Make sure they are related to your major, but taking a few easy courses is a great way to boost your GPA. You just have to make certain that you will score extremely highly in all the assignments and exams. Remember, most courses are weighed the same, so a quick, simple course can be a great way to increase your GPA.
2. Focus on the important assessment - It can be very irritating, but it is often the case that some of the least important assignments in terms of marks can be the hardest and take the most amount of time. Try to focus on the assignments and exams that will have the biggest impact on your overall grade.
3. Remove distractions - Acquiring a high GPA can mean a lot of study. This is a very hard thing to do for many people, so you must help yourself out as much as possible. A good way to do this is to remove all distractions from your study area – TVs, computer games, mobile phones…

Having a high GPA can mean a lot when you are trying to get your first major job, or if you are trying for scholarships and academic awards. Often it is not easy to increase this number by a lot, but it is worth a try!

It’s very difficult to keep yourself focused when studying for an online degree through an online education course. You can consult from encyclopedias and dictionaries i.e. german english dictionary or the online french english dictionary to take help in your studies. Always choose the best online courses offered by a reputable institution like the University of Maryland.

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