Your summer study guide

In our last post we gave a comprehensive, albeit generalized, break down of how to survive the summer break, guilt free!

But a lot of students wanted more detail about how to schedule study – so we are going to spoon feed you with some strategies our guys in the office used (it seemed to work for them…clearly).

After having a discussion we came to the conclusion that approximately 60 hours of study over the summer break is fair. That equates to about 10-12 hours of work per subject (depending on how many subjects you do). That should be enough to really nail the content you learnt in term 4 and to move ahead with your notes. We all agreed that 60 hours was a good amount of work to do but we disagreed about when/how you should do it.

Your study schedule is going to reflect your personality and so each person will be different – here are a few scenarios you could follow.

Miss. Consistency:

The consistent method was a popular one used in the Hub office. People like this prefer to do less work over a longer period of time. This method would include:

• Studying for 2 hours per day
• Only study Monday-Friday
• No study on weekends
• Lasts for 5-6 weeks
• Do not study between Christmas and New Years

The good thing about this schedule is that 2 hours of study per day is nothing. We recommend doing your hours in the morning so you can have the rest of the day to chill. Get up, study from 10am-12pm and you can have the rest of the day to do whatever you want (I would suggest go to the beach). You won’t really ‘feel’ the pressure of studying.

However, the downside to this is that you have to start studying before Christmas and keep going afterwards. This might be difficult to do if you go away on vacation or you’re so emotionally scarred after last term that you can’t bring yourself to start studying again so soon. Either way, this method means you actually have to do 2 hours every single day. This is a pretty big commitment and a lot of people simply won’t be able to maintain that routine. If you start skipping days then you will run out of study time very quickly.

Rating: 8/10

Mr. Crammer:

For those of you that have issues with maintaining consistency throughout the entire 6 weeks, the second method is a more intense approach. This is the one I used – just because it fit how I like to study. Obviously it means longer hours of study over a shorter amount of time. This method includes:

• Studying for 3-4 hours per day
• Only study Monday-Friday
• Weekends completely off
• Lasts 3-4 weeks
• Start studying after New Years

Doing 4 hours of study per day is pretty intense, especially for the start of the year. But the upside is that you get a proper holiday up until January where you don’t have to worry about study. If you can commit the final weeks of your holidays for getting into gear then this might be a good option for you. Although, approach with caution – you do not want to risk burning out before things really get heated.

Rating: 7/10

Mrs. On and Off

Whilst the other two methods required consistent effort, this one is a bit more hot and cold. This is what is includes:

• Study 3 days on
• Take 4 days off

This method is good for people that like to get into the zone and think ‘if I’m going to do it, might as well do it right.’

Although I don’t think this is a particularly good way of doing things. Consistency allows you to keep fresh and on top of things as opposed to re-learning stuff you did four days ago. You’re ‘on’ days could also fall on weekends, which isn’t ideal and if you have plans you can easily ruin your ‘on’ days. I would just find it difficult to get back into the ‘study’ mindset after having four days off every week.

Rating: 5/10

So there you go. The three types of study schedules you can use during the summer break.

At the end of the day, personal preference and individual needs should dictate how you study. So for example, some people would rather do nothing until January then do 3hrs per day Monday-Friday (which still adds up to 60hrs in total). And some people might have major works that they need to spend more time on! So you need to split up your time spent on each subject according to how much work you feel needs to be done for each.

Conclusion: For us, consistency is key.