Study Habits

When I was still in college, my usual online status was "StuDying = Student Dying" because I really am serious when it comes to studying and reviewing my notes.

Being a teacher, I have the privilege to observe my students' study habits. I think that they have a lot of spare time in their hand to spend time with friends, shop, eat, or just hand out. BUT... most of them are still having problems coping with schoolwork.

Let's see why.

Study Habits
by Mr. Macchiato

1. Cramming is never new.
You will see a lot of students reviewing during the last minute or even second before an exam. Why is this so? Continue reading.

2. Procrastination is the culprit.
Whenever a student has a scheduled quiz or major exam most of them are:
a. at home - watching television, playing video games, sleeping
b. a friend's house - playing video games, chatting, inuman!
c. a bar /resto - inuman!
d. a coffee shop - tumatambay with or studying with a friend, leeching off free wifi.
e. the library - with a book / notebook on one hand and a computer mouse on the other. After 15 minutes of reading, you'll hear the sound of the keyboard and see www.facebook.com in the address bar. Haha! Then the "studious" student will spend 30-60 minutes in front of the computer depending on the game he/she is playing or if a lot of buddies are online.

3. Preparing the reviewer.
After reading the notes and speding more than an hour highlighting important terms and paragraphs on the poor textbook, the student now prepares his/her reviewer on a long bond paper folded in half.


4. Whine / B*tch / Complain time.
The student then realizes that he/she is missing a lot of gimmicks and night-outs because of the schoolwork and starts logging-in at YM, sends pm's to his/her friends and complain how busy this week is. If not, the student starts blogging or twitting about how hard this subject is, and curses the books, the professors, and whoever wrote these f*cking theories. "Hindi ko naman yan magagamit pag-graduate ko!" lines will surely be seen. This usually last for about 45 mins to one hour.

5. The idle moments.
After releasing some of the anger, the student will get bored or sleepy so he/she will go out for a walk, grab a bite, make coffee OR, go to www.facebook.com. Lasts for about 30 minutes for facebooking or an hour for sleeping / eating.

6. Study time.
The student then realizes that it's 12 midnight and his/her class will start at 8am. Time to read the reviewer! If the subject is full of terms, he/she will spend 2-4 hours memorizing important dates, persons, jargon and whatnot. And that is interrupted by text messages, calls, facebooking and sometimes the student will just find him/herself sleeping on top of the book or the keyboard.
If the student is still awake, he/she will just decide to sleep and wake up earlier than usual to study. But only 2 out of 10 students can actually do this.

7. Post exam events.
After taking the exam, the student rushes out of the classroom and takes out the notes or reviewers to check if his/her answers were correct. Then you'll hear "Nasagutan mo ba ung number 2?", "Aaa! Sabi na nga ba yun yung sagot eh! Bakit pinalitan ko pa?!", "Hahaha. Mali yung spelling ko!", "Parang hindi naman tinuro sa atin to ah!"


There.

-----
Kaya nakakainis pag nakakakita ka ng mga students mo na nagfafacebook lang kahit na may mga exam kinabukasan!

*Image taken from here.