Every student inevitably has to go through some form of assessment period, and this can be difficult in many ways. The repetition of studying can be tiresome, the stress of deadlines can be stressful, and the pressure of doing well can be overwhelming.
In order to combat all of this, it’s important to find ways to make revising enjoyable, and to keep things interesting wherever you can. One way of doing this is through study groups; whether you’re looking for tips to pass NCLEX, new methods of studying, or even just a little company, there are so many ways a study group can help you through a stressful exam season:
Keeping you motivated
Ticking off an exam gives you a well-deserved sense of accomplishment, but it can also give you a false feeling of being ‘done’ when this isn’t always the case. That one assessment might be done, but exam season usually means there are more to come.
It’s natural to want to give yourself a break when you’ve finally made it through an exam you’ve spent a whole semester building up to, and this can make it hard to keep yourself motivated to get through the rest of your assessments. This can be especially true when you’ve only got yourself to cheer you on and keep you motivated — this is where your study group comes in.
A study group is the perfect network to keep you going over that end-of-semester finish line. They’ll cheer you on, remind you what needs to be done, and keep you on track.
Helping each other out
There’s not much worse as a student than doing everything you can to understand a topic, but finding no help in your course materials or an internet deep dive. Sometimes you really need another person to sit down and work it out with you, and professors and tutors don’t always offer that sort of one-on-one time.
Your study group peers will, though, because they know you’ll do the same for them when the roles are reversed. Study groups can help you out by offering you their notes, breaking down a topic or idea with you, or taking you through your content in a way you hadn’t previously considered. Sometimes all it really takes is another perspective.
Mixing up your study strategies
Doing the same things over and over in exactly the same way can quickly become tiresome; particularly when that thing is a dry area of study that you need to drill into your brain as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
There are only so many ways you can revise on your own, but with a study group you can really mix these up. Try testing eachother on exam questions, making a game out of it, or even just agreeing that once you all get through a set list of questions or tasks, you get to reward yourselves with some delicious food or a fun group activity.
Keeping you accountable
Even the most disciplined of students procrastinate sometimes. There are many tactics you can use to beat procrastination; a study group is just one method, and it works in a few ways.
Firstly, sometimes all it takes is being around other people to force you into focusing. If everyone around you is hard at work, you’re going to find it a lot easier to do this too — you might even feel a little self conscious if you don’t.
Secondly, you can make an agreement as a group to hold each other accountable. Agree on deadlines for certain tasks or checkpoints in your study, and check in with each other to make sure you meet them. It’s a lot easier to put things off when no one is following up with you — but no one wants to say they haven’t done something when they know they should have and someone is asking.
Changing up your scenery
Study groups are the perfect opportunity to mix up your study space. If you usually study at home, meeting up with others in a library, cafe, or other space might help you to feel refreshed as you work through your study load.
The concept of ‘variable studying’ describes working under different conditions to avoid only remembering content when you’re in the exact environment that you revised in. Your brain can actually associate information with certain smells, noises, and other environmental factors. By mixing up your study space, you might help yourself remember content by creating more of these associations in your brain.
It can also just become very tedious to feel like every day is the same, so when you are doing the same thing every day by studying, mixing up the factors that you can, like your physical environment, can help prevent the task from feeling like such a drag.
If you’re struggling to get through exam season, or just looking to change up your study habits in any way, try out a study group. You might just find it makes revising that bit easier — maybe even a little fun.