• Question: what study methods do you think work best for studying science

    Asked by Abbie on 20 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Malgorzata Dabrowska

      Malgorzata Dabrowska answered on 20 Nov 2020:

      Hi Abbie,

      Everything depends on what you have to study. You have different methods to remember the anatomy and different to understand chemistry or some more advanced calculations. In general I like the method where you have to remember things by making connections between the new information with something that you already know. Your brain likes things which are familiar for it and also repetitive. Some people are also imagining a room or some other place and placing things there and remember where are they “laying” Or just simply making stories/songs/poems to remember something. That sounds creative, but it’s taking a lot of time and also is good only when you have to remember words/names/etc. I think that mind maps can be really helpful in science because you can connect many different facts from different fields.

    • Photo: Danny Hnatyshin

      Danny Hnatyshin answered on 21 Nov 2020:

      Depends on the science I think! Some sciences need a lot of memorization. For me I liked to read notes over and over again to get the general concept and then use problem solving to fill in the gaps. For other sciences like physics and chemistry I would need to practice doing mathematical calulcations over and over again so less things surprise me and the faster I would be at it. The more interested you are in a specific subject the easier it will be though.

    • Photo: Marcello Valente

      Marcello Valente answered on 21 Nov 2020:

      Dear Abbie,
      the method to study anything depends more on the person then the discipline itself.
      My suggestion would be to consider that, while it’s true that you have to memorize a lot of details, it’s more important to understand the cause and the potential consequences of what you study.
      For a general method of study I go for this: 40 minutes of repeated readings, 5 – 10 minutes of distraction from the book, the rest of the hour is dedicate to a quick repeat.

    • Photo: Lara Codeca

      Lara Codeca answered on 23 Nov 2020:

      I don’t have a generic answer, but I can tell you how I studied computer science and how I keep up with things now.

      PRACTICE! A lot of exercises while I was in school, and now I keep writing code every day, and try toy examples of everything I find interesting.

      I have an awful memory for names and numbers.
      I need to understand things to remember them, hence the trials and testing. If I can come up with a working example of something, I’ll remember it.

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