Tools Necessary To Get A Better Result On Your Studies

1. Introduction

Study skills are tools necessary to get a better result in your studies. Through these tools, you can develop your own personal approach to learn and study, and discover what helps you and what does not help. It can increase confidence, once you learn these study skills you can use them for your whole life.

The ability to plan your time (Time management), discover what is your learning style, doing a self-personality analysis (SWOT), have goals, know what are your plans for the future (Career path) and reflect on what happens if you are tools that can help to improve your study skills.

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2. Time management

It is very important to know how you can manage your time when you have to do a task. If you manage your time you can ensure you get the necessary amount of work done in practical time. A method is the RAC (record, analyze and change) method you can detect where you are losing time and manage a way to correct it.

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To use your time efficiently you need to plan it, knowing what do you have for the week you can make space for study, socializing, sport, and sleep as examples.

To manage my time, I try to give more hours to subjects that I consider more difficult. The days that I need work can be though I try to study the subjects that I consider easy, to relax I had some time to play games, cook and listen to some music.

Learning styles (VARK)

There are 4 main categories that teachers and students can experience in relation to learning as mentioned by Fleming and Mills (1992) called VARK (visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic). There is no right or wrong style, each person has their own preference.

• Visual: watching a video or person completing a task or demonstrating a topic.
• Auditory: listening to instructions to learn about a topic or task.
• Reading/writing: reading about a topic or writing in order to learn about it.
• Kinesthetic: feeling, touching, or trying to do a task to learn.

My personal learning style works best with reading and writing. What I noticed from experience I am more likely to remember something I wrote down. In the workplace or in class.

3. SWOT analysis of the self -Personality

SWOT-analysis helps us to analyze the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of a person or project, business, or partnership.

This method can be used to identify a person’s strengths and weaknesses on how they normally work or study. The person can use this Matrix as a simple way to examine the areas they are strongest and weakest. The other part of the analysis opportunities and threats can be used by the person to see if the areas they can improve in or areas they might lose some skills if this area is not addressed.

For me, it was a useful exercise to reflect on what are the best methods for me to successfully study in an effective way. Also, I identified I needed to focus on improving my English and I focused on this area by taking extra English classes.

4. Goal setting (SMART goals)

To have success in your studies is necessary to break down in specific goals, for this you need to know what you want to achieve in a space of time. The best goals are SMART goals (Specific – Measurable – Actionable – Relevant – Time-bound).

To get goods results in your SMART goals, creating a To-Do list is a good tool. It is very simples where you can list all things that you have to do in a period of time, each item will be very specific, like a SMART goal. For each task complete you tick them off. As a result, you are taking charge of your time management and stop distractions that can easily make you lost focus.

Setting goals helps to chose what you want to go in life and where you need to concentrate your efforts. For this, I always try to do a to-do list for college, housework, when searching for jobs and I always prioritize the task on my list.

5. Career path

A career path is when you choose a job, education, or course of action jobs that are related to a certain industry or career type you plan out in advance. It is important to reflect and decide on a career you would like to have in order to ensure you can reach your potential.

I choose civil engineering because I always love maths, buildings, and construction. My plan is to specialize in an area and complete a master’s in that area, would like to work with people so I see myself working on the site. Unfortunately, in my home country Brazil due to a poor economic situation, there are not so many opportunities. I have moved to Europe to expand my knowledge, while always keeping up to date with the industry online and completing work experience for free was possible.

6. Reflection

Reflection is a process of examining ourselves, our experiences and actions, our perspectives, etc. your reflection is becoming an important element to any form of study or learning.

For example, while studying. You can question yourself in a positive way, you can ask yourself “what are you doing now and why? So, you can then decide if it is the most efficient way to do this in the future, if not what changes you may need to do to improve it. Write your reflections helps to improve this skill.

In my reflections, I write the positives and negatives from my previous studies and focus on my weaknesses so that I can work more efficiently in the future.

7. Conclusion

There are many methods out there to enhance a person studying experience it appears to be very important to understand yourself and your personal preferences to study more effectively. It is also beneficial to be aware of the different tools available to ensure efficiency when studying and overall personal success.