Posted on by Lonwabo Makapela

Lon’s 7 study hacks!

Hi!

So, I ambitiously started writing this blog post a week before leaving the U.S. for South Africa. Little did I know that packing up my life to move back home would be such a draining emotional rollercoaster, followed by two weeks of painful jetlag once I arrived home. BUT, I had to get myself out of that rut of exhaustion and get writing because how could I miss out on such an important topic?

This week’s post is all about the study tips I found most helpful during my undergrad, and, particularly, during my honours year. I feel like that Honours was the period in which I was in my stride and was able to remain consistent throughout the academic year. June marks the midway point of the South African academic year, and I have found that the June/July holidays are an excellent time to recalibrate and remind yourself why you started this educational journey. Many of us might be in a slump, with much of the motivation we all had at the beginning of the year diminishing. This is an ideal time to ensure we revive the spirit of consistency. Half of my recommendations are relevant to undergraduate and Honours students, but I believe that a few adjustments here and there should ensure applicability to any setting that requires productivity, so keep reading. Let’s get to it.

1. Find what works best for you

One of my most vital pieces of advice is to give yourself the time and grace to try different ways of effective studying and choose what feels most natural. I have gone through my fair share of trial and error with various study methods. Trying different techniques and strategies taught me a lot about my working habits and how to optimise my life. Additionally, I began paying attention to my personality and behavioural traits, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, to figure out what works best for me. As an example to shed some light on why this is key, I began sitting in the front row during lectures because it allowed me to participate in class without feeling too self-conscious. After all, I felt like I was having a more direct conversation with the lecturer. Over and above that, I felt obligated to always have my work done by regularly participating in class because now the lecturers knew me. All this played perfectly into my personality and need for accountability.

2. Eat your breakfast

This tip is one that I can’t take much credit for because it is something my dad would repeat time and time again. Now I say this as someone who is not much of a breakfast person, but the brain uses up so much of our energy. So, once I began prioritising a bowl of oats in the morning, I started noticing that it would give me just enough energy to get through the first half of the day.

3. Schedule everything

Every hat you wear deserves its own proportion of your time, and writing down everything you need to get done keeps you on track with your time management. Many productivity YouTubers have coined this method as time blocking. I schedule everything down to my naps and replying to emails. I also limit the time allocated towards each task per Parkinson’s law which states that ‘work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion.’ To keep track of this, I use the Pomodoro technique, which encourages you to work with the time you are given through a time management app based on 25-minute stretches of focused work broken by five-minute breaks.

4. Note-taking

Weekdays were usually too packed and busy to consolidate my lecture notes. Therefore, I would use Saturday mornings to finalise my summaries. In taking notes, I would colour code my notes according to each module, primarily because I am a visual person. This was very helpful because my brain would associate a particular colour with that module, making memorisation more effective.

5. Have a study spot

A space associated with study and work, particularly at home, is a good strategy. This helps condition your brain to know that work needs to be done once you move into that space. I tend to have stricter rules regarding my study space, such as not eating and not having my phone once I sit down to maintain my brain’s association with that area.

Two notes about this: 1) While using the Pomodoro technique, once my 25 minutes of work are done, I get up, grab my phone and sit elsewhere during my 5-minute break. 2) Similarly, when I have to eat, I get up from that area, sit elsewhere in the house and eat. When I still lived in a student residence, I would get up from my desk and sit on my bed.

6. Create a reward system

An academic term or semester is too long to expect your brain to remain motivated until the release of your final grades. So, creating a reward system towards the small wins helps maintain motivation. Moreover, it is essential to prioritise the need to fuel, recharge, and nourish your well-being as a human. Therefore, I would incorporate the two by using any fuel source as a reward. For example, at the end of each day, once my tasks are completed, I would meet up with a friend, walk, catch up on some YouTube content, go shopping, or whatever I felt like. The key is understanding what a day-to-day reward is like for you tangibly.

7. Weekly accountability check-in

I typically do this on Sunday evening, checking whether I have met my weekly goals and tasks. This is an excellent time to reflect, take stock of what has happened during the past week, and set a new plan and related tasks for the week. Achieving such functions during the week adds to the bigger goals you are working towards. This has been a great way of keeping me accountable and in alignment with my goals for the year.

To be honest, once my studies became research-centric, I struggled to integrate some of these study hacks, but as mentioned in tip no.1, you have to keep trying new methods and strategies and incorporate different habits into your routine to find what works best for you. Do that and cultivate consistency by practising how to ‘make yourself do what you should do when you should do it whether you feel like it or not’, and you will be well on your way. All the best!

Posted on by Lonwabo Makapela

Studying abroad: the unceasing struggle for freedom from fear

It is unbelievable that we are already four months into the year as we observe a month genuinely worthy of its commemoration. 27 April 1994 is a day symbolic of South Africa’s democratic leap, the day which saw Africans from all walks of life vote in the country’s first democratic elections. It’s been 29 years, and we have come a long way as a country. Like many other South African holidays in 2022 and 2023, I will celebrate Freedom Day from the U.S.

While thinking about Freedom Day, I decided to look up the definition of freedom in the Oxford dictionary, and among the results I found was ‘the state of not being imprisoned’. This struck a chord with me because of my experience as a visiting student researcher in a developed country. The definition of freedom has often represented the opposite of my experience as a South African student in the U.S., specifically during the first couple of months abroad. I should, however, add that these feelings never entirely subside. They persist throughout what should be and what sometimes is the best time of your life. In many instances, I have felt imprisoned by fears of not being good enough, smart enough, productive enough, or feeling like an imposter.

Of course, when one attains a scholarship as prestigious as the Fulbright, there is a great sense of recognition that you are capable and deserving. And, sometimes, I certainly feel more confident and driven to keep pushing forward. And often, I give it my best shot. However, those fearful moments creep in occasionally, filling you with self-doubt and becoming difficult to avoid.

No one talks much about how quickly the honeymoon phase of living abroad fizzles out. The excitement upon arrival has you site seeing every weekend and opening yourself up to make new friends, despite being hugely introverted. But despite that, about a month into the transition and having adjusted to – in my case – a new time zone, everything sets in, and you remember, ‘oh, this is now my new normal’. In the same breath, you are confronted with the fact that you are now in what’s often referred to as the land of the free, which implies that the U.S. is not only the place of endless opportunities but that you should seize each opportunity on offer. And even though the positives of the new normal substantially outweigh the negatives, a feeling which closely resembles the isolation of the 2020/2021 lockdown lingers persistently.

A good few of the contributing factors to what I have now identified as fear are the massive culture shock, being away from your family and support network, adjusting to different work culture, having to master a new lifestyle, missing out on special milestones of loved ones back home, financial difficulties, adapting to local food, feeling like you do not belong, trying to make friends, the gloomy weather and oh my soul, the time difference in my case. Travelling to study abroad without a booked returned ticket is a topic I will unpack in a future post.

But, as ever, fear remains the constant by-product of change. And so long as we are willing to adjust and adapt to the change, the opportunity for growth will follow. With time, I have learned to acknowledge the fear and attempt to pinpoint what brought it up. I have had to do this every day to not stand in my own way of taking advantage of every opportunity presented to me during this time.

And so, for the past eight months, alongside leaning into this period to stretch me as it should, I have been using the following mechanisms to help free me from fear and anxiety: sharing playlists with my loved ones, getting some sunlight, leaning on my parents for support, taking walks, working out, prioritising social events, planning holidays, and being honest about my feelings and experience and asking for help.

Some might notice that listening to podcasts is not featured on this list, as it was in my ‘day in the life vlog’, and that is because the painful beauty of living abroad relies heavily on a willingness to adapt to the inevitable changes and finding new ways to move away from fear to find happiness. To a great deal, this is an initially challenging realisation for those who, like me, thrive under a strict routine. A final and principal realisation has been that while in the comfort of physically being in South Africa, we may be riddled by fear and anxiety, which prompts us to hide behind high walls and electric fences, but there is no greater freedom than being home, and that is a freedom I look forward to upon my return to South Africa.