Minnesota State schools students on school studying tips

One thing most college students struggle with is studying. Most want to go out and part or hang out with friends instead of staying home and studying material they will most likely forget on exam day.

 Regardless of that, they should still study. 

Last week, Sherona Stewart, who works with the Maverick Sucess program, taught a How to Study session for students to learn about different kinds of learning.

 This was a part of the Maverick Success workshops that have been going on around campus lately. 

Abdurrahman Guantai, the diversity recruitment and retention coordinator within the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, explained this series of workshops and why they are happening. 

“The Maverick Success workshop is a series of workshops we are hosting revolving around student success. Essentially on campus, we tend to focus on issues that we noticed our students have problems with,” said Guantai. “We were doing a lot of this programming already for one of the in-house programs, and we decided let’s open it up and make it public to everybody that’s already doing it.” 

This event was open to students to come and learn what their learning style is.

 Kaylee Foley, a junior business administration major, learned that her learning style is a mix of tactile and auditory. Tactile is learning by touching and doing, whereas auditory is learning by listening.

 She came to this event to learn how to improve her testing skills. 

“I am in a class called operations and supply chain management. When I took my first test, my brain just went blank,” said Foley. “I came here to see what kind of study tips could help me because it is a close note closed book class.” 

Foley attended another one of these workshops. She attended the one for test anxiety. She learned a lot at that workshop, which will help her on future exams, and she learned more about herself. 

“We learned that there are different types of anxiety and some ways to calm down. We also learned about different symptoms like tightness in your chest,” said Foley. 

“I had tightness in my chest [during exams], and I didn’t know it was a sign of anxiety. But when I came, and I listened to her [Stewart], it’s like, ‘oh yeah, that’s what that is.’” 

Foley will take what she learned from these workshops for her future exams. In the future, I am going to make up my own questions. Because a lot of the way my teacher words things, I don’t understand,” said Foley. “So I’m going to reword them, and then I’m going to make my own practice test.” 

Stewart hopes students got a lot out of the event and encourages them to attend other workshops to help their academics. 

“I hoped they understood themselves more and now have the confidence to understand their study styles and the specific things they can do to help study better and get better grades,” said Stewart. “I also think coming to these workshops and learning can help them with their studying and academics.” 

Header Photo: Students gathered in the Centennial Student Union to learn tips on studying for their classes. Some tips learned included the use of flashcards, studying while standing. (Dominic Bothe/The Reporter)

Write to Lauren Viska at lauren.viska@mnsu.edu