Student Talk

Taking down notes during lectures is something I did at university from first year. I'm not sure if I can say the same about my high school years - I cannot recall, but even if I did take down notes during classes then, I most probably did not even go back to those notes, and I know for a fact that I did not make notes outside classes- whether just to wrap up on the topics/ chapters I learnt or for exam preparation. I've spent about 5 years at university for undergraduate studies and realized the importance of taking down notes and making notes. The question is : how can we make note-taking and note-making effective? Note-taking As much as I used to take down notes during lectures at university, I did not find it effective until I started pre-reading and saw the benefits in my fifth year when I was repeating final year. Pre-reading helped me to at least have an idea and some understanding of the chapter/(s) that were to be covered in lectures, which helped me to be aler...

Consultation is probably the one thing that we students rarely feel motivated to do. I've observed it, I’ve experienced it. I could think of a couple of reasons why this is the case. These were my reasons for not consulting during my first attempt of final year: 1.          "I'll understand everything when I study, I'll be fine." 2.          "I have too many questions - there's so much that I don't understand. Where do I start?" 3.          "Most of the consultation times are during lecture times anyway; and the free periods are very short - I don't want to 'fry' my brain before the next class". 1. "I'll understand everything when I study, I'll be fine" This attitude, without a doubt, is one of the things that contributed to me repeating final year. It made me realise how much I undermined the complexity and length of chapters; how I had undermined t...

Dear Student-Talk blog followers I had decided to write this letter to address the misconceptions about me in relation to the blog; and misunderstanding about the purpose of Student-Talk blog. I have had a few students coming up to me, asking questions like “how do you study Auditing?”; and receiving remarks like “you bunked a tutorial? You should write that on your blog, hey?” One thing I need to make clear is that I do not fit the typical definition of a “perfect” student. It was never my intention to portray myself as such through the blog. The fact that I share the lessons I learn from my failures and mistakes does not make me a “perfect” student. The fact that I share information I receive from student workshops, programs and other intellectuals does not make me a “perfect” student. The fact that I know all this information that I share does not make me a “perfect” student. I do not feel that I need to be an expert in the things I share on the blog before I share them with oth...

Pre-reading In my second attempt of completing final year, I have seen how pre-reading had helped me make use of lectures more efficiently: it enabled me to follow in lectures, to be more attentive, increased my chances of understanding the insight shared and knowledge lecturers shared on the chapters lectured. All of this contributed to better understanding complex concepts, getting through long chapters and eventually passing enough to graduate and getting into the next level of my studies. Pre-reading is something I did for an hour to an hour and a half - when I finally understood the purpose of pre-reading and how I was supposed to go about it. Initially I had the mentality that pre-reading meant studying each page of the chapter/(s) - word for word - with understanding. It did not quite work, especially because the chapters seemed long, and concepts complex. It took too long for me to understand and thus demotivating. When I asked him about pre-reading, my former ...

www.motivateplay.com "I read the articles on your blog but my issue is motivation". Sanele Shazi, one of the first year Bcom Accounting students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC ), came up to me earlier this year and said something along those lines. With an appalling attempt in responding to him, I shared what Mr Graeme CA(SA) said when he came to UWC. He said that to keep us motivated to attend to our studies, we can have a picture of what we aspire to achieve/ dream of having. For instance, a dream car. Fortunately I had recently gone to a "Lead a leader" program that was held by UWC's Leadership and Social Responsibility department. The facilitators Lubabalo Ntlokwana and Jaclisse Lorene Mayoma shared incredibly useful information on motivation; to the extent that I even discovered what motivates me to continue finding useful ways to get through my course, even when I had failed the previous year and not doing that well in the current ye...

Tests and exams typically test how much we’ve learnt during the term, semester, year. Whether or not they are a true representation of our knowledge and understanding of all the work learnt throughout the year/(s) – that may be a debatable topic for another day. Preparation starts from the beginning We actually prepare for tests and exams from the time that the academic year starts. The work that we get tested on is taught over a period because it’s too much for us to learn and understand a few days before the day of the test/exam. It’s such a privilege that at university, even at primary school and high school, to have curriculums that spread the workload over the course of each year: it makes it easier for us to learn at a fair pace to ensure that the work for the whole year is completed within the year. Whether or not the pace or the workload is indeed fair – that may also be a debatable issue for another day. How do we prepare ? We cover the workload by attending classes,...

blog.4tests.com   P.S: this blog supports the fact that time-management strategies are for individuals who realize that they waste time - who want to know how to prioritize and use time wisely. Blogpost 3 titled "Time-Management" communicates the strategies of how one can manage their time: the weekly planner obtained from the Work-readiness Skills Program helps to ascertain how many hours we have available to use in a week (excluding sleeping hours and hours spent to prepare for the day); and the time schedules shared by Mr Graeme CA(SA) help to ascertain how much time we have available to study, and how many hours we need to study. After implementing the above strategies, I thought to myself that 24 hours is not enough. That's because there would be unexpected interruptions that would force me to divert from my weekly planner; making me shift some of the tasks I had planned to do. Consequently, some of the tasks get procrastinated because of not having enoug...

Studying comes in various forms. In fact, we as students do it more often than we think. We are studying when listening and taking down notes during lectures, when we pre-read and post-read (for those of us who find it helpful), even when we discuss certain concepts with fellow students! The question now is: how much is enough? Lectures: how much is enough? In the blog post titled “Note-taking and note-making – effective?”, I share how pre-reading helped me make lectures useful: I was familiar with the sections lectured when the lecturers lectured them, and that together with the insight of lecturers made it easier for me to make summary notes during lectures. This helped to minimize my study time. However, the challenge I had was understanding only certain sections of work lectured instead of everything. This leaves me with this question: how much of what I grasped in lectures was enough? Pre-reading and post-reading: how much is enough? After I started pre-reading, I realiz...