Why I Fail at Studying

I have been in university for exactly a week now.

And I figured it was time to actually post again. No, I have not died, I have not given up–just moving is extremely stressful and a lot busier than I thought it would be. So I figured that my first post as a university student would just explain the misadventures I’ve had with studying so far. I’m going to just be real here–so real that I even left my hair curly for you guys and am letting you see me in glasses. So no judgment.

It’s been quite an adventure so far–it’s a weird transition. It’s so much fun to be independent, living in a big city, where there’s always tons to do and so many people to meet! But at the same time there are little things that are just so irksome. Especially with school.

I am an A-type personality to the core. I like to be organized, hate chaos (unless the chaos is planned, of course), and tend to be a perfectionist in my work and pretty much every aspect of my life. In my school, each of the professors upload their syllabus to an online sharing site and we get to download it and print it off so we know what’s going on in the class (I’m sure it’s similar for most of you).

Philosophy came with an amazing syllabus, so well organized. There were page numbers for the exercises and everything!

Now that’s how you write a syllabus. 

Stats for psychology isn’t the most interesting course, but the syllabus is CRAZY organized–there’s practice questions, answer keys, the readings are organized by class, and the midterms and assignments are all marked down for us. Seriously. With it this organized, I feel like I can take on the world.

Childhood Developmental psych is the same thing! It’s even got suggested online sites to check out for extra studying! (which I actually likely will do–I’m just that nerdy).

And then there’s Spanish.

Now, my courses consist of the following: philosophy, stats, childhood development, English, and first-year introduction to Spanish. Spanish is my elective–I’m SUPER excited for it.

If you’re looking at that schedule, which course do you think would be most important to have as well organized and easy to navigate? Probably the one where you’re getting an introduction to a brand new language, right? Exactly! If you were a prof for an introductory Spanish course, where anyone who knows beyond “Hola” in Spanish is kicked out, wouldn’t you write the most important piece of paper for the course in a language they know? Say, English? Wouldn’t it just be a really bad idea to write EVERYTHING in Spanish?

Ok, even if you did write everything in Spanish, don’t you think you’d put dates next to the reading assignments? Maybe put dates on the midterms, perhaps?

Or even if you don’t want to use dates. Wouldn’t you at least put the classes in the proper order?!?

You might think so, but no. My syllabus is 6 pages of Spanish reading assignments that aren’t dated, and aren’t even in the right order. Spanish. The course I was most excited for.

Seriously. Why.

But I didn’t want to get defeated that quickly. My little control-freak brain was starting to shut down, and so I figured that focusing too much on the “schedule” was a bad idea. I decided that I knew we had just started with Spanish, so I figured that I’d just pull out my textbooks and start hacking away at it.

They were all in Spanish too. And we hadn’t actually started at the beginning.. we had started with conjugation and reflexive verbs.

But hey, Spanish just wasn’t working out. I figure that tomorrow I have a discussion group, no biggie. I can ask my questions then, I’m sure it’ll all get sorted out. I can make my own schedule, and it’ll all be great!

I’ll just turn to my second-most-pumped-for course: childhood developmental psychology!

So I , the eager-beaver I am, open up my textbook, ready to dig in!

And the first thing I see:

…

…

And that’s how studying went for me today.

DISCLAIMER: I absolutely love my Spanish professor :) She’s great, super enthusiastic about the language, and I’m extremely excited for this course. I just found this very ironically humorous. :) And same for child psych–Freud is one small blemish in a course full of exciting and interesting things to learn about :) This day was just…uniquely special.

Oh, and hey Mary-Kate ;)