How to study in first year of university: what changes from school

What changes from school to university?

• Volume. A single module can cover in a week what a school subject covered in a month.
• Fewer check-ins. At school, homework and class tests tell you if you're keeping up. At university, the first real feedback may be a midterm or the end-of-semester exam.
• Independent study. Lectures are only part of the job. Many universities expect several hours of independent study for each hour of teaching.
• Material in many places. Slides, recorded lectures, readings, PDFs, problem sheets. Nobody bundles it into a revision guide for you.

The skills that work at school, like rereading a textbook the week before a test, stop scaling. There is simply too much to reread.

Which study habits matter most?

Study habits matter more than many students think. Credé and Kuncel (2008) pooled data from 72,431 college students across 344 samples and found that study habits, skills and attitudes rivalled standardised tests and previous grades as predictors of academic performance. They were also largely independent of school grades and admission test scores, so a good student at school is not automatically a good studier at university.

Which habits? Hartwig and Dunlosky (2012) surveyed 324 undergraduates and found that both self-testing and rereading were positively associated with GPA; testing yourself is the one that research shows does far more for memory. How students scheduled their study mattered too: lower performers were more likely to study late at night, and all students, but especially lower performers, were driven by impending deadlines.

And yet most students don't test themselves. Karpicke, Butler and Roediger (2009) asked 177 college students how they studied: most repeatedly read their notes or textbook, and relatively few practised recalling the material. When Kornell and Bjork (2007) asked students about self-testing, most who did it said it was to check how well they knew something, not as a way to learn.

The lesson for first year: schedule your study before deadlines force you to, and make most of it testing yourself.

A weekly routine for first-years

1. Within 24 hours of each lecture (15–20 minutes): close your notes and write down the main points from memory, then check the slides. Turn anything you missed into two or three questions.
2. Twice a week (30–45 minutes per module): answer practice questions on the last few weeks' lectures, not just this week's. This is where spacing happens.
3. Once a week (30 minutes): plan the coming week. List deadlines and put specific study sessions in your calendar. Our Sunday reset routine shows how.
4. Every two to three weeks: do a mixed quiz across all your topics in a module, under time pressure. It shows you what has faded.

If you fall behind (everyone does at some point), our guide to catching up on missed lectures is a good place to start.

Your first university exams

For many first-years, the first big exams come in December or January. A few things help:

• Find the format early. Multiple choice, short answer, essays or problems? Past papers or sample questions from your module page tell you how to practise.
• Start revision three to four weeks out, with each topic revisited at least twice. Our guide to making a revision timetable walks through it.
• Practise like the exam. Timed questions with no notes tell you more than another read-through.
• Protect sleep in exam week. In Hartwig and Dunlosky's survey, lower performers were more likely to study late at night.

First-year mistakes to avoid

• Treating attendance as studying. Sitting in a lecture is exposure, not learning. The learning happens when you try to recall it later.
• Making beautiful notes and never testing them. Notes are a source to test yourself from, not the end product.
• Waiting for the first grade to find out how you're doing. Test yourself weekly and you'll know long before.
• Going it alone. Study with coursemates. Quizzing each other is one of the easiest ways to test yourself. See how to study with friends.

First year is when the material starts piling up as files: slides, PDFs, readings, lecture videos. Ace turns those files into practice questions written only from that material, with each answer backed by a sentence from your file. You pick which lectures to study, can play solo or duel a coursemate on the same questions, and its streaks and study calendar help the weekly routine stick.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Credé, M., & Kuncel, N. R. (2008). Study habits, skills, and attitudes: The third pillar supporting collegiate academic performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(6), 425–453.
2. Hartwig, M. K., & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(1), 126–134.
3. Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17(4), 471–479.
4. Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2007). The promise and perils of self-regulated study. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 219–224.