A strange new normal
The forced quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic has forced universities to quickly adapt their infrastructure to online classes and, as a result, students and teachers are overwhelmed with work.
The professors do not provide enough to attend individually to all the students and meet the teaching requirements, in addition to continuing with their research work and mandatory publications and the students find themselves with an overwhelming amount of syllabus that, having not been explained so in depth as was done in face-to-face classes, they find it immeasurable.
Calm
In this situation, added to the individual problems and concerns due to the pandemic, it is easy for everyone to see their levels of indignation and frustration increase to unbearable levels to which must be added the stress caused by the delivery of jobs, TFG o TFM and online exams. It is understandable and more when we see that there is too much agenda to prepare, but getting pissed off we do not solve anything. We are going to take a deep breath, calm down and look for solutions to do our best. It is clear that the procedure to maintain the classes has not been perfect, but it has been the only way to manage it with so little time, so instead of getting upset or angry, we are going to throw a little resilience to see if we can finish this course at once and get it out of the way.
The class delegate will be a key figure in this situation
The first thing we must do is organize ourselves and have all the material for each subject to see how much material we should study for each one and if it is acceptable or there is really a lot of content. Then, if we want the teachers to help us manage our doubts, we cannot send a thousand emails each. You have to understand that each teacher has hundreds of students, their classes and their research papers, in addition to having the same concerns about COVID-19 that we do. A human being, no matter how professorial, does not give much. If we must learn something, it is that when we organize ourselves as a group, we function better and achieve more things than individually, therefore, together we must prepare a list of essential questions and have the class delegate send all these questions to our teachers so that no one feels lost. Union make force!
The most important thing is to know which parts of the syllabus are subject to examination or what is most important. If there is a lot of syllabus, you have to kindly explain to the teacher that we cannot cover everything because we have several more subjects, but keep in mind that more flies are hunted with honey than with vinegar, so be nice if you want to get something. We must also be very clear about what type of exam they will give us, since a multiple choice exam is not prepared the same as one of short questions or one of development.
We can ask how much time we will have to answer the questions or even suggest that some kind of preliminary drill can be done to understand how the online exam works and reduce stress.
How to study when there is a lot of agenda
As we are at the end of the course, we have all gone through an exam season and we know how it works. A lot of work and a lot of effort and to pass it. But if we have huge amounts of topics or extremely complicated texts, we have no choice but to make a good selection and focus on what is important: what hospitals call triage.
Unless the teacher specifies that there is something that will not be included in the exam, we must carefully read all the texts and identify which are the important ideas. That is, make a comprehensive reading. The most important thing you have to know, but be careful, the rest should at least sound like us, so nothing to skip chunks or read diagonally. If we have not had other exams with that teacher, asking other students in higher grades can help us get an idea of what is more relevant or what kind of questions they usually ask.
Once this is done, we must continue to apply the most effective study techniques for each type of exam (test, short questions, development or oral).
As always, we recommend that you alternate them so that you stay focused for longer. Depending on the type of subject and after reading and underlining, we can make diagrams, mind maps, study cards, drawings, self-tests, etc. If you need more help, then ghostwriters for hire your writing project completed.
The important thing is to know how to get rid of the burden and get to it, because our mental attitude towards the exams will also determine how complicated it is for us and no matter how much syllabus that goes into, the exams are limited and the teachers will have a wide sleeve because they know the situation.
