I've gotten quite a few questions about how I was able to do so well on all of my prerequisites, and I wanted to mention a couple of quick tips that were invaluable in helping me get an 'A' in A&P I and II, Micro, Nutrition, Chem, Algebra, etc.
A lot of this was originally posted in a local forum, but I thought it might be of a benefit to other students as well.
A quick background on me: I've been fortunate enough to maintain a 4.0 GPA through all of my college classes, including this past Summer when I took 17 credits in 8 weeks (sorry, I don't want that to sound like bragging, because it's not -- it was the result of a lot of hard work and dedicated studying).
1. Go get an enormous stack of note cards. Break down each and every possible study question/concept/part on a separate card, then studying the hell out of them and, once you're confident with the material on a given card, put it in a separate stack. By the time your exam rolls around, you'll have a very small stack (if any at all) of concepts you still don't understand.
-When studying using the above method, use a timer and spend an exact amount of time studying (I usually did 40 minutes at a time) and then take a break (say, for 20 minutes). After about an hour of heavy studying (if you don't take a break), your mind becomes exhausted and studying becomes a lot less effective.
One great advantage to using note cards and a timer is that it's easy to find a stopping point when the timer goes off -- you simply finish the card you're on and then take your break.
2. Go to http://www.eleven21.com/notetaker/ and create yourself a free custom "Cornell Method" note taking sheet. Print tons of them and learn how to use it and live by it. This method of taking notes changed my life. You've got three sections to each and every page. The bulk of the sheet is for taking notes as you're listening to a lecture. As soon as you leave the lecture (within 24 hours), take your notes and formulate questions [potential test questions] from your notes and write them in the small column on the left side. In the small section at the bottom, summarize the notes from the page in a few short sentences.
-If you want to really get creative, you can color code your notes or use a highlighter to point out certain sections. In my lectures, I would write in black, and anything I missed and had to fill in at home, I would write in blue, since I knew those were items I probably didn't really understand in lecture. I would make sure to go over anything written in blue extra carefully.
-Highlight anything your professor writes on a board/overhead or repeats more than once. You can bet it will show up on an exam.
3. Record all of your lectures, but don't obsess over spending all your studying time listening to them. Instead, know that you've got those on hand if there's a concept that you're really struggling with or that you just want additional clarity on. You can then go back to your recording and listen to that snippet as many times as you like.
4. Don't spend all of your time reading your textbook word-for-word unless you're certain that your professor requires that extreme level of detail. Most of the material in a textbook is filler/verbose and you could easily spend the bulk of your time reading and re-reading your textbook only to find that you've gained a vague familiarity with hundreds of topics rather than a confident, detailed knowledge about the things you really need to know. *Resist the urge to want to know and understand every single fact/detail/word in your text because you think it will make you a better student or nurse -- it's simply not possible to know it all well*.
-Do carefully read all of the summaries for every chapter in your textbook, carefully analyze all images/captions, read the definitions, and scan the text itself.
5. Try to anticipate the material that will be in your next lecture (most likely, your professor gave you some kind of a syllabus at the beginning of the semester, and you should use it). You can do this by scanning your text or by purchasing a study guide for your course and skimming it before your lecture). You'll probably find that you're a lot more engaged in your lecture and learn better if you've got even a vague familiarity with some of the material that will be discussed in your lecture beforehand.
And there you go -- now you know all my secrets... at least all the ones I can think of right now. I'm sure a fair amount of this stuff has been said in other ways by other people in the past, but taken as a whole, I truly believe that this can help just about any student in any class.
