Effective Studies – 5. After the Lecture

After the Lecture

After the lecture, you let the knowledge sink in, and you hopefully start to understand the topic. Below I go through four essential parts of the work you need to do after the lecture.

Summary and Repetition

Repetition is the mother of all knowledge

I first heard this quote from my High School teacher Magnus Ehinger, and it has been a guiding star for me since. 

Inspired by the quote above, I have always had a thumb rule to look at my notes from a lecture one day, one week, and one month after the lecture (hence the need to write dates on the notes). Repetition in this way helps me to remember what was said during the lecture.

I have also always made a summary from the lecture within one week. In the summary I write everything important, and I write it in my own words. Rephrasing and condensing information is an excellent way to force yourself to truly understand the topic.

Discuss

In my opinion, the best way to learn a topic is to teach it to someone else. A step in that direction is to discuss with your friends. Do you agree on what were the important parts? Is there something that you or your friends don’t understand and can explain to each other?

Exercises

Usually, there are some exercises connected to the lecture. I will later write a whole blog post with advice about exercises. So, for now, I only say: do the exercises!

Read

It is good to also read the corresponding parts in the book. When you read, keep in mind: what is shown in the lectures is usually the most important information, and it’s what you should aim to understand first. When you have read a subchapter, it is once again good to summarize with your own words. I will write more advice about reading in a later post.