While I was attending college I learned a lot of study strategies, and in this blog I'm going to share them with you! I'll go over tips for scheduling your study time, studying instructional videos, and recording and organizing what you learn.

I learned that just saying I'm going to study a certain amount of hours wasn't enough. I learned that I had to experiment and see how long it took me to read a chapter, count how many chapters I needed to read in order to reach my goal, and schedule my study time accordingly.

 1) Set a timer, read a chapter or watch a video, and see how long it took to understand that chapter or video.

 2) If you're studying multiple subjects then repeat the above for each topic and work out the average time (by adding the totals together and dividing them by number of subjects).

 3) Look at your schedule and set aside the amount of time that you need to complete your upcoming assignments. Study time can be weekly or daily, it's up to you!

Here's an example! If you're studying a GameDev.tv course, which is 20 hours long, and you find that it takes you 3 hours of study and practice to learn 1 hour of video, then 20 x 3 = 60 hours of study. If you study 8 hours per week, then you will complete the course in 8 weeks!

"Wow, that's a lot of study time!" Having a completion date in mind at the start can really help with motivation. Like seeing the finish line at the end of a race! 🏁

You can also use these time estimates to schedule your mid-term and long-term milestone goals!

To learn more about how to finish your projects and set goals, I recommend Rick Davidson's "Finish It!" course:  https://www.gamedev.tv/p/finish-it-motivation-processes-for-game-app-development?coupon_code=BLOG

Video tutorials are awesome and jam packed with lots of important information, but sometimes it can feel overwhelming. If you feel the information is going by too fast, here are some tips to help you catch the details...

 1) Use the little settings menu (located at the bottom of each video) to slow the video down. This will help you catch those elusive details, such as which menu your instructor is clicking on, which programming term is being discussed, etc.

 2) Work along with the instructor by watching a small section of the video, pause the video and try to complete that part of the project. After that, start the cycle again with the next segment of the video until the project is complete.

 3) If you have 2 devices, using one to watch the video and the other to work on the projects can be really helpful in allowing you to watch and work at the same time.

 1) Write the important steps in a notebook while you watch the tutorials. It helps to have something to refer to back to in case you get stuck later on.

 2) Organize your notebook, like a reference book, with tabs that divide each section. Tabs that are color coded work well for helping you find information fast.

 3) Use highlighters to highlight and color code information by type. For example, use yellow to highlight the directions to certain items in the Unity Inspector tab and green to highlight C# programming definitions.

I've enjoyed sharing these study tips with you, they've helped me a lot and I hope you find them useful. Everyone has their own way of learning, so it's important to find what works for you - I'd love to hear your tips!

Have an awesome day and see you next blog :)

The Title Image is designed and drawn by Elizabeth R. Laurie, and is Copyright Elizabeth R. Laurie 2021.