Study like a College Student: 8 Strategies to Improve Your Efficiency

Are you feeling like you’re putting in the hours but not making the progress you need? After reading the same article in the NEC over and over you realize you aren’t really taking in it?

Improving your study efficiency can make all the difference in mastering the material for your electrician license exam. Let’s explore some study strategies that will help you work smarter, not harder.

Here are 8 strategies college students use to ace their exams.

1. Active learning: Instead of passively reading through textbooks or notes, engage actively with the material. Summarize what you’ve learned in your own words, create diagrams, or explain key electrical concepts to someone else. This forces your brain to process the information on a deeper level, making it easier to understand and remember.

2. Spaced repetition: Instead of cramming all your study material in one session, space it out over time. Study a topic, then revisit it after a day, a week, and a month. This spaced repetition technique helps reinforce information in your long-term memory, making it less likely you’ll forget important formulas or NEC code rules.

3. Study in chunks: Trying to absorb too much information in one sitting can lead to burnout. Break your study sessions into manageable 30-45 minute chunks, focusing on a specific topic like conduit fill calculations or voltage drop formulas. After each chunk, take a short break to recharge before diving into the next session.

4. Mix it up (Interleaving): Don’t spend too much time on one subject or type of problem. Instead of focusing solely on NEC code one day and formulas the next, mix them up. Interleaving different topics helps your brain adapt and better retain information across different areas of study.

5. Teach what you’ve learned: One of the most effective ways to solidify your understanding is by teaching the material. Whether it’s explaining how to calculate load requirements or demonstrating the difference between connected and demand load to a peer, teaching forces you to clarify your thoughts and identify gaps in your knowledge.

6. Practice with exam questions: Efficiency isn’t just about learning the content, it’s also about being able to apply it under exam conditions. Use practice tests and sample questions to familiarize yourself with the exam format. This helps you not only test your knowledge but also improve your speed and accuracy when answering real test questions.

7. Use visual aids: Visual learners can greatly benefit from study strategies that involve charts, diagrams, and mind maps. Creating visual summaries of complex electrical systems or NEC regulations can help break down the information into more digestible pieces.

8. Study with a partner: Partnering with another electrician exam candidate can boost your efficiency. Quiz each other, discuss difficult topics, and share tips. A different perspective can often illuminate areas you might have missed on your own.

These study strategies will not only improve your efficiency but also help you retain critical information, giving you an edge in your electrician license exam. To dive deeper into more techniques and access exam-specific resources, read through our previous blog posts! Let’s get you prepared and confident for the big day.