I’m not going to lie to you guys about this. I hate study groups. I only found them useful once, despite what well meaning articles like this one have to say. Every other time I have found them to be a waste of time that is so bad you should legally be allowed to shoot someone for asking to form a study group with you.
Wow Edwin, that seems like a lot of anger. Is everything OK?
Yes, I’m fine but study groups suck.
Why I Hate Study Groups
Don’t believe me? let me tell you my story about study groups. OK so first study group in college we all met on Thursday so we could help each other and go over the material. But I was the only one who showed up. I spent almost an hour playing phone tag with people who were as responsive as a brick wall.
Apologies to the brick walls out there.
By the end of the second study session I had given up on that group. They decided to go get ice-cream instead of study. I’m not kidding ice cream was more important to them then studying. We had a test in two days and they went to get ice cream. I found out later they hadn’t even cracked open the book.
Big surprise they did not last long. By next year I was the only person left from that study group. So, I found another and tried to join that one. I know this might sound weird but… these F%#$! W%&@!$ were even worse. Sorry I will go back and sensor myself.
The Study Group that Nearly Killed Me
Edwin how can they be worse than a study group that does not show up and fails out?
Oh, you don’t believe me? The next group nearly killed me. These were the pot heads. I didn’t know this when I agreed to be in a study group with them or I would have said no. Yes, I know what you’re saying, pot heads aren’t violent. They wouldn’t hurt a fly. But that wasn’t the problem. the problem is smoke triggers my asthma.
So, I opened the door to there house and got hit with a smoke cloud large enough to knock over the empire state building. Boom! I can’t breathe. Asthma attack almost instantly. Yes, that was how they study. High of their rocker but at least they had their text book open. Maybe my corpse could have absorbed the material through osmosis.
I think one of them made it to next year. The rest moved or failed.
So, I gave it one more try with another group. I made sure they didn’t smoke, they actually got together to study, they actually knew some of the material and they were all doing good. And they were almost as bad as the last group.
No, they didn’t try to stab me with a knife.
No, they were not trying to do something illegal.
Oh, wait a minute. Yes, they were.
These flaming piles a crap the thrown on my front porch stole my textbook and notes right before a test and then stopped showing up for class until the day of the test. They also hide so I couldn’t find them between class. There roommates covered for them too. It was a no-win situation.
What Can Make A Study Group OK
So, after that I had a very bad perception of study groups as lazy, thieving, murderers. Having said that if you find the right group it can be worthwhile. This happened once and I can tell you what happened differently.
For starters, this was not a regular study group. They only got together when a test was coming up. This is important because you need to be prepared to go to a study group. You can’t just walk in and expect to get a lot out of it. The whole group needs to be very well versed in the subject.
Why?
Well that leads me to the next point.
The Redemption of the Study Groups
This is how the study group is run. Everyone who comes to the study group needs to have a list of questions to test people on. Not the easy stuff. The questions need to be hard applying questions. And perhaps most importantly you need to have the answers to your questions. This way it’s like you have the test already. In our groups case each person had to have at least 15 questions 20 if you were new.
We ended up having over 150 questions (not including duplicates) to use to study for the test. And as I always say, memorization is not learning, application is. Well we had over 150 questions where we learned. This broke the work up nicely and made it easy to learn. But that’s only half the learning.
If a Study Group Doesn’t Have This… GTFO!!!
The most important part came next. Whenever someone got the questions wrong the person who answered the question would get up and teach everyone how to get the right answer. And yes, that is the key. With something like 30 people, almost every question someone got wrong.
This meant that everyone spent a good chunk of the time teaching. And we all know how much faster you learn when teaching. There is a reason teach what you learn is in the 12 laws of learning. It’s almost a super power.
Now was this group perfect? Hell no. They had problems too. But the problems they had were manageable. That is until the seniors in that group left. Then if devolved into a rotting cesspool of crime and villainy. Just like all the other study groups I tried to join.
To make things simple, if a study group does not have these 3 requirements be very wary about joining them.
If you want to find out how to really get better grades or learn better you can find some of my best advice in this link here, here or here.