Hello everyone! I want to tell you all why you DON’T need study guides. This post can be helpful for high school and college students. I really want my nursing students to pay close attention as well! Keep reading if you are interested!
“I DON’T GIVE OUT STUDY GUIDES”
Okay, be honest. How many times have you heard professors say this? Probably what feels like a million times. Even better, you may have a professor who gives “study guides”, but it is a mediocre list of topics or headings from the PowerPoints. This can leave you feeling overwhelmed and at a loss. Do not fret! You have already been given a study guide: the course objectives.
1. FIND THE SYLLABUS.
Find your syllabus. Yes, that long document that no one seems to read at the beginning of the semester. Each course syllabus will have a list of “course objectives”. This is a gold mine!
2. FIND THE OBJECTIVES.
Now that you have located the objectives, head over to your PowerPoint Slides and look at the beginning of the presentation. Usually, most instructors will paste the objectives for the content covered here. You may also find them in your online system. For example, my program used BlackBoard and objectives were posted each week.
3. COPY AND PASTE THE OBJECTIVES.
Once you find all the objectives for the exam to come, copy and paste them into a blank document with space in between. Add headings to organize them as you wish. There you go! You have just created your own study guide.
4. WRITE IN BETWEEN.
Fill in those blank spaces between the objectives! View the objective as a question and use the blanks to answer the question. In my experience, I preferred to write with colorful pens, draw diagrams, make annotations, etc. I actually kept all of my “study guides” from nursing school and I snapped a few pictures for you to see. Feel free to type in between objectives if you prefer digital note-taking/studying.
Remember, you have already been given a guide on what to study! Your instructors are making their exams based on these objectives. If you study the objectives you will learn what you need to learn from that course. Take your time and observe! Thanks for reading.
NURSE ANNA 
Interesting strategy! Focusing on the course objectives I picked up on it in high school and it was the same in college! It really helped me focus on what was necessary and chuck the “fluff”. Thanks for reading!
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I never used the study guides. I studied everything but didn’t use a textbook. I relied heavily on the PowerPoints and added extra information to them. Any word I didn’t understand I looked it up. Any concept I didn’t understand I googled. No need for a textbook.
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