PART A

GUIDE TO SUCCESS IN FIRST YEAR STUDIES

IN UNIVERSITY

DO'S AND DON’TS

 During lectures, when surrounded by a
DO #1:
group of people that you know; they would
distract you from focusing, ''separate ''SEPARATE
yourself''. You will not be able to focus on
two things at once. YOURSELF''
If you are the type of person who finds it
''Separate yourself'' from negative thoughts
hard to study around a group of people, my
that will slow down your journey to
advice is to separate yourself. Being in a
success. You are able to achieve great things
quiet and undisturbed environment helps
as long as you believe in yourself and work
you think and process what you are
hard.
studying.

If you are in a crowd that negatively

influences you and takes a toll on your
studies ''separate yourself''. Instead,
surround yourself with individuals who will
help and uplift your studies.
 DO #2: PREPARE
BEFOREHAND
Read through the learning
Before the week starts, plan out
objectives of whatever subject
what, when, and how you'll be
your lecture will be based on. This
studying.You could use a calendar
will give you a fair idea of what
for this or whatever suits you
to expect on your upcoming
best.
lecture.

Do not cram your work. Always Mentally and physically prepare

plan out your time wisely and yourself for school by getting a
spread out your work according to goodnight sleep and a good
the timeframe you have. breakfast in the morning.
 When highlighting keywords and key DO #3: NOTE TAKING
messages in your readings and notes, you
can categorize them by using different Taking notes can be
colors. You could also highlight questions or
anything you don’t understand so you can overwhelming, here
come back and go over it again. are some easy ways you
can take notes.
If you're writing down notes during a Use your learning objectives as a guideline
lecture sometimes its best to write it in and try to take notes by answering those
your way, you do not have to copy the learning objectives. By doing this it will
lecturer. Writing it in your own words also save you time, and you won't have to
makes you understand it better. write that many notes.

When going through readings if you need to

come back to it again use sticky notes to
indicate where you can find a piece of
certain information. This will help you save
time.
 DO #4:
Don’t take lecture recordings for granted,
make use of them and always go through Sometimes you are unable to take notes REVIEW
them if you didn’t understand anything during your lecture as it can be fast.
from the lecture. Some lectures can be Therefore for further notes, it will be LECTURES
very fast; therefore by reviewing the beneficial to go through the lecture
lectures through the given recordings; you recordings.
can slow it down to your preferred pace.

It is more effective for you to go through

your lecture than to just rely on your
memory. Going through lectures
before revising for an exam also helps.
 DO #5: TAKE
A BREAK

Lectures are essential and being able to focus 100% in

a lecture is a skill that will help you in the long run. So
to focus 100%, you need to have a good nights rest.
Before an exam students often tend to stress and study Students often spend hours and hours up studying and
hours after hours. Take a break before your exam, listen going to school the next day with only 3-5 hours of
to some music and chill out. Do not study an hour sleep which isn’t efficient as they won’t concentrate and
before the test as you would only stress out yourself. eventually fall asleep. Therefore it is sometimes best to
‘’take a break’’ from your studies and make sure you get
in at least 8 hours of sleep before your lecture the next
day.
DON'T #1: CRAM YOUR WORK Cramming your work will only result in stress and
poor performance in your work. It is a behavior
Organize your time wisely, using a calendar or a semester planner. Write down the start date that will not benefit you in first year. Therefore
and due date, then plan out what to work on during that timeframe. Having a plan acts as a here is a way to overcome it.
foundation for your assignment or your studying time. Below is an example of a planner.
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

29th 30th 1st (MAY) 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

STUDY FOR POP STUDY FOR STUDY FOR POP HEALTH COMPLETE APD PEER
APD EPORT2 HEALTH POP HEALTH POP PEER REVIEW REVIEW DUE
DUE HEALTH FOR APD
TEST
6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th
REVISE FOR BIO REVISE FOR BIO BIO LAB 2 POP HEALTH SYNOPSIS 2 BIO
COMPLETE AND COMPLETE TEST DUE TEST
SYNOPSIS SYNOPSIS
13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th
MATHS TUTORIAL WORK ON P.H WORK ON P.H ESSAY P.H ESSAY P.H ESSAY
TEST ESSAY WORK ON REFERENCING REFERENCING REFERENCING
20th 21st 22nd 23rd 24th 25th 26th
P.H ESSAY REVISE FOR BIO BIO TUTORIAL POP HEALTH ESSAY DUE
REFERENCING TEST 3 APD REFERENCING DUE
DON'T #2: PROCRASTINATE
According to Google, Do not study in your room; this will only
procrastination is the act of promote procrastination as you will get
tempted easily to lay down and sleep.
delaying or postponing an
action. As a university student,
this will have to be the most
challenging obstacle you'd have Create
to a motivation wall full of motivational Avoid taking continuous breaks; instead, plan
face. You would experience this quotes and everything that motivates you to out your breaks during your study time, so
study. Use this wall as a reminder of why you have more time to study. The Pomodoro
when you're trying to do your you should study hard to achieve your technique is useful and many students use
homework in your room, starting dreams. this technique during their study time.
early on an assignment, studying
for an upcoming test and many
more. Many students say ''I'll do it Start your assignment on the day it is
tomorrow'' and end up delaying it announced and spend 30mins to an hour on
until the day the assignment is it every day from then on.

due. Therefore, here are four tips

on how to overcome this barrier.
DON'T #3: MISS OUT ON YOUR LECTURES

It has been proven that if you miss out one hour of a lecture, it will take two hours of your time to
catch up. Some people have different learning skills, and they prefer to stay home and study from there
using the lecture recordings. However, it is not confirmed that all of your lectures will be recorded. As
a student, I have a better understanding of the context when I attend the lecture. If I were to stay
home and study from there, I would easily get distracted by other factors. When I attend my lecture, I
am exposed to many positive factors that can help me understand the context better. I am also able to
ask the lecturer questions and so on. I highly recommend you attend all your lectures.
DON'T #4: COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS

DON’T COMPARE YOUR FAILURE TO OTHERS SUCCESS

Instead of comparing your failures to others success, look at what you did wrong and find out ways to improve
yourself. Instead of trying to see who is better than the other, help one another out. We all want to see our Maori
and Pacific people succeed therefore uplift each other. If you didn’t get the grade you hoped for, don’t look down on
yourself instead work harder and learn from your mistakes.
 University can be very challenging, It will test you mentally and physically and can even break you to where you’ll feel like giving up. I myself have felt
like giving up many times, especially when I didn’t get the grade I wanted or when I couldn’t be bothered to study. 2 things that helped me get through
this bad mentality and can also help you was connecting with GOD and My family and friends. Whenever I was at the verge of giving up I would pray to
GOD and ask him to help me with my journey and this would spiritually build me up and enable me to keep going and not give up so easily. Also my family
and friends would give me the perfect reminder I needed to not give up with their words of encouragement and stories of their struggles it would give me
the right motivation to not give up. Thus if YOU ever feel like giving up, use my 2 options to help give you MOTIVATION or find what your true MOTIVATION
is and lock it in your head, so that whenever you feel like GIVING UP, It will MOTIVATE YOU NOT TO!.

DON'T #5: GIVE UP