College is Easy if You Know How to Study: A Visual Learner

"College is not always easy!"

Whoever said that college was easy? I learned the hard way that discerning my learning style made studying a whole lot easier for me. Let me reflect upon my own personal experience for a moment and you will see what I mean.

A number of years ago, I realized that time was going to go by, whether I had anything to show for it or not. I decided to make the best use of my time that I possibly could and go back to school. I had no idea where to start, but decided to take interest level courses.

I began taking a course in ceramics, as I wanted to learn how to paint figurines. By the time that I was finished the course, I knew how to paint Hummel figurines. With some help from my instructor, I managed to create several lace-draped porcelain dolls and even mastered the basics of folk art painting. These courses did not require a lot of studying. It was a matter of see and do.

Then I enrolled in a pottery course. My work schedule was such that there was only one course that I could fit into my schedule. It was a fourth year class held one afternoon every week. I had never taken any basics in pottery, so I knew that I had my work cut out for me.

Over that year, I learned how to work with clay on a potter's wheel, in order to make basic pottery which included mugs, cups, bowls, flower pots and vases. I was taught to use different glazes and learned firing techniques for pottery, including how to use both indoor and outdoor kilns. In order to complete this course, I also had to learn how to make big plates and teapots. With some assistance from the instructor, I managed to pass the course. This course did not require a lot of studying either. This was also a see and do course, as well as hands on.

At the same time that I started the pottery course, I was also enrolled in a beginner's course on how to play the organ. I had some experience playing by ear and knew a bit about reading music, but sight-reading proved to be difficult for me. No matter how much I studied music, it did not seem to get any easier. Trying to read three lines of music at the same time as I played, was not something that I could do very well, no matter how much I practiced.

I learned that I could hear music and play some of it by ear immediately. My hand-eye-foot co-ordination left something to be desired. My hands were too stiff from working with the cold, hard clay.

I gradually became increasingly frustrated with sight reading, but I persisted and finally learned the piece of music that was required in order to pass my organ course. When I took my examination, I was shocked to learn from my instructor that I had played the piece perfectly in a different rhythm than it was written. I decided that this kind of studying was not for me even though it did involve some hands on experience. I learned that I could write music, but that was hard for me too.

I gradually became aware that even though my hands were busy, my mind was searching for something more. I realized that I was yearning for mental stimulation rather than mere creativity with my hands. At that point, I enrolled in a two-year counseling program.

That is probably the best thing that I could have done. Over the next two years, I began to understand myself, my learning style and how complex studying can be.

The very first evening of my counseling program in a communications course, we were paired with other classmates. I began to talk with a young mother who was having a very difficult time at home, because her daughter had been injured at school. Having been trained as a pediatric nurse, I also began to counsel her. 

We worked our way through the courses together, over the next two years. We both obtained our counseling certificates, while two thirds of the students in the class were eliminated in the statistics course.

"If you don't have the patience to do statistics, you won't be an effective counselor," the professor had advised the students who did not succeed. 

We obviously had patience that we had learned somewhere. 

Personally, I had begun to take more and more notes. I had made massive notes in my statistics course and shared them with my classmate.

While I enjoyed the counseling program, the studying that was required did not come easy to me. As fast as I would learn something, I could start and learn it all over again. I found out that I did not have a photographic memory like some of the other students. I also began to realize that I was not a person who learned by listening to lectures, as much as I enjoyed them. What I heard flew in one ear and out the other.

Over time, I gradually learned how to write down only key points in a lecture. As I did that, I began to become more aware that what I wrote, I would be able to recall. Then I realized that I knew how to study. When I wrote, I learned. That was the secret.

A number of professors who watched me take notes, advised me that I did not need to do that. Some of them even got angry with me for taking notes. I took notes anyhow. I would go back over them at night, or before my exams. I gradually started to realize that what I wrote down was being written in my mind, at the same time.

It was not long before other students, who were not adept at taking notes, would check with me about course information that they had not been able to record in class. I chuckled as I helped them. My notes may not have been well written in any structured format, but they were there. As time went on, I began to take better and better notes. My hand writing improved as well.

It was not until many years later, that I was told by one of my professors, that I am a visual learner. He said that others can be auditory learners. I understood why I had struggled so hard academically for all of those years. But I had instinctively done the right thing. I learned how to study by writing everything down, so that I could actually see the information.

To see and do something like ceramics is only one of many ways to learn. Learning what my learning style was, helped me to study more effectively and it certainly made it easier for me to study. 

This will probably hold true for others also.