Studying Guidance
Let’s be real - what does it mean to study? You may hear your parent, mentor, teacher, or maybe even your grandparents rambling - “you should study” - but what does it really mean? And honestly, why does it even matter?
Let’s tackle this question in two parts.
First, let’s answer the latter.
As with many issues in life, this answer is multi-faceted, so please read carefully:
Besides for investing individually in your own future (this sounds pretentious, but it’s really true), you cannot, realistically, expect (and no one should, for that matter) one weekly tutoring session to solve all your issues. It’s neither logical, nor practical. Don’t take this just from us - let’s do the actual math.
The Math
How many hours are in a day?
24
2. How many hours, then, are in a week?
24 hours/day x 7 days/week = 168 hours/week
3. Ok, but realistically, how many hours are humans awake for?
Since the average human is awake ~16-18 hours (you should get LOTS of rest), this makes the total hours in a week, in which YOU can be productive, to be 16 hours (let’s assume you want more rest) x 7 days/week = 112 hours/week
4. What percent, of the 112 hours/week that humans are awake, is 1 hour per week?
1 hour/112 hours = 0.0089
Converted to percent, this is 0.89%
This is why it is important to study.
Yes, here at Studio Shvakel, our mentors truly give their all, from keeping you ahead in lesson material, to answering all of your questions. But the hard truth is that this 1 hour per week is only 0.89% of your productivity time.
Especially taking into consideration how diverse, and unique, each student is, in terms of backgrounds and learning preferences, it would be a naive assumption to think that one weekly mentoring session would resolve all of your difficulties in whichever subject you are seeking help in.
You may ask - what, then, is the point of tutoring?
The point of tutoring is to forge a professional partnership, where the tutor and the student are equal, and not a professional partnership where one is necessarily “higher” (in terms of authority) than the other.
Through this professional partnership, we will work together - to answer your ALL your questions, clarify current concepts, provide you with lots of practice, make sure you are STRONG on existing material, as well as keep you AHEAD in the class.
While it is true that we are very results-oriented (our students, on average, improve at least 1 letter grade, if not 2), we remain focused on shaping the future generation of leaders - be they STEM or humanities - by helping them to understand the big idea, as well as develop critical thinking skills.
In so doing, we urge all of our students, and even those that are not with us, but who might be reading this page, to develop and refine your study habits.
Starting now will go a long way.
As someone once told me, “baby steps”.
You don’t have to study as if you’re preparing to venture the Oregon Trail.
No, this would be ludicrous, and unrealistic.
Rather, start small, and build up (like tackling all challenges in life).
Studying for three hours every week, or ~25 minutes every day of the week, is only (3/112) x 100 = 3.6% of your time (the time that you are awake).
You don’t even have to study everyday - you could study for 36 minutes every day, for five days, to achieve a total of three hours of studying per week.
The magic is - your destiny is in YOUR hands - so you can create, and consistently refine your study routine however you see fit!
As current/former students however, we definitely have some studying suggestions.
To help you out, we’ve begun crafting a list, which will be continually updated with new study habits, with suggestions from both our team, and you : )