Strategic studies: A guide to students
1) Fix your intention and start with Bismillah (In the name of Allah)
Having a clear intention is
more important than you think it is. Don’t just randomly invest all of your
precious time into studying for an exam or a test.
Take a step back, zoom
out a little. Now think about why you are learning. Is it just to be a position
holder in class, get ahead of your nemesis and other such goals?
Whatever it is you are
studying, study to become knowledgeable, and credible Muslims
in your field.
Purifying your intention is
necessary even when you make duas for exams. Make dua in front of Allah
with sincerity.
Another key point is to start your study-session with a “Bismillah!“. Great, now you have Allah as your helper
while you study!
2) Make Lots of Duas for exams:
Allah
says in the Qura’n:
“And
your Lord says, ‘Call upon Me; I will respond to you'”
[Surah 40: Ayah 60)
Before you even begin studying,
or sitting for an exam, it is essential that you connect yourself spiritually
to Allah. What better way to do that than prayers and duas?
We all speak different
languages. But the beauty of spirituality crosses all the barriers of language,
race and colour. For maintaining a connection with Allah, you don’t specifically need to
make duas in Arabic.
We should make duas in
whatever language we are the most comfortable in and feel a stronger connection
with Allah.
However, there are
quite a few important duas Allah mentions in the Quran specifically for us and
many more that our beloved Prophet (S.A.W) has mentioned in his Sunnah. We
should gain benefit from them as well.
Here are a few of those golden
duas for exams, studies, interviews, vivas, or any other sort of trial
you are going through.
Remember: No examiner is too
big in front of Allah. And no exam is bigger than life itself.
a) Duas for gaining knowledge:
Allah
says in the Qura’n:
“O my Sustainer! Open up my heart and make my
task easy for me, and loosen the knot from my tongue so that they might fully
understand my speech.” [ Surah Taaha -20: Ayahs 25-28 ]
Allah
teaches us in the Qura’n
“My Lord Increase me, and
increase me in knowledge.” [ Surah 20: Ayah 114 ]
“My
Lord, grant me wisdom, join me with the righteous; give me a good name among
later generations; make me one of those given the Garden of Bliss.” [ Surah
Ash-Shu’ara- 26, Ayahs: 83-85. ]
“Glory be to you, we have no knowledge except
what you have taught us. Verily, it is You, the All-Knower, the
All-Wise.”[Surah Baqarah- 2: Ayah: 32]
b) Dua for studying something difficult:
The Prophet (S.A.W) advised us to recite the following dua in any time of
trials. We can read this dua for exams, studies, or for any other type of
trials that we are facing.
“O Allah, nothing is easy except what You make
easy. And if You wish, You make the difficult easy.” [ Hisnul-Muslim]
c) Duas when suffering from stress,
tension or anxiety:
The Prophet (S.A.W) said that one should recite the following dua for
exams, studies, or in any other times of stress or trials.
“O Allah! Certainly, I
seek refuge in you from concern and grief and I seek refuge in you from
inability and laziness, and I seek refuge in you from cowardice and
miserliness and I seek refuge in you from the overpowering of debts and
from the subjection of man.” [ Sahih- Bukhari, Hadith: 6369 ]
“O Allah, I hope for Your mercy, so give me
not over to my self even for as little as wink of an eye, and set right all my
affairs, there is no God but You” [ Sunan Abu Dawood ]
d) Dua for exams ( before or during
exam):
Allah says in the
Qura’n:
“….verily
Allah is All-Sufficient for you. He is the One Who has strengthened you and the
believers with His help.”
[Surah: 8, Ayah: 62]
d) Dua after exam:
Allah
says in the Qura’n:
“who, when afflicted with calamity, say: “We
belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.”” [Surah Baqarah-2,
Ayah: 156]
3) Space your study sessions according
to Salah times
While most of us are
so absorbed in our studies, Duhr goes by, so does Asr, and by the time it’s
Maghrib you are almosst done (just a little bit left). It’s the middle of the
night, and you are STILL not done. Wonder why?
Allah takes away
baraka’h from our tasks. So remember that 20 mins of praying 5 times a day, is
a blessing in the form of mental rest from Allah.
Bonus
Tip: One of the best times to make some serious du’a is
tahajjud. I know it’s very difficult for
most of us to wake up so early. It becomes easy once you shift your sleep-cycle
so that your sleepy-time is around Isha’a and wake-up time is
tahajjud.
The Prophet said, “Our Lord
descends each night to the nearest Heaven when only the last third of the night
remains, and says: ‘Is anyone praying that I may answer him? Is anyone seeking
forgiveness, that I may forgive him? Is anyone asking, that I may give to
him?’, and this continues until dawn” (Tirmidhi).
4) Understand yourself and your capacity
Are you someone who can sleep 4
hours and function like a super-mega-human? Or are you someone who can NOT
wakeup before 6-8 hours of beauty-sleep, even if your roomies throw you out the
window? ( Notice how I use the word “can” and not “want to”).
Ask yourself, can I study
in groups or do I retain better when I study alone?
Am I a night-owl and become dysfunctional when I try to
study in the morning or am I a morning buddha bursting
with energy?
Waking up early in the morning has plenty of benefits.
But depending on your study habits, you can choose to study till late at night
for exams as long as you don’t miss
fajr!
Ask yourself.. Do I
learn better when I’m hopping from one place to another, or am I more of a
“still” person who likes to be glued to one place while studying?
Listen to yourself. And not to the snobby topper who rants on
about how he/she aces it. What works for someone else might not work for you at
all.
5) Sticky-notes, white-board,
colour-codes and what not?
Get your game on. Use
a whiteboard, highlighters, sticky-notes or/and flashcards.
Whatever suits you
best. But be sure to make notes.
When you are making
notes, you are writing as well as reading. And that aids in your memory encoding process.
Colours also help in memory conversion. But if you are that neat little person
who uses a lead pencil with a ruler to underline important stuff, then I salute
you.
You, my friend, are playing a
serious game.
6)Make a Timetable
Rather than stuffing
your plans for a whole decade in your head, just jot them down on a piece of
paper.
Divide
your time into manageable portions. Think of completing one portion at a
time.
When you complete a
task, cross it out or highlight it or give it a big tick. And when you are DONE
with all of it, tear that paper into as many pieces as you want to feel goood!
7) Sit in the company of people with
similar goals
If you are aiming to
ace the exam, then hang around with the big-fish.
But if you just want
to pass it, don’t overwhelm yourself with the company of high-achievers.
There is nothing wrong
with setting a low study-target. Focus on your goals and accordingly surround
yourself with people.
8) Teach what you learn
One of the best ways
to reinforce what you learn is to teach it to someone. Ideally your
friends/classmates or roomates are the best targets. This way you will benefit
them as well as yourself, a win-win!
9) Take multiple short breaks
Take a break. Not from
reading this juicy article.. Take a break from studying between every
session.
I have personally used
the “Pomodoro technique” for yearss. It’s amazing how
productive you can get AND enjoy breaks every now and then, by studying
in small time intervals
called “Pomodoros".
It also helps immensely in beating procrastination.
But I won’t be able to
cover the details of that technique in this article. Let me know in the
comments section below if you want me to write another article on that!
10) Reward yourself with a treat!
Chocolates? A big fat
juicy burger or a cheesy-pizza?
Or maybe something
really light like a fruitjuice? (only if you are a health-freak like me).
Yum-tums!
When you set yourself
a goal with a treat at the end, you have something sweet to look forward to.
That little morsel of
reward motivates you to keep going! Moreover, it brings you a sense of
satisfaction that you have achieved something.
On
a side note- Don’t have
really heavy treats after every task. At that rate, you will swell up like a
balloon. True story.
11) Experiment new strategies of
learning
I recommend that you
try all of these to figure out what works for you best:
·
Watch videos of lectures or documentaries. Give
something visual from your study-topic
to your memory
·
Listen to a recitation
of Quran or Nasheeds in your break-time. It will help
de-stress you.
·
Draw it out! Whatever it is you are trying to
understand, illustrate it on a piece of paper (don’t worry if drawing is not
your thing- it’s just for you not for the millennial art gala).
·
Change or modify your
study environment. It helps elevate the mood!
·
BE
LOUD. Yes. You heard
it. That’s cause I said it out loud.
When you are reading text, listening to
audio, watching videos, writing notes,
AND saying it out loud (maybe not all of those
together cause that would be too crazy), imagine how many senses are being
used!
The more you make use
of those senses Allah has given you, the more chances of imprinting or better, engraving that piece of information on your brain!
12) Eat memory-enhancing foods
Rather than mindlessly
munching on crackers that make you bloat later, eat the foods that are proven by
the Sunnah of our Prophet (S.A.W). Honey, Olive Oil, Figs, Dates, and pomegranates are
among those foods that enhance memory and improve concentration!
But MOM…I only got 49
out of 50! Why me? I wanted a 50! I am such a failure…
OMG, girlsss listen up! I did it again! Why do I ALWAYS manage to top everything even though I never really study?
haha! I must be really smart I guess…
Are you thinking what
I’m thinking? Aren’t both of those situations messed up?
And I didn’t make them
up. People say that (maybe not in those exact same words). There are two kinds
of people I mentioned above..
One extreme is never
being satisfied with where you are. And the other is trying too little and
being arrogant. Allah does not like extremes.
ust try to be somewhere
in the middle. Say Alhamdulilah and
understand that no matter how smart you are, it’s a blessing from Allah.
And no matter how much you are lacking
behind.. there are people in much worse situations. It’s not the end of the
world.
Allah says in the
Qura’n: And [remember] when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If
you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favor]….(14:7)
So are you ready to DREAM BIG and begin studying the right way?
I have personally tried almost
all of the above to help me throughout my student life and still follow most of them whenever I study
anything.
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