Resources - Blog Posts
i know you're super busy all the time but just in case - any tips for law firm networking events? or, alternatively, as i have both this week, on how to sell yourself at an interview? you seem to be a person who knows how to play the game. anyway! loads of luck with all your things!
Networking events are a) the worst, b) incredibly valuable in expanding your circle of personal and professional contacts. Most of my tips are spawned from me viciously hating them, and simultaneously knowing they are Important For Career Development.
First of all, if you’re waiting for the magic rom-com moment when you totally connect with someone and they hire you on the spot—it’s not going to happen. (I definitely had to kill that fantasy, several times.)
Instead, it’s best to think of networking as a meet cute—the goal is to make an impression, and for that person to know who you are when you follow up with them afterwards.
….and you are going to follow up afterwards.
Start with people you know. There are a lot of networking events I’ve attended where there are classmates/professors in attendance. It is perfectly good manners to approach someone you know, greet them, and then introduce yourself to whoever they’re talking to.
I mean, obviously you can’t be an asshole about it, you don’t want to interrupt them, but I’ve definitely pulled this move with great success.
“Hey, [FRIEND] I saw you and I just had to say hello. Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I’m [NAME], I’m in [FRIEND]’s Corporate Law class.”
It also works really nicely if you can slip a compliment in for friend, both because it’s classy and they feel obligated to reciprocate.
Go in with 2-3 general questions that require more than a brief answer. Some of my favorites are “What’s the most interesting or challenging project/issue you’ve worked on in the last 6 months?” “What brought you to [area of specialization]?”
These are good because they don’t require you knowing anything about the person, but can get them to open up about their work. I haven’t met a lawyer who doesn’t enjoy sharing their war stories.
Work the room. If you’re talking to a single person for more than 15 minutes, you’re probably spending too much time with them.
It is totally appropriate to ask for a business card! Ask for a business card! This helps for the next step which is…
Follow up within the next business week. As I said before, networking events are meet cutes. If you really want to develop this individual as a contact, you’re going to have to keep reaching out to them.
I’ve had the most success in finding and friending them on LinkedIn directly afterwards. (Literally, I go home and spend an hour finding everyone I talked to.) In my connection request, I thank them for the conversation and mention one specific thing they talked about.
Then, about a week later, I email them directly and ask to grab coffee/have an informational interview.
Attach your resume to the request, and send them a reminder email 24 hours before with your resume attached.
Keep up contact. These types of relationships aren’t a one-shot deal, you need to stay at the forefront of the minds. Like the articles they post on LinkedIn. Reach out and congratulate them on new jobs/awards.
Almost all attorneys publish pretty frequently through their firm website/blog. If they post something related to your interests, I suggest reaching out and saying so—a couple sentences wishing them well ought to do the trick.
If you’re reading through this and it sounds incredibly daunting, it is. But it is also one of those things that gets easier with practice. Be polite, relaxed, and professional, and chances are you’re already leagues ahead in the game.
Notetaking
Sound Note - take notes while you record audio
Evernote - notetaking that syncs across platforms
Paper 53 - minimal notetaking that syncs
Microsoft OneNote - collaboration and syncing, best for Office users
Google Keep - jot things down, best for Google suite users
Notability - take notes and annotate PDFs
Mindly - create mind maps
Day One - a digital journal
Flash Cards
Quizlet - the quintessential flash card app
StudyBlue - another commonly used app
Cram - best for its “cram mode”
Eidetic - uses spaced repetition for effective memorization
Planner
My Study Life - schedules, tasks, reminders, and more
StudyCal - keeps track of tasks, exams, and grades
24me - automated reminders and event planning
iStudiez - schedule and prioritized task list
Google Calendar - a calendar, best for Google users
Glass Planner - a calendar and to do list with incredible functionality
To Do List
Clear - organized to-do and reminders
MinimaList - simple to-do and focus timer
Trello - collaborative project organizer
Todoist - clean and functional task manager
Default notes app on your phone
Time Management
Forest - plant trees by staying focused
Pomotodo - pomodoro timer with to-do list
Timeglass - custom timers
Tide - pomodoro with white noise
Alarmy - forces you out of bed
Pillow - smart alarm that tracks sleep cycles
Productivity
Workflow - automate tasks
Habitica - turn your habits into an RPG
Continuo - simple, colorful activity tracking
Freedom - block distracting apps
Free Learning
Coursera - free MOOCs
TED - listen to Ted Talks
Duolingo - language learning
Memrise - spaced repetition language vocabulary
Khan Academy - free video lessons
Ambient Noise
8tracks - curated playlists
Spotify - online music streaming
Coffitivity - cafe ambience
Noisli - background sound generator
Rain Rain - rain sounds
Binaural - binaural beats
Health
Rockin Ramen - recipes based on ramen
MealBoard - meal planning
Lifesum - healthy eating
Stop Breath And Think - mindfulness meditation
Pacifica - mental health management
Sworkit - personalized video workouts
Waterlogged - hydration tracker
Reference
WolframAlpha - Google on steroids
Oxford Dictionary - all of English at your fingertips
RefMe - citation generator
PhotoMath - solve math problems by taking a photo
Mathway - step by step math help
Desmos - free graphing calculator
Wikipedia - not the best source, but it’s handy
Miscellaneous
Companion - stay safe when walking alone
Mint - money management
Toshl - finance manager
Tiny Scanner - scan documents
Free Online Language Courses
Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos. You can always check the audit course or no certificate option so that you can learn for free.
American Sign Language
ASL University
Arabic
Arabic for Global Exchange (in the drop down menu)
Arabic Without Walls
Intro to Arabic
Madinah Arabic
Moroccan Arabic
Catalan Sign Language
Intro to Catalan Sign Language
Chinese
Beginner
Basic Chinese
Basic Chinese I. II, III, IV , V
Basic Mandarin Chinese I & II
Beginner’s Chinese
Chinese for Beginners
Chinese Characters
Chinese for HSK 1
First Year Chinese I & II
HSK Level 1
Mandarin Chinese I
Mandarin Chinese for Business
More Chinese for Beginners
Start Talking Mandarin Chinese
UT Gateway to Chinese
Chino Básico (Taught in Spanish)
Intermediate
Chinese Stories
Intermediate Business Chinese
Intermediate Chinese Grammar
Dutch
Introduction to Dutch
English
Online Courses here
Resources Here
Faroese
Faroese Course
Finnish
A Taste of Finnish
Basic Finnish
Finnish for Immigrants
Finnish for Medical Professionals
French
Beginner
AP French Language and Culture
Basic French Skills
Beginner’s French: Food & Drink
Diploma in French
Elementary French I & II
Français Interactif
French in Action
French for Beginners
French Language Studies I, II, III
French:Ouverture
Intermediate & Advanced
French: Le Quatorze Juillet
Passe Partout
La Cité des Sciences et de Industrie
Frisian
Introduction to Frisian (Taught in English)
Introduction to Frisian (Taught in Dutch)
German
Beginner
Beginner’s German: Food & Drink
Conversational German I, II, III, IV
Deutsch im Blick
Diploma in German
Rundblick-Beginner’s German
Advanced
German:Regionen Traditionen und Geschichte
Landschaftliche Vielfalt
Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew
Know the Hebrew Alphabet
Teach Me Hebrew
Hindi
A Door into Hindi
Business Hindi
Virtual Hindi
Icelandic
Icelandic 1-5
Indonesian
Learn Indonesian
Irish
Introduction to Irish
Italian
Beginner
Beginner’s Italian: Food & Drink
Beginner’s Italian I
Introduction to Italian
Italian for Beginners 1 , 2, 3 , 4 , 5, 6
Intermediate & Advaned
Intermediate Italian I
Advanced Italian I
La Commedia di Dante
Japanese
Genki
Japanese JOSHU
Japanese Pronunciation
Sing and Learn Japanese
Tufs JpLang
Kazakh
A1-B2 Kazakh (Taught in Russian)
Korean
Beginner
First Step Korean
How to Study Korean
Learn to Speak Korean
Pathway to Spoken Korean
Intermediate
Intermediate Korean
Nepali
Beginner’s Conversation and Grammar
Norwegian
Introduction to Norwegian
Norwegian on the Web
Portuguese
Curso de Português para Estrangeiros
Pluralidades em Português Brasileiro
Russian
Beginner
Easy Accelerated Learning for Russian
Advanced
Reading Master and Margarita
Russian as an Instrument of Communication
Siberia: Russian for Foreigners
Spanish
Beginner
AP Spanish Language & Culture
Basic Spanish for English Speakers
Beginner’s Spanish:Food & Drink
Fastbreak Spanish
Introduction to Spanish
Restaurants and Dining Out
Spanish for Beginners
Spanish for Beginners 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Spanish Vocabulary
Intermediate
Spanish:Ciudades con Historia
Spanish:Espacios Públicos
Advanced
Corrección, Estilo y Variaciones
Leer a Macondo
Spanish:Con Mis Propias Manos
Spanish: Perspectivas Porteñas
Swedish
Intro to Swedish
Swedish Made Easy 1, 2, & 3
Ukrainian
Read Ukrainian
Ukrainian Language for Beginners
Welsh
Beginner’s Welsh
Discovering Wales
Multiple Languages
Ancient Languages
More Language Learning Resources & Websites!
Last updated: March 1, 2017
5 sites every med student should know about!
Folllow my studygram:Studyspiration
When it comes to medicine, understanding the principles is key, however it might be quite difficult to understand even though you attend lectures and read all the chapters, which is pretty normal since most of the times neither professors or text books make any great sense - therefore these different sites, or youtube channels can help you out a great deal. Here are a collection of some that I have found useful and that pretty much everyone I know makes use of.
1. Dr. Najeeb (https://www.drnajeeblectures.com/). You will often find medical students talking about this guy. He is probably what would be called a superhero between med students and that is for a good reason. His website features tons of videos that explains pretty much everything. He does it in an interactive way where he engages the audience and draws on the whiteboard so that you can follow along. This does cost money - however if you can split the bill between some of your friends, or you can use some other students login (if they are that generous ofcourse)
2. Kenhub (https://www.kenhub.com/). Now this website is amazing for studying anatomy or the central nervous system (I think they are working on expanding their content, but this is what they have for now). It is very good because it gives you a simple overview over what you need to learn. The content on here consists of videos, articles and many quizesses which I loved during anatomy.
This website costs a monthly fee (there are also other options for payment), however you can split this with some friends as well, I shared my account with my study buddy.
3. Khan academy (https://da.khanacademy.org/). You have probably stumbled across some of their videos on youtube, however they also have a website where all of these videos have been compiled and they have made up this “interactive” system where you gain points for finishing videos. this is for FREE. Yes you heard right free.
4. Anatomy zone (Youtube channel) Now this is almost an essentiel for every semester that you do. In almost all of your courses you need a little bit of anatomy, and thankfully this youtube channel has got you covered. It is soo good! I mostly make use of this channel, because honestly they just do it so well and its free.
5. Armando Hasudungan (Youtube channel). This very talented artist, makes all the medical concepts become illustrative and thereby making the understanding of the principles that we cannot see become more easy.
Study hard, study smart and stay motivated,
Love,
Dunia
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but what program do you use to make your infographics/how do you make yours?? I love your design and style and was curious ^^ thank you!
Piktochart- it’s a website and whilst there is a paid version, I’ve been perfectly content with the free version!
Best Online Lectures for College Courses
Please reblog and add to the list! Let’s make sure all the studyblrs have these resources available to them so we can all be successful! I will do my best to keep the original post updated here.
I thought I would start a list of YouTube channels (or other venues) that have the best lecture videos out there. Not only are online lectures a great supplement to help you understand the content your professors teach you in class, they’re also a useful tool for prestudying before class! I try to watch lectures of the topic that will be lectured on next before each class so that I already have notes coming into the lecture, meaning I can focus on learning the material by only adding on what’s necessary to my notes as opposed to frantically copying everything on the board or powerpoint slide.
BIOLOGY
General Biology
Bozeman Biology
CHEMISTRY
Organic Chemistry
Leah4Sci
Biochemistry
Kevin Ahern
Moof Univeristy
PHYSICS
Covers Many Physics Courses/Topics
Leonard Susskind
Feynman Lectures
DrPhysicsA
MATHEMATICS
Calculus
Integral Calc Academy
PatrickJMT
ProfRobBob
MIT OpenCourseware (x) (x) (x)
Discrete Mathematics
(x) (x) (x) (x) (x)
Linear Algebra
(x) (x) (x)
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Data Structures
(x) (x) (x) (x)
Object Oriented Programming
(x)
Software Engineering
(x)
Database
(x)
Operating Systems
(x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
(x)
Computer Architecture
(x)
Programming
(x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)
Artificial Intelligence
(x) (x)
Algorithms
(x)
COVERS MANY SUBJECT AREAS
Khan Academy
Crash Course
MIT Open Courseware
Introduction to LaTeX!
No, not the rubbery plasticy stuff
LaTeX (pronounced “lay-tech”) is a free document-formatting system commonly used in STEM fields. This post is going to explain why it is really useful and where you can start!
So if you’re a STEM student, you’ve probably had to write a whole lot of lab reports and know how annoying it is to either figure out Word’s equation editor or screenshot a picture of whatever equation you’re trying to include in your report. Not to mention how awful Word is at formatting pictures, holding them in place and keeping things consistent. LaTeX solves most of those problems for you.
It works with some simple commands and packages that allow you to create journal-style articles, lab reports, and all sorts of other document types. You can include all sorts of mathematical and scientific symbols and equations and LaTeX formats them correctly for you. It might seem daunting at first, but most of the commands are very intuitive and you have a lot of easy customisation and consistent formatting. It can even do referencing for you. It has a lot of other cool things like generating a table of contents, automatically numbering your tables and figures, that contribute to producing a professional-looking scientific document.
All in all, the learning curve is very shallow, and the skill payoff is worth the small time investment it takes to learn. LaTeX typesetting is a very valuable skill to have in STEM.
Where to start:
There are dozens of downloadable LaTeX text editors, but I prefer to use an online one called Overleaf. It has several templates available for you to start from, provides shareable links, renders your document as you work, and, because it’s online, you can upload all your files to the server and work from anywhere.
I found the first chapter of this guice very helpful when I began using LaTeX [x].
Some random tips I picked up so far:
1) Most problems/errors are easy to solve with a quick google search. Because LaTeX is so widely used, there are a LOT of stack exchange solutions to small problems.
2) Manually creating LaTeX tables is a nightmare. It’s usually easiest to make them first in Excel, then copy-and-paste into an online LaTeX table generator.
3) Lots of journal articles have a pre-formatted bibtex citation linked somewhere. Using that citation works really well.
4) I like to open a text file, copy-and-paste all my bibtex formatted citations into it and convert it into a .bib file by renaming.
Some other useful links:
~LaTeX table generator [x]
~LaTeX reference generator [x]
~Find the LaTeX command for any symbol that you draw [x]
~List of mathematical symbols for LaTeX [x]
~LaTeX Stack Exchange [x]
I hope you find this helpful! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send me an ask or a message. Check out my study instagram if you’re keen on seeing some of my studyspo. Happy studying!
xx Munira
50 Top Online Learning Sites
Rejoice fellow uni students looking for some studyspo, we urge you to take a few free lessons, as well as academic lessons provided from actual universities on several topics. Have a look at the 50 top learning sites you can find online to help you save some time.
Art and Music
Dave Conservatoire — Dave Conservatoire is an entirely free online music school offering a self-proclaimed “world-class music education for everyone,” and providing video lessons and practice tests.
Drawspace — If you want to learn to draw or improve your technique, Drawspace has free and paid self-study as well as interactive, instructor-led lessons.
Justin Guitar — The Justin Guitar site boasts over 800 free guitar lessons which cover transcribing, scales, arpeggios, ear training, chords, recording tech and guitar gear, and also offers a variety of premium paid mobile apps and content (books/ ebooks, DVDs, downloads).
Math, Data Science and Engineering
Codecademy — Codecademy offers data science and software programming (mostly Web-related) courses for various ages groups, with an in-browser coding console for some offerings.
Stanford Engineering Everywhere — SEE/ Stanford Engineering Everywhere houses engineering (software and otherwise) classes that are free to students and educators, with materials that include course syllabi, lecture videos, homework, exams and more.
Big Data University — Big Data University covers Big Data analysis and data science via free and paid courses developed by teachers and professionals.
Better Explained — BetterExplained offers a big-picture-first approach to learning mathematics — often with visual explanations — whether for high school algebra or college-level calculus, statistics and other related topics.
Design, Web Design/ Development
HOW Design University — How Design University (How U) offers free and paid online lessons on graphic and interactive design, and has opportunities for those who would like to teach.
HTML Dog — HTML Dog is specifically focused on Web development tutorials for HTML, CSS and JavaScript coding skills.
Skillcrush — Skillcrush offers professional web design and development courses aimed at one who is interested in the field, regardless of their background — with short, easy-to-consume modules and a 3-month Career Blueprints to help students focus on their career priorities.
Hack Design — Hack Design, with the help of several dozen designers around the world, has put together a lesson plan of 50 units (each with one or more articles and/or videos) on design for Web, mobile apps and more by curating multiple valuable sources (blogs, books, games, videos, and tutorials) — all free of charge.
General – Children and Adults
Scratch – Imagine, Program, Share — Scratch from MIT is a causal creative learning site for children, which has projects that range from the solar system to paper planes to music synths and more.
Udemy — Udemy hosts mostly paid video tutorials in a wide range of general topics including personal development, design, marketing, lifestyle, photography, software, health, music, language, and more.
E-learning for kids — E-learning for Kids offers elementary school courses for children ages 5-12 that cover curriculum topic including math, science, computer, environment, health, language, life skills and others.
Ed2go — Ed2go aims their “affordable” online learning courses at adults, and partners with over 2,100 colleges and universities to offer this virtual but instructor-led training in multiple categories — with options for instructors who would like to participate.
GCF Learn Free — GCFLearnFree.org is a project of Goodwill Community Foundation and Goodwill Industries, targeting anyone look for modern skills, offering over 1,000 lessons and 125 tutorials available online at anytime, covering technology, computer software, reading, math, work and career and more.
Stack Exchange — StackExchange is one of several dozen Q+A sites covering multiple topics, including Stack Overflow, which is related to computer technology. Ask a targeted question, get answers from professional and enthusiast peers to improve what you already know about a topic.
HippoCampus — HippoCampus combines free video collections on 13 middle school through college subjects from NROC Project, STEMbite, Khan Academy, NM State Learning Games Lab and more, with free accounts for teachers.
Howcast — Howcast hosts casual video tutorials covering general topics on lifestyle, crafts, cooking, entertainment and more.
Memrise — Lessons on the Memrise (sounds like “memorize”) site include languages and other topics, and are presented on the principle that knowledge can be learned with gamification techniques, which reinforce concepts.
SchoolTube — SchoolTube is a video sharing platform for K-12 students and their educators, with registered users representing over 50,000 schools and a site offering of over half a million videos.
Instructables — Instructables is a hybrid learning site, offering free online text and video how-to instructions for mostly physical DIY (do-it-yourself) projects that cover various hands-on crafts, technology, recipes, game play accessories and more. (Costs lie in project materials only.)
creativeLIVE — CreativeLive has an interesting approach to workshops on creative and lifestyle topics (photography, art, music, design, people skills, entreprenurship, etc.), with live access typically offered free and on-demand access requiring purchase.
Do It Yourself — Do It Yourself (DIY) focuses on how-tos primarily for home improvement, with the occasional tips on lifestyle and crafts topics.
Adafruit Learning System — If you’re hooked by the Maker movement and want to learn how to make Arduino-based electronic gadgets, check out the free tutorials at Adafruit Learn site — and buy the necessary electronics kits and supplies from the main site.
Grovo — If you need to learn how to efficiently use a variety of Web applications for work, Grovo has paid (subscription, with free intros) video tutorials on best practices for hundreds of Web sites.
General College and University
edX — The edX site offers free subject matter from top universities, colleges and schools from around the world, including MIT and Harvard, and many courses are “verified,” offering a certificate of completion for a nominal minimum fee.
Cousera — Coursera is a learning site offering courses (free for audit) from over 100 partners — top universities from over 20 countries, as well as non-university partners — with verified certificates as a paid option, plus specializations, which group related courses together in a recommended sequence.
MIT Open Courseware — MIT OpenCourseWare is the project that started the OCW / Open Education Consortium [http://www.oeconsortium.org], launching in 2002 with the full content of 50 real MIT courses available online, and later including most of the MIT course curriculum — all for free — with hundreds of higher ed institutions joining in with their own OCW course materials later.
Open Yale Courses — Open Yale Courses (OYC) are free, open access, non-credit introductory courses recorded in Yale College’s classroom and available online in a number of digital formats.
Open Learning Initiative — Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU’s) Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is course content (many open and free) intended for both students who want to learn and teachers/ institutions requiring teaching materials.
Khan Academy — Khan Academy is one of the early online learning sites, offering free learning resources for all ages on many subjects, and free tools for teachers and parents to monitor progress and coach students.
MIT Video — MITVideo offers over 12,000 talks/ lecture videos in over 100 channels that include math, architecture and planning, arts, chemistry, biological engineering, robotics, humanities and social sciences, physics and more.
Stanford Online — Stanford Online is a collection of free courses billed as “for anyone, anywhere, anytime” and which includes a wide array of topics that include human rights, language, writing, economics, statistics, physics, engineering, software, chemistry, and more.
Harvard Extension School: Open Learning Initiative — Harvard’s OLI (Open Learning Initiative) offers a selection of free video courses (taken from the edX selection) for the general public that covers a range of typical college topics, includings, Arts, History, Math, Statistics, Computer Science, and more.
Canvas Network — Canvas Network offers mostly free online courses source from numerous colleges and universities, with instructor-led video and text content and certificate options for select programs.
Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple — Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple” is, as the name implies, a set of just three lectures (plus intro) very specifically about Quantum Physics, form three presentations given by theoretical physicist Hans Bethe.
Open UW — Open UW is the umbrella initiative of several free online learning projects from the University of Washington, offered by their UW Online division, and including Coursera, edX and other channels.
UC San Diego Podcast Lectures — Podcast USCD, from UC San Diego, is a collection of audio and/or video podcasts of multi-subject university course lectures — some freely available, other only accessible by registered students.
University of the People — University of the People offers tuition-free online courses, with relatively small fees required only for certified degree programs (exam and processing fees).
NovoEd — NovoEd claims a range of mostly free “courses from thought leaders and distinguished professors from top universities,” and makes it possible for today’s participants to be tomorrow’s mentors in future courses.
IT and Software Development
Udacity — Udacity offers courses with paid certification and nanodegrees — with emphasis on skills desired by tech companies in Silicon Valley — mostly based on a monthly subscription, with access to course materials (print, videos) available for free.
Apple Developer Site — Apple Developer Center may be very specific in topics for lessons, but it’s a free source of documentation and tutorials for software developers who want to develop apps for iOS Mobile, Mac OS X desktop, and Safari Web apps.
Google Code — As with Apple Developer Center, Google Code is topic-narrow but a good source of documentation and tutorials for Android app development.
Code.org — Code.org is the home of the “Hour of Code” campaign, which is aimed at teachers and educators as well as students of all ages (4-104) who want to teach or learn, respectively, computer programming and do not know where to start.
Mozilla Developer Network — MDN (Mozilla Developer Network) offers learning resources — including links to offsite guides — and tutorials for Web development in HTML, CSS and JavaScript — whether you’re a beginner or an expert, and even if you’re not using Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser.
Learnable — Learnable by Sitepoint offers paid subscription access to an ebook library of content for computers and tablets, and nearly 5,000 videos lessons (and associated code samples) covering software-related topics – with quizzes and certification available.
Pluralsight — Pluralsight (previously PeepCode) offers paid tech and creative training content (over 3,700 courses and 130K video clips) for individuals, businesses and institutions that covers IT admin, programming, Web development, data visualization — as well as game design, 3D animation, and video editing through a partnership with Digital-Tutors.com, and additional software coding lessons through Codeschool.com.
CodeHS — CodeSchool offers software coding lessons (by subscription) for individuals who want to learn at home, or for students learning in a high school teacher-led class.
Aquent Gymnasium — Gymnasium offers a small but thorough set of free Web-related lesson plans for coding, design and user experience, but filters access by assessing the current knowledge of an enrollee and allows those with scores of at least 70% to continue.
The basics of Research Methods. There’s so much to learn in AS and more is added in the second year. In an exam you could be asked to state which hypothesis is being used in an example, which experimental method would be best for a situation, or to create your own research plan.
math aid
OK SO in the days leading up to the biggest maths exam I’ve ever written (also my 4th last one ever ) i’ve found this website. now, symbolab is different to mathaway and wolfram alpha (which are both great!) in that it shows you all the steps and it doesn’t do that thing where it’s “free” but if you want the explanation you have to sign up and pay. it’s AMAZING. know why?
it does everything. not baby everything, but everything. Calculus?
what’re you looking for?
also, the interface is really easy to use, and it’s set out so well.
the website is https://www.symbolab.com and you will not be disappointed.
This is a summary of college only using two pictures; expensive as hell.
That’s my Sociology “book”. In fact what it is is a piece of paper with codes written on it to allow me to access an electronic version of a book. I was told by my professor that I could not buy any other paperback version, or use another code, so I was left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200. Best part about all this is my professor wrote the books; there’s something hilariously sadistic about that. So I pretty much doled out $200 for a current edition of an online textbook that is no different than an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5; yeah, I checked. My mistake for listening to my professor.
This is why we download.
Alternatives to buying overpriced textbooks
Textbooknova
Bookboon
Textbookrevolution
GaTech Math Textbooks
Ebookee
Freebookspot
Free-ebooks
Getfreeebooks
BookFinder
Oerconsortium
Project Gutenberg
Hello, lovelies! This week, I talk about how I got a 2300+ on the SAT without any outside tutoring or prep classes. Yes, it’s possible, and I tell you how to do it in the video.
I also put together a masterpost of resources below. Even if you aren’t self-studying, a lot of these things might be helpful:
PREP BOOKS
Official College Board SAT Study Guide (The Blue Book)
Direct Hits Vocabulary (Volume 1) // Direct Hits Vocabulary (Volume 2) — What makes these books stand out from other SAT vocab books is the use of pop culture references to explain definitions. For example, the first word in Volume 1, ambivalent, is given the sentence: “In The Avengers, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and Thor are initially ambivalent about joining S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Avengers Initiative.”
Barrons SAT 2400 — Fabulous book, helpful strategies. I didn’t read the whole thing or do all the practice problems; I only used it for extra help on the sections I struggled with.
Grubers SAT 2400 — Didn’t personally use it myself, but it was recommended by a lot of my friends.
CRITICAL READING
→ Non-SAT Critical Reading Advice
→ My favorite reading sources:
The Atlantic — mix of interesting articles
Variety — pop culture focus, but with more cultured language
New Yorker — very cultured, good place to pick up vocabulary
New York Times — classic SAT reading material
Boston Globe — I have a soft spot in my heart for their entertainment and style sections
National Geographic — exactly the sort of passages you’ll find on the SAT
→ Vocab Flashcards (mentioned in video)
WRITING
→ Top Writing Errors
→ Top Grammar Rules
MATHEMATICS
→ Khan Academy
In the wise words of ABBA, “money money money, must be funny in the rich man’s world.” Unfortunately most students are hardly part of the rich man’s world, so here I’ve compiled a list of tips regarding how I personally manage to save and budget my money!
general tips
ask yourself: do you really, really need this, right now? my parents make so much fun of me because i will spend half an hour in a store and end up not buying anything, but this is a really important and effective way to prevent purchases that you could justify, but don’t actually need. i LOVE christmas shopping and gift shopping, but i have to limit myself to one gift per person. do they really need a second gift? even if it seems cute and perfect? no. you want a second or third vest, but do you need it? you have a washing machine and you can wear that vest more than one time before washing it.
keep money in perspective. if you see something that you think is a good price, check yourself by measuring it against a practical essential. for example, you could get that $20 top, OR you could get 9 toothbrushes for the same amount of money. (that’s kind of a lame analogy, but you get what i mean)
do not spend unnecessary money just because it’s a sale! make sure to still ask yourself if you need it. even if it’s a great sale, remember that it’s still money that you’re spending. spend it wisely! it’s better for your purse if you spend nothing because you don’t absolutely need something than if you spend even a little bit on something you don’t need.
BUDGET/TRACK YOUR SPENDINGS. (see below)
budgeting
download money-saving apps. I keep track of my spendings by keeping a binder full of all my receipts, taped to paper and inserted chronologically. And I use spending tracker by MH Riley Ltd (free on the app store), which allows you to log expenses and income, set budgets, and create categories. You can see pie charts for a breakdown of how much you spend on each category as well! I’ve used it for a couple months now and it’s been really useful because I can also see how much I spend in a big spending month (December) vs a normal month. I honestly spend a lot less money than I feel like I do - so it helps me stress a little bit less about money - and when I know that I log every purchase, it helps me save more and be more conscious of what I’m spending (similar to the effect that paying with cash instead of card has).
budget before each month/semester/season. You’ll have a general plan of what’s going to happen in that time frame (trips, classes, weather) and can plan expenses accordingly - estimate how much you’ll spend on whatever you’re planning to do. Leave yourself a cushion (I usually overestimate by a lot on purpose haha) and allow for food/leisure/shopping expenses. It can also help to work backwards, starting with a baseline amount of money you want to spend and either dividing it up by week/month (spend x amount of money per week), or breaking up the sum into categories as previously mentioned.
shopping tips
sign up for rewards at pharmacies. i am a hardcore CVS customer and saver, and i’m not sure about other pharmacies (from my experience, they aren’t nearly as good when you need to save). one time i saved 52% on my purchase! they’re great with giving you extrabucks and with a card, you can often take advantage of a LOT of deals.
clip coupons to your heart’s content! seriously. coupon clipping is nothing to be ashamed of. i am that person that shows up to the counter with a stack of coupons #noshame.
settle for non-brand name products (sometimes). this isn’t a foolproof rule; there are some items where the less expensive version is actually bad compared to the more expensive brand names, but usually the cheap brand of food is okay/tolerable too, and can be significantly less expensive, and if you go with the generic brands, the savings stack up.
shop online. look out for in-store deals. old navy is my all time FAVORITE to online shop. they have excellent deals, esp around the holidays. stores have sales relatively frequently; if they don’t have any sales going on (other than their sale rack, which is always a good place to check first), go back again later.
go straight to the sale section. this is pretty obvious.
look at unit prices. the best deal is really based on the unit price. i get that sometimes you just want the least expensive item, but if it’s something like a baking essential and you want to get the best quantity for the price, check the unit price first.
if you are small enough, check the kid’s section. kid’s clothes and shoes are generally less expensive. an adult small is usually equivalent to a girl’s L or XL, and a boy’s M or L. an adult size 6 shoe is usually a girl’s size 3. they make some wicked cute sweaters and t shirts and shoes for kids, and you can save up to 50%! especially on small things like flip flops, plain t shirts, etc.
tell stores when your birthday is if they ask! i know a few stores do ask for your birthday (vera bradley is the one that jumps to mind first), and if they do, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT! i got a legitimate coupon from vera bradley for the month of november out of it and was able to get a wallet at a great discount!
‘checks and balances’: college student style
shop with cash. when you pay with cash and not a card, you see how much you’re spending. i get paid in cash when i babysit, and that’s usually my spending money for the week. if i’m out of cash and i’m going shopping, i’ll withdraw like $40-60. when i have the physical money in my hand it’s easier to reality check and budget than if i swipe a card, even if i have a number in my head already.
take your time. okay, this isn’t always an option, but impulse buys are what often get people - those little things at the line in forever 21, or the candies by the cash registers at k mart. take time to deliberate over whatever it is that you’re buying.
saving on practicalities
rent textbooks. i know there are a lot of websites out there where you can supposedly download books. i haven’t looked at any of them (here’s a masterpost by @blogresources that includes a section about free textbooks), but i know i prefer having a physical book. you can rent most textbooks (i can’t make guarantees, but from what i’ve seen/heard) on amazon for a fraction of the price, and they will give it to you for the entire semester. for example, i need a textbook, and i could buy it for $143 or rent it for $22.
don’t buy fancy stationery. use that as a major splurge, but honestly, you can get by just fine with $1 notebooks from the pharmacy and pens and pencils that will do the job. i have found plenty of pens that cost less than $3 that i love.
carpool / bike / walk / take PT when possible. it depends where you live; i know that sg has an amazing PT system. it takes longer to get places, but costs like $3 from one side of the island to the other. if you live in boston and places are available via the T, take advantage of that, and so on with all the cities out there. if you can reasonably bike to somewhere, do it. walking is always best. but don’t let yourself get hypothermia! if it’s cold, take a taxi or car. gas prices stack up big time, and it doesn’t really make sense to have a car in college anyway!
don’t eat out. don’t go to starbucks. these are small things that chew up a LOT of money each month. i limit myself to eating out once every 1-2 months, and set a $10 limit when i do so. starbucks/dunkin donuts = splurge. bring water/drinks and snacks with you, especially if you know that you’re going out and will likely get hungry!
disclaimers
REMEMBER TO TREAT YOURSELF SOMETIMES. set a budget each month and if you come out under the budget, it’s okay to treat yourself! don’t use up all the deficit if you can, but treat yourself to something nice that you don’t explicitly need but that you’ll use.
make allowances for social events! if you are hanging out with a friend, going to the movies, going out to eat, etc, be mindful of your money but don’t turn down an invitation just because you don’t want to spend the money. going to a movie once every 1-2 months is okay! you can find someplace inexpensive to eat, or agree to eat before going and just get ice cream (less expensive) after.
moderation is key. this all sounds really restrictive, but do remember that moderation is okay here. you shouldn’t sacrifice your comfort and health just to save some money. everything will be okay in the end, and stressing about money isn’t good for anyone.
please message me if you have any other specific questions!
hey everyone! so, after creating a studyblr, i have found so many essay writing resources and since writing (whether or not it’s for academic purposes) is something i and several others struggle with on a daily basis, i decided to put together a bunch of excellent resources in this little masterpost. hope you enjoy (bc writing can be very fun when you feel like you actually know what you’re doing) and hope this helps!
I. ESSAY WRITING
+ where do i start?
how to: brainstorming
how to write an outline
essay checklist
writing an essay, in a nutshell
write a university-level essay
how to write a great essay
how to write a great essay pt. ii
a great ppt by a true lifesaver
+ how do i connect my ideas?
writing transitions
masterpost of transition words
transition words for different purposes
+ different types of essays
narrative essay
expository essay
descriptive essay
literary analysis essay
college application essay
descriptive narrative essay
argumentative/discursive essay
+ tips and advice
general advice
avoiding cliches
for: history essays
for: literature essays
writing ur best college essay
+ even more college essay tips
II. OTHER ACADEMIC WRITING
formatting ur papers
general academic writing tips
planning + writing literature papers
III. RESUME WRITING
+ where do i start?
resume template
guide to writing a good resume
writing a resume when u have 0 xp
+ tips and advice
44 tips
25 tips
IV. WRITING ESSENTIALS
+ tips and advice [for writing in general]
funny little guide to writing well
improve ur writing habits asap
create mind maps to organize ur ideas
+ resources for research
refdesk
webMD
wolfram alpha
google scholar
state health facts
u.s. census bureau
internet public library
the library of congress
the old farmer’s almanac
finding data on the internet
+ grammar/vocab/spelling essentials
the owl [grammar resources from the purdue uni]
tip of my tongue [find a word u can’t remember properly]
hypergrammar
grammar girl
+ revising and editing
hemingway [checks the readability of ur essay]
paperrater [rates ur essays and papers]
autocrit [checks grammatical errors + more]
editing checklist [by grammar girl]
+ citations
citation guide
create a bibliography
citation machine
google cite!!!
+ fun stuff
freerice [donate rice while testing ur vocabulary]
rainymood [listen to the rain]
coffitivity [listen to coffee shop sounds]
rainycafe [combination of rainymood + coffitivity]
find out which author u write like
+ my other masterposts
a complete guide to studying (well)
note-taking
more to come soon!
this entire list includes some of the best writing resources (imo) but feel free to message me in case 1) any of the links are broken, 2) u want me to add on to something, 3) u have a suggestion for a masterpost [i would love that so go ahead and ask if u do] or if u just wanna talk! also, feel free to reblog and add ur own comments/resources. hope this helped someone!!!
4 Legal Ways To Get Free Textbooks.
1. Open Culture: Not a large a selection, but high quality texts. If you just want to skim a book to brush up on a course you took in ninth grade, download one of these. I have yet to be disappointed.
2. Book Boon: Provides free college-level textbooks in a PDF format. Probably the widest range of subjects on the web. The site is also pretty.
3. Flat World Knowledge: The worlds largest publisher of free and open college textbooks. Humanitie texts are particularly difficult to come by, this site has a great selection in all disciplines.
4. Textbook Revolution: Some of the books are PDF files, others are viewable online as e-books, or some are simply web sites containing course or multimedia content.
5. Library Pirate: I’ve always had an addiction to torrent based pirating. When this site opened a few months ago, I went a little overboard. After dropping two hundred on a paperback spanish textbook, I downloaded the ebook version illegally. I also got a great Psyc text i’m obsessed with. It will be interesting to see how this site grows- they already have a great selection.
writing an essay in college is very different from writing an essay in high school. personally, i write more research/history papers than literary essays (the liberal arts life and curse), so this is going to be a post on how a general research-y essay that has a thesis and arguments.
intro
don’t open with a quote and don’t be overly broad.
avoid generalizations
your intro should address the topic of your essay (ex. the significance of gardens in renaissance society), and then narrow down to what you want to talk about in regards to your topic (ex. the political influence of the Medici gardens during the renaissance)
thesis! it should include the argument you want to make about the narrowed down topic, and three (or however many your class requires) reasons to support it. I like to think of it as W = X + Y + Z.
your thesis explains who, what and why in a concise manner.
body
topic sentences should not be a word for word copy of your thesis.
the order of arguments in your thesis is the order of your paragraphs
depending on the length of your essay, there should be at least two justifications to your argument.
so, just as the intro has a formula, X = A + B, and so forth.
A and B should be backed up with some sources/quotes. don’t forget that if you are quoting from class notes to put either the prof’s last name, or (class notes)
be sure to have clear and concise arguments, don’t be flowery
USE WORDS THAT ARE ACCURATE. thesaurus is great but if you use a word that sounds cool but doesn’t capture the meaning you want to convey then don’t use it, because it may just change the meaning of your argument
quote whatever isn’t yours. it is completely fine if 90% of your sentences are quotes. its weird to get used to, but don’t worry about it.
conclusion
the worst part in my opinion.
synthesize don’t summarize. show how your arguments relate back to the thesis.
try not to copy paste your thesis into the conclusion, word it so that the readers understands that through XYZ, you were able to conclude and support argument W (referring back to the thesis formula)
do not add any new information, do not add quotes.
your final sentence should tie up the essay in a pretty bow, but try to avoid clichés
protips
when writing the body paragraphs, your ‘weakest’ paragraph should be in the middle, strongest as your last, and the second best as your first.
if you’re stumped on the intro, skip it. write out the body first, then the intro and you’ll be able to concisely word your thesis
think of your essay as an infomercial. your intro is the loud and clear HERES MY PRODUCT, the body is blasting information on why the product is so cool, and the conclusion is the final push for the viewer to buy that product. make your teacher want to agree with your thesis!
use a mix of paraphrase and quotes!
don’t forget your works cited lmao (the MLA Handbook is a gr8 tool, also OWL Purdue)
prime time for essay writing is in the morning or at night, but make sure you edit it meticulously
EDIT ON PAPER NOT ON YOUR SCREEN
stay humble, study hard
fiction is my addiction, and since it’s almost the summer, i thought i’d share some ways to get free ebooks or save some money to get more books so you could have something to get lost in over the summer. while this list has a lot of ya resources, there’s still something at the end if you’re looking for something more academic
free ebooks:
project gutenberg is always worth mentioning, because come on, it has 50,000 books in its collection. that’s a lot of books, and you can always catch up on the grimm’s fairy tales
riveted lit is run by the publisher simon and schuster, and they put books up that you can read for a limited time. if you’re looking for something more ya, this is a great place to start
bookbub has more discounted ebooks than free ones, but let’s care about the free ones. you get a daily email with a bunch of discounted or free books
free audiobooks:
sync is my absolute favorite thing. it gives away two free audiobooks, one clasic and one more contemporary, every week over the course of the summer. it starts on may 5 for 2016, and there’s an amazing lineup for anyone who loves to read young adult like i do (they’re going to have i’ll give you the sun, boy meets boy, and on the jellicoe road) and there’s even a nelson mandela’s history on week 12. it’s all free anyway, so why not?
audible allows you to get two free audiobooks in your trial, and if you always wanted to hear a celebrity narrate that classic you never wanted to pick up, you can find something to fulfill that.
hey, it’s project gutenberg again. not only do they have audiobooks, but they have audiobooks in other languages such as chinese, korean, spanish, and many more. if you wanted to test your comprehension of a foreign language in a new way, well, there you go
cheap books:
the book depository and wordery have free worldwide shipping for all you international people looking for that amazing book that your bookstore refuses to stock
if you live in the uk, the book people has some really amazing deals
if you live in the us, there’s book outlet. the prices are phenomenal and i want to cry because they don’t ship cheaply to me
saving money
if you buy something using ebates, you can get a rebate. buying something from book outlet? get a 10% rebate while you’re at it. it even has rebates for university bookstores like the stanford university bookstore. also, for your first time, you can get $10 back along with the original rebate. plus, it’s awesome how it’s for more than just books, because you can get a rebate for clothing stores or ebay. you can look at the full list of stores here.
if you have any questions, you could always drop by and ask. i hope these help you to get something to read!
hello! precalculus is a pretty interesting class if you put your mind to it, and i found some great resources for it so i thought i would share! also, since trigonometry is part of this subject, that’s included too!
khanacademy
purplemath
precalc dictionary!
math forum
mathbff
course notes
notes by topic
amazing formula sheet
sparknotes: math
edX course!!
math study tips
video lessons
ucl instructional videos
quadratic formula song
math professor quotes
+ trig specific
khanacademy!
course notes
how to learn trig
great formula sheet
interactive unit circle
trig identities hexagon
basic trig + graphing
identities and equations
unit circle song!
more masterposts!!
algebra
AP chemistry
AP world history
studyblr-ing
the Everything Book
the pomodoro method
how to use flashcards
how to use sticky notes
welcome to high school
tiny study spaces
what’s in a pencil case
i hope this was of help to you! keep shining like the star you are and remember to be awesome today!!
- Aza
Note-Taking
Hey guys! So I’ve been receiving questions regarding my note-taking style and strategy for quite some time now but I believe I have never answered them in detail. The good news is, I finally decided to make a post about this (plus, I had fun making the graphics :D). Note that I am a visual learner, so my note-taking methods may not be effective for some of you, but I hope you can all learn something.
Class Notes
I only use one notebook for all my class notes, an A4 grid notebook whose pages I divide into two columns.
I use the outline method for in-class notes, which means I write information chronologically, in the order that they are taught. Some teachers do not have properly structured presentations/lessons (good thing my physics teacher does) so when in need, I use arrows to connect related information.
Abbreviations to me are one of the most important things to master when taking notes. I personally make them up as I go along. Some examples of abbreviations I use are:
w/c - which
w/ - with
cpd - compound
envt - environment
digenz - digestive enzyme
It might be confusing, but to me, knowing the context and part of speech are enough for all abbreviations to be comprehended.
Here’s an example: ‘Indonesia’s tsunami pre-warning system is made up of two types of components’ could become ‘Indo’s snmi pre-warn sys 2 type comp’.
After Class
The first thing I would do is highlight keywords and terminology (and sometimes formulas). For physics, since my teacher is relatively succinct, I don’t really highlight, but for humanities and biology, I look for words that would be expected by a mark scheme, words that are crucial to the understanding of each particular piece of information.
I would then check if the material taught coincides with the syllabus, and if not, note down any points that are missing or have yet to be taught. You could write these on a post it or on the syllabus itself, but I prefer to highlight the syllabus’ pdf file.
Rewritten Notes
My rewritten notes are arranged based on the order they appear in the syllabus unless there are pieces of information that are related to more than one topic.
I use a black pen for rewriting notes as well as colored pens to write keywords and terminology only. I know some people who write whole sentences in colored pens but to me that is ineffective; we all have our own learning styles. When making tables, I usually use different colors for different columns (see the table for different types of radiation above) which is most often the color I associate with each word. For example, water would be blue, ocean would be a darker shade, ice would be a lighter shade, and water vapor would be purple.
I still abbreviate words in my rewritten notes, but they’re not as condensed as the ones in my class notes. Another thing I find helpful is leaving a bit of space between separate points especially if the page doesn’t have a lot of diagrams. I can’t think linearly, so I can’t remember super lengthy bullet points.
I use mildliners and a drawing pen to make my diagrams (more of these in my biology notes) but I only start with pencil if it’s a complex diagram. I rarely highlight my rewritten notes, but even if I do, it’s usually only the headings and formulas.
I don’t have a rough draft for my notes, but I try to visualize the layout. I try to alternate between words and pictures/diagrams so that when I’m sitting for an exam, all I have to do is imagine that I’m looking at that page and I can remember where everything is.
Well, that’s all from me. I hope that this information could be of some use to every single one of you. Don’t hesitate to ask me questions if you’re confused about note-taking or any other problems you might have :)
this is a masterpost dedicated to those who want to organize themselves but are too lazy to start aka me everyday
01. organizing your schoolwork
there are so many ways to organize your papers nowadays, so it’s pretty important to find what works best for you
I personally use binders and sheet protectors for my handouts that I get at school
pros: binders keep your papers secure, you can use dividers for further organization
cons: that loud noise from opening the binder rings, can be heavy, the binder rings can mess up your papers, the plastic pockets on the inside of the binder often tears
as mentioned, to combat the tearing of papers, I use sheet protectors
if you’re not a fan of binders, a nice alternative is expandable file folders
see this video by @studyign/sareena for some more info!
pros: not as heavy as a binder, there is some organization already with the extra pockets
cons: depending on the brand, might be flimsy, the plastic pockets can tear
I currently use one of these to store all of my homework, and so far it’s worked out for me quite nicely! I would definitely recommend them
if you don’t get that many papers in class but still want to hold onto them, folders are always a nice choice
pros: are lightweight, capable of holding a lot of papers
cons: can tear, papers can fall out (unless you have the kind w/ brads)
I use both folders and binders bc sometimes I’m too lazy to open the rings of the binder oops
also, if you want to store more, it can help if you buy the folders that contain brads
psa: if you don’t keep binder clips or paper clips with you, then you should bc they’re extremely useful and will make your life easier when you’re sorting out papers
for more tips, see this masterpost by @tbhstudying/seo!
02. organizing your supplies
some of you might have a lot of stationary and pens lying around
for those that don’t, it’s totally fine and you might have it better off bc you don’t have to keep track of that many things ahahaha
it’s always nice to have a pen case or pouch to hold your supplies, it can really help you keep your supplies together
if you’re willing to make the investment, try the kipling 100 pens pencil case
here is a cheaper alternative
this website is also really nice, their products are super cute and they have a large variety of pen cases to choose from
when you’re organizing your supplies, it’s important to know what you need the most on a daily basis - it’s not helping you if you keep a complete set of staedtler triplus fineliners in your pen case when in reality you only use two colors every day
ask yourself: what do I need? will it be okay if I leave it behind?
if you choose to leave some supplies at home, be sure that you have a place to leave them hehe
03. organizing your desk space
okay so if you’re like me, you probably have a lot of papers and things that stay on your desk, such as stationary, extra paper, textbooks, etc.
to organize some of my pens/pencils, I recommend using a jar or cup of some sort to keep on your desk so that it’s within reach
for those extra packs of lined/graphed paper you might have, you can store it on your desk in a magazine file or in your drawer
going back to the magazine file: 11/10 would recommend
for me, I have a small desk, so I can’t afford to have everything being piled on my desk - the magazine files are really nice for organizing
be sure that when you’re working, you only have the things you need on your desk! anything that isn’t needed should be stored as neatly as possible
you can find different desk organizers and containers in places like target and amazon!
I hope this was helpful to you guys! I personally still struggle with organization, but over the course of my 2015-16 school year, I’m starting to find ways to keep my things and my life together. if you have any questions, feel free to drop an ask in my inbox ^-^
- soko ◟(๑•͈ᴗ•͈)◞
How to Write a Resume LIKE A BOSS
So you’re ready to assume some responsibility and apply for your first job (or your fifth job or your fiftieth job) and you want some tips on writing a good resume, huh? Well, are you are in luck because 1) I’ve edited and proofed so many resumes I could probably write one for each of my friends without their input and 2) I’ve actually taken some classes on this shit. So, basing this primarily on comments I’ve made while correcting someone else’s resume (and while looking at my own for reference), here are my tips on writing a resume.
Keep reading
GENERAL SCHOLARSHIP SEARCHES
scholarships.com
Fastweb
SALT
School Soup
CollegeNET
free scholarship search
Scholarship Hunter
collegescholarships.org
Peterson’s
BigFuture
Common Knowledge Scholarship Foundation
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT RESOURCES
EastChance (specifically for eastern european students)
EducationUSA (US government state department website)
International Education Financial Aid (IEFA)
International Student
eduPASS
STATE-SPECIFIC (by residency, not place of education)
Alaska
Arkansas
California
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Missouri
Montana
North Carolina
Oregon
Washington
TIPS AND GUIDES
CollegeBoard: the basics of financial aid
Watching out for scholarship scams
Department of Education student guide
I don’t know about you guys but I am psyched to get an education, woo. This year is a hella important year for me because if I don’t finish this school year with five As then I am a dead man walking, you get me? So this started off as a collection to help me get those fabulous As but I thought, what the hell? I’ll share this perfection with everyone else because sharing is caring. Anyways, down to the nitty gritty
how i spent only $34 to purchase $1,000+ worth of school supplies for college
One thing I’ve found that many college freshmen do is they purchase everything at the school bookstore, shelling out more than $800 for what they think is the cheapest deal possible. Let me tell you now, that you’re doin’ it wrong if you think paying hundreds of dollars is the best you can do.
To put it into perspective, for this past year, if I purchased all of my required textbooks from my school book store I would have had to pay $1,466 (tax not included)–and this is the total calculated if I bought used textbooks only. If I wanted brand new textbooks, it would have been over $2,000 (tax not included). In the end, I only spent $34 to purchase an entire year’s worth of supplies (that’s a 97% discount!!!), and I will tell you how. Of course, how low you can go will depend on the type of textbooks your professors require you to have and if you need any online access codes.
1. Email your professors
A lot of professors receive compensation from publishing companies to include their books in the curriculum, so many professors will say a book is required when in reality, you probably read 4 paragraphs from that text in the course of a semester. Always e-mail your professors beforehand about the list of required texts and other required items so see how many times you really need that book or item.
For example, at the beginning of fall semester last year, one of the required items listed for lab was lab cartridges which cost $88. Before making the decision on whether to purchase that or not, I e-mailed the lab coordinator and asked about what the cartridges were, which labs they corresponded to, and how often we would need to use them. The response? We didn’t need them at all for lab. If I didn’t ask my professor about it beforehand, I could have potentially paid $88 for something I didn’t need.
2. Join your school’s Facebook network.
Most, if not all, colleges will have a network on Facebook. Whenever you get your admission e-mail, or in your school’s portal, there should be a link to join the main Facebook group. Through there, once you’re accepted, you should be able to access many other Facebook groups within the school network. Many colleges will have a group dedicated to students who are selling their old stuff, and many will sell their textbooks on there as well.
Freshman year, I paid $150 for my general chemistry textbook, the solutions manual to the chemistry textbook, general biology textbook, lab manual, lab goggles, and clicker by purchasing them from a student who took those courses already and had no use for them anymore. To put into perspective how much I saved, the general biology textbook itself retailed for $150 in the campus bookstore; and the total amount I would have had to pay if I purchased all those books from the bookstore would have been more than $560. I basically purchased this at a 75% discount!
I would consider that purchasing from students at your university is generally a safe transaction, as most people meet up on campus to exchange the cash for the product, but remember to always exercise caution. You can always ask the seller to send you more detailed pictures if you want to know more about the condition of the item, and most of the time, you can also try to haggle the price of the item down.
3. Try to find online PDFs
One of the biggest reasons why I was able to save so much money this year with my textbooks was because of online PDFs (bless those uploaders). I was able to download my organic chemistry textbook and solutions manual, and molecular cell biology textbook online for free. If I had to purchase them from the campus bookstore, I would have had to pay $917. That’s a lot of money I saved!
Generally speaking, textbook versions don’t really vary much. For the organic chemistry PDF I mentioned, I actually found the previous edition of the one we were required to have for the course. I e-mailed my professor and asked if there was any particular difference between the 3rd and 4th edition, and he responded saying that other than the fact that some content in one chapter was moved to the next, there was no difference, and there really wasn’t. Even the chapter problems were the exact same.
If you’re the style that likes to have a paper copy in their hands, you can always print out the PDFs.
4. Share with friends
As a biology major, we have many labs, and for those labs, we’re required to purchase a lab manual. This past year, I took orgo lab, and the lab manual for that was $143. I couldn’t find this online as a PDF because A) it was the newest edition for this year, and B) it was written by our lab coordinator so it couldn’t be found anywhere else. So I chose option C instead: share with a friend. One of my friends compared the previous year’s edition with the edition we were required to have to see if there were any big differences (such as different experiments), and there weren’t really, so she purchased last year’s lab manual from an upperclassman for $25 (I paid $12 since we were sharing). Since we had lab on different days, we were able to share the manual.
I also made scans of the manual as well so I wouldn’t hog it when she needed it to complete her conclusions, and she could use the scans for her pre-lab while I was using it to write my conclusions.
5. Don’t buy, rent instead
If you absolutely have to have a book and you can’t find it online as a PDF, see if you can rent it instead. Although your campus bookstore will also have rental prices, 3rd party rental prices are almost always cheaper. Two sites I highly recommend are Chegg and Bookbyte. Although I haven’t used Chegg personally, many of my friends do and they say Chegg’s prices are lower. I’ve personally used Bookbyte, and although their selection is a tad smaller than Chegg, they have great customer service. In addition, if you need your rental for a couple days past the rental date, you can send it back late (up to 12 days I believe) without being charged any additional fees or paying for an extension.
For example, if I were to rent the anthropology textbook from my bookstore would have costed $40, and renting from Amazon would have cost $35, however, Bookbyte had my anthropology textbook listed for $12 to rent. They actually sent me 2 copies of it (I was only charged for one), and both were in excellent condition. When the time comes for you to return your textbooks, just print out the pre-paid shipping label Bookbyte sends you and you can ship the book from your campus mailroom.
6. Ask upperclassmen
Second semester this year, I was able to get my hands on a hard copy of the newest edition of the orgo textbook and solutions manual for free, because one of my upperclassmen friends passed it down to me without asking me to pay, so she’s basically the nicest person ever. You can always ask upperclassmen friends first for textbooks and such if they’re the same major as you because chances are, they’ll still have their old textbooks and would most likely be much more willing to help out a friend than a student they don’t know.
7. DON’T BUY “USED” ONLINE ACCESS CODES
The only thing you cannot get a discount on are online access codes. Any sites that are selling “used” online access codes are fake, and you should not purchase from them. Online access codes are associated with specific professors and courses, and e-mails as well. In addition, most have a set expiration date (usually a year or a semester), so any “used” online access code will most likely have expired by the time you try to use it.
What I usually do if I have to have an online code is accept their free trial. Companies such as McGraw Hill’s Connect have a 2 week free trial, and since my professors put up all the assignments in advance, I complete all the assignments within the free trial period. When the free trial expires, I can’t access the module again unless I pay, but the records of me completing my assignment still exist and I still get my homework points. I was lucky enough that our professor assigned online HW as easy gimme points, so I didn’t have to wait until he taught the material to finish it. The only online homework I paid for was Sapling, which was $10 since the free trial was only 6 days and homework assignments were uploaded weekly.
scholarships are the bomb!! free money to get urself an education!! here’s my best advice aaand resources for applying + getting some of that sweet sweet money :D
advice
use all of the databases!! the scholarships are right there for you. Take advantage of them, srsly!!! many let you input your criteria + they’ll match you up with some, and they help to organize your applications. You can subscribe to their newsletter and get alerts for new scholarships. there’s a whole bundle below all this advice to getchu started :D
start early + don’t stop: your eligibility for scholarships starts pretty much freshman year of high school, and basically doesn’t stop until you’re out of education, so take advantage of them!!! Logically, applying to more gives you a higher chance of winning one, so keep ploughing through them
don’t let essays scare you off: sweepstakes scholarships are easiest to apply for, but this also means they have more applicants. Do your best work + put time into essay-based scholarship contests, and up your chance of winning something!! Factor them into your normal routine like you would a homework assignment and just keep at it.
keep track of what you’ve applied for: seriously. Do it. It’ll motivate you when you’re not feeling like it, + keep you organized. Set up a spreadsheet (google sheets, excel, whatever floats your boat) and give it 5 columns: title of the scholarship, amount worth, whether or not you’ve applied, if you were successful, + the organization offering it. It’s also a great reminder of scholarships to reapply for next year.
check local scholarships: they’re waayyyy more restricted so the applicant pool is a lot smaller!!! Check your school, organizations you belong to, your parents’ companies, + local businesses. You’ll be competing against people in your town/county/district + it’ll give you a much better shot at winning. Check out your school’s website + talk to your guidance counsellors!
be specific: narrow down that applicant pool early. When you’re googling, look for scholarships that will apply only to you, so don’t just search ‘scholarships’. Look for ‘scholarships for bisexual women’, or ‘scholarships for international students’, or ‘scholarships for left-handed volleyball players’. Less applicants=better outcomes.
don’t apply to scams: be wary!!! Two big things: be careful of scholarships which want you to pay to apply, and guaranteed scholarships. Research pay-to-apply ones to make sure they’re legit. There’s more info here, here, and here on avoiding scholarship scams. Stay safe!!
scholarship databases
unigo goodcall scholarships.com niche scholarshipmonkey fastweb chegg cappex dosomething scholarshippoints nextstudent college board
more scholarship masterposts
college scholarships masterpost by @wonderstudying
how to search for scholarships by @adamparresh
scholarships! by @the-regular-student
it’s ya girl’s college scholarship masterpost by @jesussbabymomma
scholarship 101 by @thisexpedition
scholarships: how to find them and apply by @futurecristinayang
good luck!! you’ve got this :D
idk just with school starting soon i thought it would be a good idea
For Studying
formulas & equations fill-in sheet
organic chemistry resources
essay checklist
exam checklist
template for summarizing academic articles
language practicing pack
writing/planning essay pack
correction sheets
assessment schedule
pomodoro technique
primary source analysis
exam study pack
overcoming the curve of forgetting
key people/character tracker
review pack
study schedule
vocabulary
For Sticky Notes
blank template
to-do strips
to-do strips, stickers, sticky note outline
different sticky note templates (water tracker, to-do, etc.)
For Note-Taking
blank dot grid pages
semi-cornell note taking outlines
novel note-taking
line/dotted note templates
several note outlines
unicorn notes!!
grey, pink, blue, yellow, & black grid paper
Planners
undated planner (365 days calendar, month calendar, & week calendar)
undated academic calendars (May 2016-May 2017)
weekly goals
timetable schedule
daily to-do list
4 to-do list variations (one of my faves!!)
daily planner (fave!)
weekly dotted planner
dotted monthly planner
b&w serious weekly planner
daily planner v.1 v.2 (fave!)
weekly planner
to-do list (hackers/x-files/spy?? theme)
essay planner
full year planner inserts
monthly overview
habit/goal trackers
weekly planner
simple daily planner
long-term goals
daily grid planner
project planner
100 days of productivity & to-do list
steven universe planning kit
plain planner bundle
summer calendars
blog planning kit
ultimate blog planner kit
habit tracker
20 to-do lists!
pastel daily printable
summer goals
august calendars
goal printables pack
Expenses
monthly budget
monthly in/out expenses and spendings (really useful tbh)
school supply list
finance tracker
Etc.
reading list
song list/music log
productivity log
folder inserts
font references!!! (also a fave)
insp. posters 2
self-care
water tracker
study break activity book
inspiring wallpapers!!
really good kit containing a planner, quote sheet, book tracker, & more!
class information
Other Masterposts for Printables!
studiyng’s
studie-s’s
studywithnerdyglasses’s
we’ve all been in this situation for different reasons, anxiety, procrastination, work, way too many assignments in a week. but fear not my friends, hopefully, this masterpost will help you get A’s and organize your study schedule.
also please only do this every time you need to study for a test, cramming is not good for learning and pulling all-nighters frequently isn’t healthy.
study tips
cramming
how to cram for a big test by @studyign how to cram efficiently by @study-studymore-studyhard test and cramming tips how to cram the night before a test and pass 10 ways to cram successfully
all-nighters (the last resort)
how to pull an all-nighter and pass your exam all-nighter survival tips by @rookiemag how to pull and effective all-nighter stay all night without feeling sleepy: pt1 / pt2 expert-approved guide to pulling an all-nighter pull the most efficient all-nighter how to pull an all-nighter how to pull and all-nighter : from the special forces do’s and don’ts of pulling an all-nighter
really do them if it’s absolutely necessary:
is it bad for you to pull and all-nighter why you should never pull and all-nighter
the night before the exam
study the night before by @renaissence study the day before by @getstudyblr night owl study tips by @lawjournalsandwine the night before the exam by @studyspoinspo how to study the night before a test the night before the exam tips top tips for the night before and the morning of the exam how to pass an exam if you forgot to study the night before study the day before the exam 10 things you should do the night before a test 7 mistakes you make on the night before an exam you’ll never make again
i have less than a week to study
five day study plan by @brandi-studies how to study for an upcoming exam by @noteblr how to remember everything for a test in 3 days by @getstudyblr when you have a test really soon study well in short time study for exams in limited time ace an exam that’s around the corner
tips
25 study tips by @studyign how to study more efficiently fastest way to memorize by @studyign common study mistakes by @studyign tips on study last minute by @milkystudies how to get things done by @lattenotlate study smart not hard 10 tips to study smart and save time useful tips to study in short time how to study for an exam effectively prepare for a exam in a really short time study for an approaching exam the secrets to study effectively in short time nice time management advice how to study in groups how to stay focused by @elkstudies finals week masterpost 22 science based tips to study for an exam 20 study hacks to imporve your memory
exam tips
tips for during the exam
15 tips to boost your exam performance
how to answer exam questions
7 last-minute exam tips
28 top tips for exams and tests
top 10 tips for taking exams
last minute revision tips
exam prep
how to mentally prepare for a test by @eruditicn
anti procrastination masterpost by @elkstudies
beat anxiety and stress in 1 hour and start studying!
how to stop procrastination
deal with exam anxiety by @attackonstudying
scientifically the best ways to prepare for an exam
motivation
how to get motivated
my motivation tag
more masterposts
app masterpost
DIY masterpost
food masterpost
how to: group work
printable masterpost
language masterpost
music masterpost
my study methods masterpost
This makes me sound stupid but what does a feynman diagram mean?
You don’t sound stupid! They can be pretty confusing at first, and I’m sure you’re not they only one that doesn’t fully understand them (myself included) so let’s learn how to draw Feynman diagrams!
You do not need to know any fancy-schmancy math or physics to do this!
I know a lot of people are intimidated by physics: don’t be! Today there will be no equations, just non-threatening squiggly lines. Even school children can learn how to draw Feynman diagrams. Particle physics: fun for the whole family.
For now, think of this as a game. You’ll need a piece of paper and a pen/pencil. The rules are as follows (read these carefully):
1. You can draw two kinds of lines, a straight line with an arrow or a wiggly line:
You can draw these pointing in any direction.
2. You may only connect these lines if you have two lines with arrows meeting a single wiggly line.
Note that the orientation of the arrows is important! You must have exactly one arrow going into the vertex and exactly one arrow coming out.
3. Your diagram should only contain connected pieces. That is every line must connect to at least one vertex. There shouldn’t be any disconnected part of the diagram.
In the image above, the diagram on the left is allowed while the one on the right is not since the top and bottom parts don’t connect.
4. What’s really important are the endpoints of each line, so we can get rid of excess curves. You should treat each line as a shoelace and pull each line taut to make them nice and neat. They should be as straight as possible. (But the wiggly line stays wiggly!)
That’s it! Those are the rules of the game. Any diagram you can draw that passes these rules is a valid Feynman diagram. We will call this game QED. Take some time now to draw a few diagrams. Beware of a few common pitfalls of diagrams that do not work (can you see why?):
After a while, you might notice a few patterns emerging. For example, you could count the number of external lines (one free end) versus the number of internal lines (both ends attached to a vertex).
How are the number of external lines related to the number of internal lines and vertices?
If I tell you the number of external lines with arrows point inward, can you tell me the number of external lines with arrows pointing outward? Does a similar relation hole for the number of external wiggly lines?
If you keep following the arrowed lines, is it possible to end on some internal vertex?
Did you consider diagrams that contain closed loops? If not, do your answers to the above two questions change?
I won’t answer these questions for you, at least not in this post. Take some time to really play with these diagrams. There’s a lot of intuition you can develop with this “QED” game. After a while, you’ll have a pleasantly silly-looking piece of paper and you’ll be ready to move on to the next discussion:
What does it all mean?
Now we get to some physics. Each line in rule (1) is called a particle. (Aha!) The vertex in rule (2) is called an interaction. The rules above are an outline for a theory of particles and their interactions. We called it QED, which is short for quantum electrodynamics. The lines with arrows are matter particles (“fermions”). The wiggly line is a force particle (“boson”) which, in this case, mediates electromagnetic interactions: it is the photon.
The diagrams tell a story about how a set of particles interact. We read the diagrams from left to right, so if you have up-and-down lines you should shift them a little so they slant in either direction. This left-to-right reading is important since it determines our interpretation of the diagrams. Matter particles with arrows pointing from left to right are electrons. Matter particles with arrows pointing in the other direction are positrons (antimatter!). In fact, you can think about the arrow as pointing in the direction of the flow of electric charge. As a summary, we our particle content is:
(e+ is a positron, e- is an electron, and the gamma is a photon… think of a gamma ray.)
From this we can make a few important remarks:
The interaction with a photon shown above secretly includes information about the conservation of electric charge: for every arrow coming in, there must be an arrow coming out.
But wait: we can also rotate the interaction so that it tells a different story. Here are a few examples of the different ways one can interpret the single interaction (reading from left to right):
These are to be interpreted as: (1) an electron emits a photon and keeps going, (2) a positron absorbs a photon and keeps going, (3) an electron and positron annihilate into a photon, (4) a photon spontaneously “pair produces” an electron and positron.
On the left side of a diagram we have “incoming particles,” these are the particles that are about to crash into each other to do something interesting. For example, at the LHC these ‘incoming particles’ are the quarks and gluons that live inside the accelerated protons. On the right side of a diagram we have “outgoing particles,” these are the things which are detected after an interesting interaction.
For the theory above, we can imagine an electron/positron collider like the the old LEP and SLAC facilities. In these experiments an electron and positron collide and the resulting outgoing particles are detected. In our simple QED theory, what kinds of “experimental signatures” (outgoing particle configurations) could they measure? (e.g. is it possible to have a signature of a single electron with two positrons? Are there constraints on how many photons come out?)
So we see that the external lines correspond to incoming or outgoing particles. What about the internal lines? These represent virtual particles that are never directly observed. They are created quantum mechanically and disappear quantum mechanically, serving only the purpose of allowing a given set of interactions to occur to allow the incoming particles to turn into the outgoing particles. We’ll have a lot to say about these guys in future posts. Here’s an example where we have a virtual photon mediating the interaction between an electron and a positron.
In the first diagram the electron and positron annihilate into a photon which then produces another electron-positron pair. In the second diagram an electron tosses a photon to a nearby positron (without ever touching the positron). This all meshes with the idea that force particles are just weird quantum objects which mediate forces. However, our theory treats force and matter particles on equal footing. We could draw diagrams where there are photons in the external state and electrons are virtual:
This is a process where light (the photon) and an electron bounce off each other and is called Compton scattering. Note, by the way, that I didn’t bother to slant the vertical virtual particle in the second diagram. This is because it doesn’t matter whether we interpret it as a virtual electron or a virtual positron: we can either say (1) that the electron emits a photon and then scatters off of the incoming photon, or (2) we can say that the incoming photon pair produced with the resulting positron annihilating with the electron to form an outgoing photon:
Anyway, this is the basic idea of Feynman diagrams. They allow us to write down what interactions are possible. However, you will eventually discover that there is a much more mathematical interpretation of these diagrams that produces the mathematical expressions that predict the probability of these interactions to occur, and so there is actually some rather complicated mathematics “under the hood.” But just like a work of art, it’s perfectly acceptable to appreciate these diagrams at face value as diagrams of particle interactions. Let me close with a quick “frequently asked questions”:
What is the significance of the x and y axes?These are really spacetime diagrams that outline the “trajectory” of particles. By reading these diagrams from left to right, we interpret the x axis as time. You can think of each vertical slice as a moment in time. The y axis is roughly the space direction.
So are you telling me that the particles travel in straight lines?No, but it’s easy to mistakenly believe this if you take the diagrams too seriously. The path that particles take through actual space is determined not only by the interactions (which are captured by Feynman diagrams), but the kinematics (which is not). For example, one would still have to impose things like momentum and energy conservation. The point of the Feynman diagram is to understand the interactions along a particle’s path, not the actual trajectory of the particle in space.
Does this mean that positrons are just electrons moving backwards in time?In the early days of quantum electrodynamics this seemed to be an idea that people liked to say once in a while because it sounds neat. Diagrammatically (and in some sense mathematically) one can take this interpretation, but it doesn’t really buy you anything. Among other more technical reasons, this viewpoint is rather counterproductive because the mathematical framework of quantum field theory is built upon the idea of causality.
What does it mean that a set of incoming particles and outgoing particles can have multiple diagrams?In the examples above of two-to-two scattering I showed two different diagrams that take the in-state and produce the required out-state. In fact, there are an infinite set of such diagrams. (Can you draw a few more?) Quantum mechanically, one has to sum over all the different ways to get from the in state to the out state. This should sound familiar: it’s just the usual sum over paths in the double slit experiment that we discussed before. We’ll have plenty more to say about this, but the idea is that one has to add the mathematical expressions associated with each diagram just like we had to sum numbers associated with each path in the double slit experiment.
What is the significance of rules 3 and 4?Rule 3 says that we’re only going to care about one particular chain of interactions. We don’t care about additional particles which don’t interact or additional independent chains of interactions. Rule 4 just makes the diagrams easier to read. Occasionally we’ll have to draw curvy lines or even lines that “slide under” other lines.
Where do the rules come from?The rules that we gave above (called Feynman rules) are essentially the definition of a theory of particle physics. More completely, the rules should also include a few numbers associated with the parameters of the theory (e.g. the masses of the particles, how strongly they couple), but we won’t worry about these. Graduate students in particle physics spent much of their first year learning how to carefully extract the diagrammatic rules from mathematical expressions (and then how to use the diagrams to do more math), but the physical content of the theory is most intuitively understood by looking at the diagrams directly and ignoring the math. If you’re really curious, the expression from which one obtains the rules looks something like this (from TD Gutierrez), though that’s a deliberately “scary-looking” formulation.
You’ll develop more intuition about these diagrams and eventually get to some LHC physics, but hopefully this will get the ball rolling for you.
i'll be having pharmacology next sem, any tips?
HI! :)
Pharmacology is the heart of pharmacy. You need to have a good memorisation skill but understanding it will be the key. Sad to say, there is no shortcut. You need to take a lot of your time to study it by heart.
In studying the drugs:
Study the normal mechanism of the body
Study the abnormal mechanism of the body
Compare the normal & abnormal mechanism of the body
Study how the drug works to correct the abnormal mechanism of the body
for example you are studying cardiovascular drugs: 1. study the normal physiology of the heart 2. study what happen when a person has a cardiovascular disease 3. study the difference between a normal heart & a heart with cardiovascular disease 4. study how cardiovascular drugs will correct the condition
Use flashcards, notecards & the likes
Use one side of the card and write the drug & other side with is mechanism of action
Use one side of the card and indicate its pharmacologic category & the other side with the list of drugs under that category
This are very handy & you can bring it anywhere you go. :)
Be creative, Use Mnemonics
In this way, the information will be easy to remember.
For example,
the non-specific beta blockers are NSTP (Nadolol, Sotalol, Timolol, Propranolol)
specific beta blockers are BEAM (Bisoprolol, Esmolol, Atenolol, Metoprolol)
beta blockers, mostly but not all the time, ends with -olol
angiotensin II receptor antagonist usually ends with -sartan (Losartan, Candesartan)
HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors usually ends with -statin (Simvastatin, Atorvastatin, Rosuvastatin)
ACE inhibitors usually ends with -pril (Captopril, Lisinopril)
Proton pump inhibitor - ends with -prazole (Pantoprazole, Esomeprazole)
H2 receptor blockers -ends with -tidine (Famotidine, Cimetidine)
Be productive during internships. Use that as an opportunity to be more familiar with the drugs.
The arrangement of medicine either in the community or hospital setting is mostly by their therapeutic category. Observe. Read. Write. Repeat. In this way you will be familiar with the drugs more.
Guide books & Apps
there are a lot of guide books like Pharmacopeia, but due to technology it is easily accessible to everyone today. :) There are several apps that are downloadable for free in the Apps Store & Google Play like…
Epocrates
Micromedex Drug Information
Monthly Prescribing Reference
The course itself is not easy but if you have the determination to study & to learn, nothing will come difficult. Good luck to you! I know you can do it. :)