Hi! and welcome to another episode of the smart student podcast.  In this episode, I am going to talk to you about the topic ‘why you need to join a study group’. 

In fact, do you really have to join a study group? If you should ask me this question, my straightforward answer to you is yes you have to join a study group.

Before I even talk to you about the reasons why you need to join a study group. Let me, first of all, discuss with you some of the reasons other people have given for not being interested in joining a study group that is to say the disadvantages of being part of a study group.

 I have realized that it usually boils down to about three disadvantages or three concerns that people have when it comes to not joining a study group. The very first one that they have accepted is some sort of time-wasting. 

That is to say, when you spend time with a study group you know usually you join a group that has a number of people even though we recommend not more than seven people in a study group and maximum of seven averagely it should be around five  So five people in a study group. 

So if you have about five people in a group and you are going to discuss something usually almost every one of them has an opinion about what is being discussed. So comparing that to when you are learning alone. 

When you are learning alone, you are the only one so once you understand the concept you move on so you spend less time debating anything because who are you going to debate with. It is just with yourself. Once you understand you move on.

Unlike that of the study group because in the study group you have to discuss with others and at times you can debate over one thing for a very long time so some people who are not interested in debating with people feel that it is a waste of time.  

However, there is an advantage to this particular point which we will look at later so I don’t think that it is a valid point for you to say because of that I’m not going to join a study group. 

The second concern that people have raised is the group members may potentially have a negative impact on you depending on the kind of group that you find yourself in. You see how I ended that part depending on the kind of group that you find yourself in.  

So that should not be a reason why you will not be in a study group but it should be a reason why you have to be in the right study group. 

Alright, you don’t have a choice, you need to be in a study group if you want to be a smart student. Well, there are others who can argue that have never been in a study group before and I’m still a good student. 

Yes, it doesn’t mean that if you don’t join a study group you are not going to be a good student you are going to be a good student you can be an excellent student but I believe so well that joining a study group can add an extra level to your success. 

Who doesn’t want that extra level if you want to go further than where you have reached right now. 

Even if you are the best student in the class, there is definitely another level that you can go to, and joining a good study group or the right study group for that matter can help you achieve that next level that you have been looking for. 

As a smart student one thing that you don’t want to ever do is to be complacent with where you have gotten to there is always room for improvement and if you have not joined a study group joining the right study group  is the approach to reaching that potential that you are 

dreaming of. 

The last reason that some people have given or the last concern that some people have stated for being their reason not to join study groups is that they are some form of distraction in study groups. 

This I can personally attest to that sometimes we go for study group discussions and instead of focusing solely on what we are studying some people may be discussing other things which may distract us and end up not letting us learn what we came to learn.

It is possible however there are ways to go about it and when you look at all these that we are stating as disadvantages. In fact, the benefits that we can talk about when you talk about being part of a study group far outweighs these disadvantages that we’ve mentioned and therefore it is a more reason why you need to join a study group. 

Now let’s take a look at the main reasons why you have to join a study group. Why at all am I recommending that you join one? 

The very first reason that I talk about here is that a study group helps you feel in learning gaps.  This is when you went to class and during the class what the lecturer taught you might have forgotten some aspects of what the lecturer taught. 

It is this study group that is going to help you fill-up the things that you’ve forgotten or even at times a lecturer said something in class that you didn’t fully grab ok when you go for your study group meetings you are at liberty to ask your colleagues especially when we are comparing notes you realize that there are spaces in your notes that you have not even filled because you didn’t hear the exact thing the lecturer said over there so you jump over it. 

You have about five other colleagues with you who would have similar notes and some might probably be able to capture it so you talk to them and you feel in these gaps and where you did not understand too they can help you understand it. 

The next important reason why I recommend that you join a study group is, it helps you build new skills. Being a part of a study group helps you build new skills like personal relationships, interpersonal relationships, and even communications skills. 

It makes you a better person because now you have to learn to relate with people so even if you are the shy type or you are an introvert you still are offered an opportunity to build these skills.

Eventually, in the world of work, these are important skills because you are not going to work alone definitely wherever you work whether you start your own business or you’re employed in a company you are going to work with people and you need to be able to relate with these people at a certain professional level. 

The basis of this kind of relationship is that you can start learning or mastering it right from school when you join study groups.

Another thing or another importance of study groups that we can talk about is, it helps you learn things faster. 

So here let me share my personal experience I happen to be in a study group with about six other colleagues in my class and one thing that I realized was that for a particular course or topic there were so many books and it was going to be very challenging for one person alone to read all the books and get the knowledge about a particular thing in all of the books. 

However, because there were a number of us each one and the kind of books they liked so every one of us was learning something from a different source and when we came together we could easily discuss the things that we have learned. 

That means that I also didn’t need to go read an extra book to get certain information because my colleague was learning it and he or she will share what he has learned or she has learned with me. 

So it makes the learning process faster and I keep saying that as a student one challenge that you have is that you have less time to study. 

A lot of things so being part of the study group will help you catch up with a lot of things. Sometimes they are things that you are yet to learn but when you go somebody has already learned it and they share what they have learned with you.

Another advantage that we can talk about is that a study group gives you an opportunity to teach what you learn. 

So in the subsequent episode of the smart student podcast, I am going to teach you how to actually study and remember the things that you study but this is one thing that you need to know.  One method that you can use is learning to teach others. 

This is an advantage that study groups give you because mostly the study group will choose an individual to head a meeting and the individual is responsible for moderating.   Once you are moderating you are considered to be the leader at that point in time or to be the teacher or lecturer at that point in time.

On the other hand, since your group members are there and you are all going to discuss there is an avenue for you to share with the group what you have learned or your understanding of the various concepts that you are learning.  

So this is an opportunity for you to explain what you learn and I have a philosophy that if you can not explain what you have learned to someone who does not know what you are you have learned for the person to understand it then it means that you yourself do not understand it. 

So let me break it down.  Let’s say I have learned something today and you have never learned it before my philosophy is that if I can not explain to you this particular thing that I have learned that you are yet to learn if I’m not able to explain it such that you understand it then it means that I myself do not understand it. 

Hence I have to go back and sit over it to learn it again.  So this is an advantage that you get for being part of a study group when you go you get the opportunity to teach your colleagues what you have learned and that is where you will be able to know whether you really understand what you learned or not. 

Another important advantage of being a member of a study group is that it serves as a source of motivation. And here I want to say another personal experience with you back in the university in my first year. 

I think it was the 2nd semester when we were going to write our anatomy exams mid-semester exams. I studied a lot. 

However, I was so tired but my head looked almost empty because when I picked the past questions it was as if I couldn’t remember anything that I had learned.  

In fact, around the time we were studying something about the central nervous system and it was very difficult to grab so I felt so frustrated.  I had to stop learning and go and sleep because nothing was entering when I was learning and I wasn’t motivated to learn at all. 

When I  went back to the room to go and sleep, that was when I got a prompt from my study group members that in fact since my group members were meeting I had no option than to join so they were serving as a source of motivation to me and that particular meeting was very fruitful. 

Because when I went to sit behind the paper almost all the questions that I was answering, I was just trying to record the things that we discussed during that meeting. And it helped me a lot. 

I got a very good grade in that particular exam and from that period I have never joked with the group studies, the study meetings, or any time that I have an opportunity to meet with other people to study together. 

Study groups can serve as a source of motivation. This is because sometimes you are down, you don’t feel like going to learn but once there is a meeting and your other colleagues are going you are going to be pulled along for you to join. 

The final advantage that I will talk about is that it helps prevent procrastination. Do you know that as a member of the study group they are going to fix times for you whether you like it or yes you have to be present during the study group meeting? 

This means that you don’t have a choice to procrastinate. If you were alone by yourself you would’ve said okay maybe I feel tired right now so let me try it in the next three hours. Let me take a nap and I will start learning in the next three hours.  

Here your group members have fixed the time and they are on their way to learn so you can not say go and study. I will join you in the next three hours because the meeting may be over by then. 

So it helps you prevent procrastination. Procrastination is one habit that kills a lot of students in terms of their performance. 

If you procrastinate a lot you’re definitely not going to get enough time to study because I keep saying that the greatest challenge you have as a student is that you have less time to learn a lot of things. So the group studies at least will help you in this regard. These are the advantages that have talked about, let me quickly summarise them. 

I said it helps you to feel up the learning gaps if there were any. It helps you build new skills like communication skills and interpersonal relationships. It helps you learn things faster okay then it gives you an opportunity to teach what you have learned and it also serves as a source of motivation and finally helps to prevent procrastination. 

So these are the basic reasons why you need to join a study group and I highly recommend that if you are not yet in one, think about it and if you can’t find want to join you how to start your own study group but make sure you get the right companion for a study group,  get the right people,  people who are serious about their studies okay. 

Your study group should be made up of people who are motivated to study because we said that it should serve as a source of motivation to you therefore you need people who are self-motivated to study who encourage you when you are down. 

They should be people who are time conscious because you have less time to do anything right so you need the right set of people in your group studies. The group studies or your study group will help you achieve more as a smart student knowing it might end up becoming an excellent student. 

Thank you for listening and I’ll meet you in the next episode. Bye

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