As a dedicated student, sometimes the amount of information we have to absorb and memorize can be nothing short of overwhelming. I'm sure most of us have been in a situation before where we had to cram ungodly amounts of information into our brains the night before a major assessment or an exam. Even if we are learning the information, it is sometimes extremely difficult to be able to organize the mass amounts of information in your head.

I have decided to start a series where every week, I will be posting different study tips to help you get through your next major assessment or exam. This week's study tip is relatively simple but immensely effective.

As you can probably tell from the title, we will be focusing on mind maps this week. Mind maps are precisely what they sound like; maps of information that are interlaced and interlocked. These are incredibly helpful for almost every subject. You can utilize these mind maps to help organize the key themes/motifs in literature or connections between individuals in your assigned novel. Or, if you're studying for a science course, you can use mind maps to help organize key concepts and formulas.

You can make these mind maps in many different ways based on your preferences and what works best for you. For me, I personally like to start with a blank sheet of copy paper or graph paper. I'll write the current topic that I'm making a mind map for in the center of the paper with a thick highlighter. From here, I divide up the sections in the particular topic that I'm studying for into the most important, key parts. Draw radial lines out from the center and you can start with the subtopics of the main concept. From here, there are no rules. You can connect each topic with each other, or you can separate them and show the stark differences between two subtopics.

This is especially beneficial because not only will you be able to hone in on the most important concepts, but you will be able to see differences and similarities between two subtopics. These can get pretty messy, but as long as you can understand your own work, it'll be fine.

These mind maps are also extremely beneficial for final exams. If you make a couple mind maps for each unit throughout the year, by the time your final exams come rolling around, you will already have a compact study guide that highlights the key points you need to understand.

Hope you guys enjoyed this week's study tip, and stay tuned for another study tip next week!