8 Study Tips For Students In High School, University, or College

by Helena Nikitopoulos ​for The 44 North

Youth Editor & Contributing Writer

Contributing Writer Helena Nikitopoulos is currently writing a novel titled, "Guide to Being Single in Your Twenties," where she addresses all the things people can do to fully embrace their 20s when single. Stay tuned for more information at her Instagram @helenanikitop or @wordsbyhelena.

A student studying in a library

"Teachers are there to help you, they are there to make sure you feel comfortable with the study material. If you feel embarrassed asking your teacher or professor questions, remember that many other students might have the same questions as you. It shows bravery and initiative to ask questions."

As someone who has a learning disability, studying did not always come easy to me. I often struggled knowing where to start, especially if I had an upcoming test or quiz to study for. Over the years, however, I learned how to organize myself in a way that made studying less overwhelming and more enjoyable. Whether that was finding a café to work in or an accountability partner, studying gradually turned into a moment (or several moments) of satisfaction and productivity. If you also struggle with knowing where or how to start studying, try the eight study tips listed below. 

1. Find a fun study playlist. My personal favourites are: Mood Booster or Epic Drops. If you can’t focus when there are words in the song, try Classical Piano Music. If you like upbeat music with no words, try Work Focus - EDM. If white noise or people talking in the background helps you, try Coffee Shop Background Noise for Studying. 
   

2. Try switching up your study space. If you are constantly in your room studying, your room no longer becomes your safe haven from school, but it constantly reminds you that Karl Marx was a communist or that y= mx+b (or whatever they teach you in math these days). Instead, study on campus or if you don’t have a campus to study on, study at a local café or a library and use the busy background noise as white noise for your studying.
   

3. Work with other people around you! If your friend(s) is busy, go to a semi-busy space by yourself. If there are other people working or studying just like you, it may motivate you to get things done. I always think: if they can do it so can I. 
   

4. Make sure your notes are easily accessible: try to number off your pages to keep them in order. You can also try colour coding your notes so that they align with each unit or each subject. If there are 4 units you need to study for, make every unit a different colour. If there are terms that you need to review more, write or underline them in red so you can come back to them. Use sticky notes as bookmarks to section off your notes. You will never want to return to your notes if they are difficult to understand so if typing out your notes will make it easier to read, go for it. At the end of the day, everyone organizes themselves differently. What matters most is that you can understand and access your notes easily. 
   

5. Always plan out your study schedule. If your test is on four units and starts November 12, start studying for it October 28 so you can dedicate October 30 - November 1 to unit one, November 2-4 to unit two, November 5-7 to unit three, November 8-10 to unit four, and use November 10-11 as a review session for all of the units. Suddenly four units becomes four chunks, each block dedicated to one unit. Thus, when you space and plan things out, studying becomes less overbearing and more doable.
   

6. Prioritize. If unit 3 is the hardest unit, start with reviewing that unit and then move on to the others. This goes for social activities as well. For example, if there is a huge party coming up on the weekend, decide if studying for your unit test will benefit you more in the long run. Perhaps you can use going to the party as your reward for getting units one and two done that week. Always choose what will make you less stressed in the long run. In addition, set a timer for 30 minutes. Focus for those 30 minutes and then when the timer goes off, give yourself a break (e.g., watch a video of a cute animal or listen to a talk show like Family Feud). 
   

7. Always ask questions and seek help. Teachers are there to help you, they are there to make sure you feel comfortable with the study material. If you feel embarrassed asking your teacher or professor questions, remember that many other students might have the same questions as you. It shows bravery and initiative to ask questions (while also preparing you for your upcoming test). Moreover, studies have shown, such as Samoza, Sugay, Arellano, and Custodio’s study, An Evaluation of the Effect of Various Voice Qualities on Memory Retention, that students are more likely to recall class material by remembering their professor’s voice on the test. Thus, by paying attention in class and visiting office hours, on one time with your professor will help you remember critical information for your test.  
   

8. If you are a visual learner (or even if you aren’t), watch a YouTube or Khan Academy video explaining concepts that you struggle with. Lessons are often taught using a white board or a visual form of some kind. In addition, there are badges or awards you can win that will help motivate you to complete more lessons!

Short Story: Understanding the Consequences of Police in Schools

by Mikaela Brewer

A police officer in tactical gear walking through the front door of a building

The echinacea were still alive when the first bell of the school year rang. They’re also called coneflowers, and this is how my mother ensured we shared a name—that I carried her with me safely. Her name is Echina, mine is Connie. I didn’t understand, at first, why we didn’t have the same name. I both knew and didn’t in 2018, when the Toronto District School Board trustees voted to remove police officers stationed in their schools. But I see now, in September 2026, as I begin my senior year of high school. I was born in this country. My mother wasn’t. 

The last time we drove back from Mexico, during the summer of 2025, we’d talked about our fears surrounding the upcoming American and Canadian elections. Mid-topic, we passed a strip of coneflowers and mom, as always, adored an opportunity to talk about the flowers she so admired. She loved them so much that she gifted some to my high school, now rimmed in magenta, white, and yellow. 

“You know, echinacea are native to North America. They’re tough and sturdy and colourful. Resilient—surviving full sun, bad soil, and drought. They help the bees and butterflies, feed the birds, and boost our immunity. They even self-seed non-invasively. Do you know what I’m saying—”

“I know what you’re trying to say.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you make them sound like a perfect flower. Maybe they are. But we’re not perfect. And flowers can be ripped from the soil by their roots, no matter how hearty they are. That’s what Trump’s going to do. And it can surely happen in Canada, too.” 

Mom’s bony, ringed fingers slid down the steering wheel to eight and four. She took a loud breath that slumped her shoulders. “You don’t know what I’m saying because you didn’t let me finish.”

I regret it now, but at that moment, I shook my head and put my headphones in. She was right—I didn’t know what she wanted to say.

And here I am, waiting in a long line of students entering the school. Doorways doubled by scanners, tripled by police officers, and quadrupled by cameras. I remember my mother’s words, but I don’t yet know how to enact them. I’m terrified.

When I was nine, police roamed my elementary school grounds. But more than the coldness of the cops, I remember Mandy. Mandy with freckles, dimples, warm brown skin slightly darker than mine, and polished copper eyes. One of the first English words I could spell was penny, because I’d met Mandy in kindergarten and been in love with him since. I fight to remember him this way: Mandy, who smelled of his grandfather’s tobacco pipe when he kissed my cheek inside a dead tree trunk during recess.

But he was a troublemaker, always making things when we were supposed to be quiet and listening. A delinquent. A thief. His every move was watched, surveilled, and reprimanded in the halls. Detention for backtalk became suspension, and soon, arrests. So many frightening phone calls with the Canada Border Services Agency. A model of the school-to-prison pipeline. And it all started, from what I can remember, when he borrowed Jenny Barton’s glue stick and scissors without asking her. “What are you going to do with those?” they’d asked, fearfully. I know it started before that. Start isn’t the right word. What was cut up and flimsy as construction paper, to begin with, was his trust in adults. And I wasn’t enough to glue something so hurt back together—at least not faster than it shredded. 

Mandy’s in prison now, so I hear. Just shy of nineteen. I haven’t spoken to him since he was fourteen and I was thirteen. He disappeared from my life. And out of manufactured fear, I let him. 

I know peers, parents, and teachers who protested police in schools. I have friends who stopped coming to school because their parents and guardians are afraid of being reported to immigration officials, even though mom said the Education Act guarantees them an education regardless of status. But Mandy needed support. Not the police.

About midway through the lineup to enter the school, this old heartbreak snapped into panic. As nonchalantly as I could manage, I slipped out of line behind a portable and again behind the echinacea bushes. How else could I protect my mom? I put my headphones in and played two poems by Celia Martínez with my arms hugging my knees. I couldn’t stop my tears and heaved the still-humid air silently. 

[A moment to pause with Connie & watch/listen to Celia’s brilliant poems, linked here & here].

I slowly calmed, listening to Celia’s words. As I fought to figure out what to do next, vehicle headlights lit up my hiding spot magenta. There was a catwalk to a subdivision next to me, but these lights were too bright and close to be coming from the road. I sank further into the bushes, so afraid that it was some form of authority figure looking for me. But nobody would’ve known I was missing yet. It was only 7:53 and classes didn’t start until 8:15. 

A loud engine growl startled me, but it was turning off. A kickstand scraped the fence, thick-heeled boots hit the pavement, and headlights clicked off. 

It took my eyes a moment to adjust, finding focus on a yellow floral dress hugged by a red leather jacket. My mom was crouching in front of me. She smelled like fruit. 

I smeared my glittery white eyeshadow across my face trying to wipe tears away. “How did you know I was here?” I murmured, nearly incoherently.

Echina smiled and almost laughed as she sat down cross-legged beside me, out of view. “Your brothers and sisters hid here too.”

“But how did you know I’d be here today?”

“Moms know a lot of things. I had a feeling.”

“So you know why I didn’t go in.”

“I do. And I understand.” She took my hands in hers.

I swallowed, clearing my throat. “I know what you meant last summer. About coneflowers. About us.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s not about perfection. It’s about believing in ourselves. In our love and hope and joy.”

“Yes, it is. And so much more.”

I nodded, but she could tell I was waiting for her to expand on the ‘much more.’”

“There’s a story that I used to tell your father before he died. I haven’t told it since, but you need it now.” She shifted to face me. “There was once an echinacea flower who—”

“Mom, do you have any stories not about echinacea?” My face cracked a wet smile. 

Echina smirked. “Yes, but they’re not as good. Don’t interrupt.” She paused to paint a fresh layer of red lipstick, put the tube in her bra, and clapped her hands together softly. “So, there was once an echinacea flower who thought she couldn’t support the roots of the flowers around her unless she was completely filled—brimming with nourishment (this tale is inspired by the wonderful work of Christabel Mintah-Galloway, RN, BSN). She thought that she couldn’t give unless she was full. Gradually, the flowers around her began to die. And then, so did she. What mistake do you think she made?”

“We’re never fully or perfectly nourished. So she never helped.”

“Precisely.” Mom squeezed my hands and kissed them. 

“But I don’t understand. I do help.”

“You do. You always help me. But I tell you this little tale to say: almost always, even when we feel most alone and hopeless, there’s something we can do—especially something we can give. And we must keep giving and gifting so that others can do the same for us. We can’t sever that connection. All relationships are tended most lovingly this way; it’s how we keep making in every sense of the word—change, progress, love, art, each other, and the list continues.”

“But I’m so afraid to walk into that school now, mom. With all the police and surveillance. Why is it always us who have to give. So many people only extract. Even my school friends.”

“I know. I know, my love.” Mom hugged me. As she stroked my hair, she asked, “Is there someone who gave to you, who you once shared roots with—made with, maybe—who you could give back to today?”

“Aside from you?”

“Mhm.” She smiled appreciatively. 

It only took a moment to figure out who she was trying to get me to remember. And it was with his memory that I eventually walked into the school for my last first day.

***

That afternoon, I sat inside what felt like a particle board booth for standardized test-taking. There was a grey landline phone on the wall beside me, its coil nearly reaching the floor. This room of the county jail smelled of sweat, cheap coffee, and old paper. I looked down, picking at my purple nail polish. I don’t know what prompted me to look up, but when I did, I didn’t startle. I didn’t know how long he’d been sitting across from me, watching from the other side of the glass, with those same eyes. 

I stared back, my brow creasing involuntarily to mirror his. It’d been long enough for both of us to notice change, but not long enough to not recognize each other. He was thin, but stronger, and with black facial hair that suited him. 

Mandy picked up the phone on his side but my hand went to the glass, as if my palm could push through it to reach his cheek. Keeping the phone to his ear, his head sunk, as if in shame. Afraid he’d leave I quickly picked up the phone. 

“Mandy. Don’t go.”

He looked up. His eyes were kind, but it almost looked uncomfortable for them to soften. As if softness was the only muscle he hadn’t trained since I last saw him, chiselled now in more ways than one. He started to speak but stopped and pressed chapped lips together. 

“It’s me. C—”

“Connie.”

I nodded, unsure why I thought he wouldn’t remember.

“Thought I’d never see you again.” His voice was like gravel. 

I smiled and nodded. 

“Why did you come?” There was a sternness now. 

I took a deep breath and looked down for a moment to gather myself. He thought I was patronizing him.

“If it takes that long to say I—”

“No, wait.” I snapped my head up. “My mom told me a story. And I wanted to tell you about it.” 

“You want to tell me a story?”

“It’s about us. About what we can make.”

“Us?” There was a slight momentum in Mandy’s voice that gripped my heart. The wit that once made much of what he said sound like a wink. I’d missed it so much. 

“Don’t you want to hear it?” 

“Well, what are we going to make?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then how are we going to make it?”

“Together.” 

He grinned, and I couldn’t help but beam back. 

We truly hadn’t said much of substance. I didn’t yet know why he was here, nor how we could make anything, let alone make anything happen or change in our corner of the world. He didn’t yet know what I’d been doing for five years. But a shared fight within the two of us found its reflection. 

Mandy kept smiling. It was a disarming, determined smile, with an undercurrent that I recognized. My cheeks warmed, realizing my hand was still on the glass. I was about to move it when he reached up and pressed his palm to mine. The sweat from our palms ran down the pane like tears.

What Do We Do With Outgrown Friendships?

by Mikaela Brewer ​for The 44 North

A monarch butterfly perched on a leaf

“And yet what if friendship and love weren’t opposite points between which to pivot but loci that overlap in varying degrees? Under the Romantic ideal of love, we’ve come to expect that every great romance should also contain within itself, in addition to erotic passion, a robust friendship. But we hold with deep suspicion the opposite—a platonic friendship colored with the emotional hues of romantic love, never given physical form but always aglow with an intensity artificially dimmed by the label of plain friendship. Perhaps we need not label these kaleidoscopic emotional universes after all; perhaps resisting the urge to classify and contain is the only way to do justice to their iridescent richness of sentiment and feeling.” 

– Maria Popova, The Monarchs, Music, and the Meaning of Life: The Most Touching Deathbed Love Letter Ever Written 

When Cera and I were girls, not too long ago, there was a small clearing in the forest that secluded our middle school. Our friendship began with the first ribbed stump in that little forest. Here, in Monarchia (as we called it), we were fairies with the wings of monarch butterflies, dining at a polished table of the sturdiest wood. It soon became the last one standing.

This makeshift table felt safer than any at home; I could hide on top of it and breathe fresh air, rather than my own breath beneath Mama’s round, clothed coffee table. Each afternoon, I picked the velcro straps of my knee pads open to air dry, layered on two swipes of lip chap, propped up my skateboard, crossed my legs on that stump, and closed my eyes. I didn’t need to open them to see the trees swirling like spirographs, the early September wind blowing in every direction at once inside my forest cutout. But I did need to open them when that same wind, one afternoon, brought with it a voice hardly distinguishable from the breeze. 

“Are you asleep?”

I opened my eyes, disoriented, and looked into the face of the reddest-haired girl I ever saw. Her eyes were like the tiger’s eye crystals in my earrings, her freckles and lips like stippled copper, and her hair in four uneven braids that fell to her ankles. 

Being twelve, I answered, “I must be. Are you even real?”

Cera smirked and a few crooked teeth poked out. “I mustn’t be, at least not now, because no one ever answers my questions. Even if rudely.”

“Well, do you always ask silly questions? People can’t sleep sitting up, obviously.”

“And yet, everyone does, don’t they?”

Unsure of what she meant, but expecting something deep the way I’d interpret her response now, I frowned.

Cera rolled her eyes and dug her fists into her hips. “Well, aren’t you impossible? It’s called math class.”

I smiled but kept my eyes narrowed. “Okay. Touché. What do you want? This was my spot first.”

Cera brightened and crossed her arms. “A friend.”

Bold. Alright. “I don’t do friends.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t you know this is always how it starts? Iron sharpens iron, doesn’t it?”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and I didn’t get her reference at the time. I turned my back to her and hugged my knees to my chest. A moment later, I felt another back lean gently against mine. I didn’t object, but I did say, “It’s weird how quiet your voice is. It doesn’t match what you say.”

“Gentleness and assertiveness aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“I don’t understand half of what you say.”

“That’s okay. Most grown-ups don’t either.”

“What are you a witch or something? Are you trying to cast a spell on me?”

“I don’t know yet, but you’re supposed to find out at thirteen, so I hear.”

“So I hear? Who says that?” I laughed out loud. When she didn’t shift her body or reply, I cleared my throat and added, “I think I like fairies better.”

“Me too, actually. Why can’t fairies cast spells?”

“Do you know any?”

“No, but let’s invent one, shall we?”

She pulled away and turned around to get onto her knees. I began to turn, too, but she stopped me. 

“Stay still.”

I remember feeling swept along, but not uncomfortable. She took apart her braids and finger-combed my long, black hair. Then, she began nimbly braiding them together.

“What are you doing?” I asked without pulling away.

“Linking the spell to us—makes it more powerful.”

“I want to know what it is first!”

“Shh. No, you don’t. Then it won’t come true!”

“That’s for wishes not spells.”

“Who says? We can make our own rules here. And you don’t need words if there’s a physical binding. A braid is most powerful, you know.”

I didn’t know but must have agreed because I let her finish braiding, and when she did, she said in that soft voice, “There, just like monarch butterfly wings.”

We curled up, back to back on the stump, and decided that naps solidified spells even further. I knew something within me had permanently changed when I stirred an hour later at dusk. I tried to sit up, and in doing so, took her whole body with me. We both screamed, “Ouch.”

***

So it went on like this. Every September afternoon was magical, the school day a distant thought, until the sign appeared. We saw it pegged into the ground at the rim of the forest as we were leaving. It was October tenth—I know because I’d just turned thirteen.

“What are zoning laws?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve never said those words together.”

“I only say them when I don’t care to find out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, the signs don’t have our name on them, right? So they’re not our problem.”

“But this is where Monarchia is. What if the sign means something bad?”

“I don’t know what it means.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“Let’s go home and not worry about it, okay? I made a birthday cake yesterday!” Cera smiled and reached for my hand. 

I put it in my pocket. “My hands are cold and chapped. I need some lotion first.”

Cera nodded, and even now, I’m not sure she suspected anything at all.

***

But I did worry. I logged onto my Dad’s computer to do some research, and I didn’t like what I found. The forest was to be demolished. A commercial complex was to be put in its place—a place where there used to be pre-contact Indigenous villages, paleolithic camps, and ancient Lake Iriquois’ glacial shorelines. Farmers grew acres of corn, squash, and beans—the three sisters—and accomplished hunters caught perch and Atlantic salmon. 

In a strange turn, I didn’t feel the urge to tell Cera any of this. I flopped onto my bed so hard it sank, wondering if she’d care when I told her what was really happening. Monarchia was already my sister, and although I’d never truly invited her to be, I felt lost unless Cera was the third.

***

“There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Yes, there is! We can talk to our school and we can write letters to the mayor. We can at least try. Don’t you care about Monarchia?”

“Well, sure. But it’s just a place.”

“And am I just a person?”

Cera bit her lips. “Yes.”

And something occurred to me. It had been two months, and I hadn’t even told her my name. Nor had she asked.

“Hm. That makes sense,” I said coldly.

“Why?”

“You don’t even know my name.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Impossible. I never told you.”

“Rachel, I care about you. You’re my very best friend. But attachments only make hurt more hurtful, you know?” 

Only I would have noticed the thin film over her eyes just now. I remember wanting to shake my head firmly and clench my fists. I wanted to say the thirteen-year-old version of, “You’re right and wrong at the same time. If you care about me—or anybody past, present, and future—then you should care about a forest being demolished.” Yet, I was so afraid to lose her that I didn’t do or say anything. I just stood there, still on my skateboard, damp palms gripping the bark of a tree, soothed by how she mysteriously knew my name.

But by not doing or saying anything, you almost always lose people anyway.

***

I remember how they stole the forest in loops—like spirographs. It was cruel to mimic the motion of wind-swirled branches, and the dendrochronology of the little stump that mirrored our fingerprints. Cera and I met one final time before the privacy of tree coverage vanished. She hadn’t changed with the transition to fall in late October, and as the forest was deracinated, so was our friendship—flattened like sparkling water left out too long.

Cera had everything to say but what I hoped she would. But it turns out I didn’t need her to say much more; an overwhelming flutter of monarch butterflies appeared from behind a crane, creating an air cloud that, for a moment, didn’t smell like construction. And then they left for their three-thousand-mile journey to Mexico, in time for Día de Muertos. They’re one of the most poignant symbols of maturity, death, and rebirth. And Cera followed them.

From the edge of my driveway that evening, a new moon nowhere to be seen in the sky, the very last thing she said to me was, “I think you are a witch, indeed.” She smiled so brightly it hurt my eyes to look at her.

“Why?” I asked, unlocking my front door.

“You wear my eyes just below your ears.”

***

I couldn’t bear to go back after that. And neither did she, as far as I know. Twenty years later, the tiger’s eye teardrops are still my day-to-day earrings—a gift from a grandmother I never met. Like her, I continue to question if Cera was ever real. She was a grade older than me, so I didn’t usually pass her in the halls at school, but I never saw her again. Perhaps, subconsciously, I didn’t look hard enough. But I do look for her in everyone else—her love and lack weren’t mutually exclusive (I understand what this means now). I outgrew her, but, I’ve never outgrown the intimate friendship she gave me when I needed it most.

I need it now. We all do. 

I’m not thirteen anymore, and chances are you aren’t either. It’s cold approaching February—even colder approaching a Valentine’s Day amid so much isolation, violence, and crisis. I’m trying—rather desperately—to ask myself, “What does love look like—and what can it look like—right now? What do we need from each other?” It can begin like Cera’s. But it has to be more. We have to want more for one another. 

I’m struggling in this world like you—the economy, corrupt governments and leaders, climate catastrophes, human rights stabbed by the stroke of a pen, and so much more. Most days, I don’t know what to do. But what I do know is that intimate friendship is just as endangered as those monarchs and my childhood forest. Protecting it—and activating it as a gateway to community organizing—is to seek out new third spaces that don’t cost money, meet new people, and find collective care. Is it not a start to know what type of witch or fairy you are? Let’s be ones willing to healthily outgrow. Ones who remember not to forget.