What is a liberal arts college? It is a college that puts an emphasis on degrees in liberal arts fields such as humanities and social sciences. It is common for liberal art schools to require students to take certain general education courses regardless of their major. For example, Pomona College requires students to take courses in anthropology, public policy analysis, or sociology in order to complete their Social Institutions and Human Behavior requirements. Differences of

Do you find it hard to sometimes concentrate when doing long hours of work or for a hard test? A huge solution that helps with this is listening to study music. Studies have shown that music has so many benefits when studying, but it has to be the right type of music. Below are the types of playlists that we love at Personalized Prep! Lo-Fi Study Playlist A newer genre of music that is good for studyi ng is lo-fi music. Also called “low fidelity music”, it is music that is p

Week 7 of the Prep Report! Main Story: Don't forget to enjoy your summer!

By: Celeste Calabrisi Today, everything is about oneself. Whether it be as simple as making sure you’re the best-looking person in the group picture or as complicated as making a decision that will benefit only yourself, people tend to care only about their own well-being. Now, I will not go into whether this is the best kind of behavior. Rather, I am going to point out how school is typically where that behavior falls short. Students are often more concerned about their soci

Week 6 of the Prep Report! Main Story: OC Kids' Fair

By: Mason Weupe Now that we have strategies to record and review information, when should we? It is not good enough to study material one time and then never revisit the topic. Repetition is necessary for allowing the information to truly solidify in the mind. The technique I will introduce today is called spaced repetition. This is a well-researched concept that essentially says it is advantageous to memory if one reviews material on a semi-regular basis. For example, the ma

By: Mason Weupe Now to the juicy stuff. These next two installments will teach you techniques that may help you become a top student studying half as much as everyone else. I do not promise miracles, nor am I saying there will be no work involved, but if you are efficient with your studying, you will be surprised at how much you can learn with less time and effort. Before I continue, I must say everyone is unique and these techniques may not fully resonate with you. Like with

Week 5 of The Prep Report! Main Story: Grad Gift Bags

By: Mason Weupe Now that we have learned some techniques on how to prepare for class, how do we record information? Take that notebook or tablet/laptop you have and prepare a table of contents. This entails numbering the pages of your notebook and leaving 2-3 pages at the beginning of the notebook for the table of contents. For virtual notes, organize your documents by setting the name of the document as the subject of the course and the date of the lecture and creating a fol

By: Mason Weupe Welcome to the first installment of the series! Here we will learn some techniques to help us conquer the classroom. The idea here is if we take the time to pay attention and effectively record information in the classroom, (we have to be there anyway) then we do not have moments days later in which we are wondering what even happened in class or if we even showed up. First, let's have something to record notes ready to go. For example, a notebook with the tit

By: Alena You Types of Journaling Many people journal for many different reasons. One type of journaling is a mind dump . When you experience feelings or thoughts that are difficult to process or feel complex, mind-dumping is an excellent way to release those thoughts and process them on your own time. For example, when I first failed my SAT and ACT, I started journaling my thoughts down. It was helpful to keep track of my thoughts and feelings. It is essential to know how e