My Favorite Mnemonic Device by Qualicia

My Favorite Mnemonic Device by Qualicia - January 2014 Scholarship Essay

College life revolves around studying,if someone were to ask me what college is about my answer would be studying. Studying is essential to understanding the material that you will eventually need for your grades and later when applying your knowledge to your field of choice. I have attended workshops, heard lectures and sat through freshman seminar, all of which stress the importance of studying. Of all the techniques that I have learned I came across my favorite in my senior year at Montclair State University in my cognition course.

The chapter was on memory and we were learning about the brain and how it stores information and that is when I found it, the device that I would use throughout my semester to help me retain, understand and later use the massive amount of reading material that I would eventually encounter. Creating a graph or web in heirarchal order was the most useful way for me to study my material. To utilize this "graph system" I would start with a blank sheet of paper. On this paper I would write down all the major vocabulary words or topics as headers and then from them I would branch out creating a wed of information around the main topic. As I did this I could see which concepts were related and how all of the information within a given chapter shared links between that in subsequent chapters.

I enjoyed using this method because I am the type of student who likes to talk to herself aloud as she studies. Verbalizing the material and coming up with my own real life examples was a great compliment to my web of information. With examples and something visual to guide my learning I was able to give myself twice the amount of chances to jog my memory during a test. Studying is truly an art in it's own special way that requires much creativity as well as trial and error. Throughout my college career I have studied in a multitude of ways, from taking my time to cramming but nothing can compare to the comfort I felt from studying in a way that allowed me to be both verbal while also getting the visual stimulation that a visual learner such as myself requires.

A mnemonic device is anything that assists or is intended to assist the memory. For me that device came in the form of something as simple as a web that allowed me to brainstorm as I learned.