Published on 12, July, 2020
I found it really difficult to concentrate during university lectures and found myself having to re-teach everything to myself in my own time. I'm going into 3rd year maths next month and I was just wondering if anyone had any tips? We have a pretty heavy lecture timetable with us having more lectures in one day than most of my friends have an entire week, and the lecturers were talking about adding an extra 3 hrs per week for 3rd years this year so I think I really need some help.
The psychologist who diagnosed me said that I especially struggle with taking information in when it is given to me verbally (hence difficulties in lectures). I was also recently diagnosed with ADHD if that gives you any more insight into my situation.
I'm pretty tight financially, and applying for DSA has been a bit of a nightmare (plus friends I have who have DSA have said it's been pretty useless).
Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks :)
Well I believe having difficulty taking a lot of information at once can be something of an ADHD issue. If independent study is working better for you I would put more of my energy into that rather than worry about absorbing every detail of the lecture.
I would say as a reasonable adjustment for your ADHD your lecturers should be providing notes of the lectures. In maths making course notes available online is pretty standard practice but not everybody does it.
I would make good friends with the recommended reading list of the course. In my experience textbooks often explain things better than lecture notes and they tend to be good at what the other one is bad at so if you hold the lecture notes side-by-side with a good textbook often you get a much better picture of what’s going on.
having done a maths degree I understand that you get a lot of lectures and they’re often clustered together. it can be exhausting and it really drains your energy. I remember having six lectures in a row right across lunchtime without any breaks one year. All I can recommend is be a bit tough about carving out time for yourself. If you need to cheat and bring some food or drink into the lecture theatres that’s just what you’ve got to do.