Stop letting the summer months rob up hard-earned knowledge from the fall and spring.
Ever gotten back into a language or math class after summer break and had a brief moment of panic because everything felt completely unfamiliar?
Yeah, me too. This happened a lot when I was in grade school, and I (begrudgingly) realized over time that this experience was directly correlated with how much effort I put in over the summer to keep my skills sharp. Summers completely devoid of academic work, even if that work was just a quick practice problem or vocab refresh a couple days a week, created the greatest level of panic in the first couple weeks of the following school year.
Why panic? Because I realized that I had to re-learn things I had had (or felt I'd had) down pat at the end of the academic year. Assignments that were meant to bring past skills back to the forefront took two or three times as long because I was having to sift through months' worth of mental cobwebs and atrophied skills to get back up to speed. Though ultimately effective, the process was painful and stressful, and I realized there had to be a better way.
Holding on to What You Know
The key is to do enough to maintain your gains from the fall and spring without taxing yourself because, after all, it's summer, and other things are happening. As fitness enthusiasts will attest, it's significantly easier to maintain than it is to grow, so the effort required to hold on to what you've learned is manageable. A couple practice problems, a vocab refresh, or a verb conjugation a few times a week can be enough to keep your skills accessible in memory and ready for application and further development in the fall.
Why does this work? Most skills we learn don't remain the focus of classes and assignments long enough for them to become habitual, so there's an element of "use it or lose it" to the accessibility of those memories. By using quick exercises to keep those skills and processes front of mind, we help mitigate their fading into the depths of memory and bypass the effortful process of pulling them up from those depths once again.
What Subjects Should You Prioritize?
There are a few things to look out for as you decide which classes and disciplines to make part of your daily summer routine.
- Multi-Part or Sequential Courses. Continuing in a higher level of a discipline that you took previously? Keep those foundational skills sharp over the summer so you're ready to hit the ground running with new materials and concepts.
- Vocab-Heavy Courses. Whether you're taking a foreign language or something like anatomy, it's important occasionally to utilize the vocab you gained in previous classes that is likely to remain relevant in future courses or your desired career. Going through a couple flashcard collections each week and practicing the ones that are tricky means you won't have to spend time relearning what you already studied in earlier classes.
- Courses that Build on Foundational Skills. Even if you haven't taken a class in a given discipline before, there may still be content to review to make your transition as smooth as possible. For example, most astronomy courses require some algebra skills, so if you haven't taken a math class in a while, it could be helpful to brush up on those skills.
There's no problem with adding review or prep for even more courses beyond these, but these are the bare minimum you should cover.
But I Got an A...Do I Really Need to Review?
The short answer for most people is yes.
Even if you had a great grasp of a concept and earned top grades when you were in the class, the chances are that, without continued use of that material, you're going to start to lose it. Attending class, completing homework assignments, and preparing for assessments during the course itself keeps learned information fresh and accessible. Without these cues after the course ends, we may not independently use the information enough to keep it front of mind.
Is it possible to get back into tip-top academic shape without reviewing? Sure, but it may take more effort. Every day that passes that we don't use a skill or practice recalling a memory, that material fades a little further in the recesses of our minds. The further it recedes, the more effortful it becomes to bring that information to the forefront again.
Bridging the Gap
The reality is that effort is going to have to take place at some point to keep older course material fresh. You can usually get by with smaller effort and shorter overall time if you keep on top of things over the summer, but that approach also requires a decent amount of self-discipline. The choice is ultimately yours, but I always found it to be significantly easier, calmer, and better for my overall memory to work a little bit at a time over the summer versus trying to cram in review at the beginning of the fall.