Qigong: A Student Friendly Practice

 Below is a guest post from CCV Student Eleanor Kinsey.
So your friend tells you her grandmother is doing Qigong (pronounced “chee-gung”) every morning because it helps her manage her pain. You say, “Oh cool,” and pause a moment, wondering whether you really want to admit that you have no idea what she's talking about. Finally, you ask, “Is that like yoga?”

Though Qigong is growing in popularity, many people still don't understand what Qigong is all about. Looking it up on the internet, people find pictures that range from classrooms full of elderly people with their arms raised to what look like old scrolls depicting Chinese monks in various poses. Many people think that it looks like Tai Chi, and in a way, they would be correct. Tai Chi is the martial arts form of Qigong, a practice with as many teaching varieties as yoga.

Three Study Strategies

Below is a guest post from the author of Community College Success, Isa Adney. You can connect with her on Twitter @IsaAdney or Facebook.com/CCSuccess.

Ask Isa: 3 study strategies that helped me get 100's on exams

From the Ask Isa inbox:

Dear Isa,

This semester has started and my classes are pretty hard already. I looked at my syllabus for each class and I notice there are a lot of days where I have two or three tests from each class on the same day. 

How do you manage to study WISELY for tests that are packed on the same day? What type of study habit do I need to go through? I've never been in a situation like this.

Sincerely,

Too Many Tests

Dear Too Many Tests,

This is a great question to ask - as exams can often fall in the same day, especially at the end of the semester. 

Below are the three things I did to manage many tests. 

I became a master test taker - me, who did NOT get a good SAT score. But I often got 100's on my tests using the methods below. I really hope they help you as much as they helped me - because one of the best feelings in the world is approaching test day with confidence. 

1) Study every day
There wasn't a day in college that I didn't study. And no, I didn't spend hours and hours in the library. And yes I did have a social life. When I say "study" I don't mean staring at your textbook for hours. That doesn't work. 

Instead, I developed a habit of getting to every class at least 10 minutes early. During that time I would review the notes I'd taken so far in that class, as well as scan the reading.  

During these short reviews if there was something that wasn't easy for me to grasp I'd make a note of it and schedule time during my professor's office hours to ask about the concept.

That kind of studying never took more than one hour each day, and it made studying for the exams the week  before test week almost feel too easy.

2) Meet with a study group
Study groups aren't for everyone, but they were huge for me. The biggest mistake students make with study groups is thinking they will get major "studying" done during that time.