Intro

For my first post I want to address an important aspect which can avoid a lot of trouble for any kind of student during their whole academic path. Recently I’ve had a discussion about group projects with a fellow. We talked about how much trouble we could have avoided, if we would have had met reliable colleagues at the early stage of our study time and stayed in touch or worked as a study partner together. I know this is pretty self explanatory but I want to point out this problem because I had so much trouble during my university life and this could have been avoided. In this post I want to illustrate the problem of studying alone. My intention is to prevent you from trying to get through your study time by yourself.

I think most of you can relate to this kind of situation. For some classes at your university you have to work in groups or teams. If you don’t have any colleagues you can work with, you get a team or a partner assigned and then the usual ‘I hope my partner or group is reliable’ thinking comes into your mind. I think most of the students can relate to this situation.

The pain of studying alone

I want to adress some aspects why trying to survive your studies without any partner is fatal.

The most crucial aspect are group works. If you don’t know any group member, you have to pray that your partners are reliable. Reliability is the fundament of any kind of team or group work. When you have any study partner, you can at least count on him. You know his skill sets and what his work ethics are. When you haven’t built any network and you get assigned to a group, you have to pray that your partner is reliable.

Often comes the time where you have several questions or problems that pop up successively. When you don’t have a fellow, you have to post multiple times in student forums or send multiple emails. This process can be really annoying and also time consuming annoying. Especially pinpointing problems is really challenging because you don’t have the essential different point of view to locate the problem.

There comes a time during your studies where your motivation reaches an all time low and you want to quit. It is quite hard to recharge your motivation. It would be easier, if you have motivated colleagues who cheer someone up. If you don’t have the willingness to nudge yourself, the chances are high that the only option is dropping out.

Conclusion

As you can see you can try to study alone and be the lone wolf. But I would not recommend this practice. I know it takes some time and maybe some failures to find the ideal partners or groups but the added value is far greater. If you find people who you get along with, try to stay in touch with these persons. Reliability, helping hands and motivating are some aspects that enhances your student life and also accelerates your study time.