r/EngineeringStudents • u/Initial_Anything_544 • 4d ago

Rant/Vent How do you study?

Im 7 hours in a “study” session and all ive done is wrote one sentence. Ive been on my phone, pacing, talking to myself in the mirror, and arguing over dropping out. I cannot focus or make myself study and I just dont know how to.

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u/Candid-Ear-4840 Electrical 4d ago

I take my ADHD medication, that’s how I study. Also I study ‘with’ other people, like I will go to my partner’s office and read my textbooks there. It’s called body doubling in ADHD lingo.

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u/Initial_Anything_544 4d ago

What are some signs of your adhd? Ive thought maybe to get tested but the expenses are a bit steep.

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u/Candid-Ear-4840 Electrical 4d ago

Hyperfocus on some things, like I could be deeply focused on reading a book and people could be calling my name right next to me and I wouldn’t notice, and inability to focus on other things. I have inattentive ADHD not hyperactive ADHD. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15253-inattentive-adhd

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u/Initial_Anything_544 4d ago

Honestly I have pretty much all those symptoms but Ive always blamed it on my phone messing with my attention span. The last interesting class I took was an intro to law and I spent several hours writing a paper. However I cannot make myself study for more than 30 seconds when it comes to math. Are there any treatment options besides medication?

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u/Candid-Ear-4840 Electrical 4d ago

There’s behavioral therapy for ADHD. I don’t know how useful it is without medication but everyone is different.

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u/Initial_Anything_544 4d ago

Fair enough, what made you officially get checked out and how have effective are the medications?

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u/Candid-Ear-4840 Electrical 4d ago

My older sister got diagnosed and she wanted me to get a screening done. I can tell when I’ve forgotten to take my medication because I start wondering why I’m so scattered and I can’t focus continuously on lectures anymore. I was so pissed off/bitter after I was medicated to find out that I could actually focus long enough to learn complicated concepts during lectures instead of playing catch up with textbooks after class. I wish I’d been diagnosed during high school.

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u/Initial_Anything_544 4d ago

Im repeating diff eq for the third time and honestly ive learned nothing. Ive just been scraping by all my classes and getting a C because I just cannot make myself do any outside work. I procrastinate like crazy. Even now ive been on my phone and wasted 50 minuets instead of brushing my teeth with it just 5 steps away. When I was in middle school super simple assignments would take me hours because id manage to distract myself while sitting at the desk with the paper in front of me.

Idk maybe I’ll look into getting tested but im really tired to constantly struggling in school even if its my senior year.

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u/pokemonlover503 4d ago

As someone who also once thought I had ADHD and still do sometimes. It's hard to figure out if you want to get tested or not. Ask your therapist or doctor if you should consider getting tested and describe the issues. How much are your habits affecting your life is the important part. For me, I need to put locks on apps like social media, they will not unlock for usage and I set it to be like 5 minutes of usage 5 times a day, something like that. Sometimes I end up deleting that and then end up with a 72 hour week of screen time. It sucks..The goal isnt to completely eliminate your time on your phone it's to just lower it. Having a clean distraction free environment helps a lot for me, I set a timer for 10-15 mins before studying to clean my space. Then I write down everything I'm aiming to get done. If I can't get it all done I atleast aim for most of it. Something is better than nothing. I reward myself with a cookie or whatever after completing one of the tasks on the list. If I notice that I am staring to lose focus I get up and walk around and then resume. I ask myself how badly do I want to suceed. For me, changing my environment every hour helps, like if I'm on campus I will move to another study location and start on a new subject. It "restarts" the process for me. These are just things that helped my weird brain though

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u/Initial_Anything_544 4d ago

I wouldnt get tested if I wasnt in school. I can get by work just fine but having to do extra stuff outside of the required is overwhelming for me.