Studying while working: going back to school and work-study

How much time can you study when you work?

Start from your week as it is. For seven days, note the moments that are truly free (commutes, lunch break, evenings, weekend) and your energy level at each one. Twenty minutes after a day of work and two hours on a Sunday morning are not for the same tasks.

Then find out what the training expects. The DAEU, for example, includes at least four subjects and 225 hours of teaching according to the Ministry of Higher Education; personal work comes on top. In a work-study program, the rhythm between school and company changes how you spread your study: ask your training center for the calendar at the start of the year.

Finally, set a goal you can keep. A typical week of 4 to 5 hours is a starting point to adjust: a four-hour plan kept every week is better than a ten-hour plan abandoned after two weeks.

What can you do in a fifteen-minute commute?

Short sessions suit tasks with no setup: a set of flashcards, five quiz questions, a definition to recite, a diagram to redraw from memory. Prepare the content the evening before, because on the bus you will have neither the time nor the energy to look for what to review.

Spreading work over several sessions helps memory. A review of 317 experiments (Cepeda et al., 2006) confirms the value of spacing out your reviews and shows that the most effective gap between two sessions grows with the time left before the exam. Four small reviews during the week therefore serve memorization better than a single block on Sunday.

Keep the long sessions for what takes concentration: understanding a new concept, doing exercises, writing. As a guide, here is what each length allows:

• 5 minutes: a set of flashcards
• 15 minutes: a quiz of five to ten questions and reading the corrections
• 45 minutes: a new concept and a practice exercise
• An hour and a half or more: a past exam paper or an assignment under real conditions

What does a typical week of 4 to 5 hours look like?

Here is one possible breakdown, to adapt: a quarter of an hour of flashcards or quiz on five commutes during the week, two evenings of three quarters of an hour to understand and practice, and one session of an hour and a half on the weekend for an assignment or a past paper. The total comes to about four and a quarter hours.

Each slot gets a task decided the day before. On a tired evening, spending a quarter of an hour choosing what to do is enough to empty the session. Keep a list of blocks per subject and simply take the next one.

In a work-study program, adapt the week to the calendar. During the periods at the company, mostly keep the short sessions so you do not lose the thread; during the periods at school, go over the day the same evening with ten minutes of questions. If you use Fichea, the site works in your phone's browser with your account and an internet connection, and your flashcards are reviewed there according to spaced repetition (FSRS algorithm).

How do you stay regular when the week goes off the rails?

Plan a minimal version of each session. On an evening when everything ran over, ten minutes of flashcards count: they maintain the habit and the memory of the chapters already covered. A simple rule to try: never let two days in a row go by with nothing.

Attach the session to a fixed moment rather than to motivation: when you get on the train, after dinner, before opening your messages. Prepare your material in advance so that starting requires no decision.

Reserve a catch-up slot every week, for example half an hour on Sunday. If you fall more than two weeks behind, cut the plan down instead of abandoning it, and talk to your tutor or your training center if the load becomes unmanageable.

I never learned how to study: where do I start?

The basics come down to one move: after reading a section, close the material and try to recall what it contained (definitions, steps, diagram), then compare. This is called active recall. It takes more effort than rereading and gives a more accurate idea of what you know.

Keep study sheets for what you need to find quickly: formulas, definitions, the outline of a method. For the rest, test yourself more than you write. With Fichea, you can import material as a PDF, a Word file (text only) or a photo depending on your plan, then turn it into a study sheet, a corrected quiz or flashcards depending on the included features; always reread the result with the original material.

Also ask your training center for past exam papers or corrected assignments. They show concretely what is expected of you: the type of questions, the level of detail, the length of the answers.

Frequently asked questions