4 Factors to Consider When Deciding Where to Study

You may not be an aerospace engineering major, but choosing the right location to study can be as difficult as rocket science for some of us. Students study at home, in the library, at coffee shops, and several other various locations you might not even think of. Where we do our reading can induce concentration or distract us from what we need to do, so picking the best place to study can be just as important as choosing to study in the first place.

Other factors we should all take into account include temperature, what clothes we wear, and who is around us. If you think carefully about all of these things and find out what works best for you, you will get more out of study sessions and make better grades when it comes time to show what you’ve learned on your own.

Noise/Activity Level

Every person is different when it comes to which environment is best for learning. Some of us can concentrate just as well when there are loud noises going on around us while some people need complete silence to focus on what’s in front of them. The first step in picking out a good study location is to figure out how much activity can be going on around you without breaking your concentration.

Photo Credit: flickr.com / MC Quinn

Many of us like to have music playing while we study. This isn’t bad for everyone, but studying to music must be done carefully for two main reasons. First is the obvious fact that studying to music can be distracting. If you hear your favorite song come on will you be singing along or otherwise distracted by it?

A blog post by Western Governors University listed music as the first factor in an article titled 11 Ways Your Study Environment Affects Productivity saying “research has shown that studying with headphones on tends to decrease memory and information retention, while background music can be a study aid.” So when you pick your music to study with, you should turn down the volume and leave it playing quietly through speakers rather than putting in headphones.

Another reason that studying to music can be a problem is that as we memorize information we often create an association between that information and what we hear at the time. Most professors won’t allow you to listen to music as you take a test so it wouldn’t be helpful if the material you study requires you to hear a certain song to recall it.

Home vs. Out

One big question we all face is whether we can study effectively in our own rooms at home or whether we should go somewhere else. Some people will do just fine studying at home but others won’t.

A page of studying advice published by the Advising & Learning Assistance Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute says, “For the room to “work” for a student, the student must know if they have the characteristics to study in their room.”

Among these characteristics are how organized a student is about studying and how easily he or she can be distracted by other things they would want to do. Sometimes going to a library can be helpful because we know it to be the place to study and we won’t try to do anything else. But if your room is a place to sleep, watch movies, and have fun, then studying there might be difficult.

Temperature

Temperature is obviously something we should take into account, but maybe not in the way you’d think of first. Some people prefer warmer temperatures while others prefer cold so there is a matter of personal preference in selecting where you’ll be comfortable, but the one thing that’s equally important for everyone is finding a room with a consistent temperature.

An article from Western Carolina University on study environments pointed out that “while you cannot often control the temperature of the room that you are in, try to find a place with a fairly consistent temperature.”

You can brave the cold if you wear extra clothing and dress lightly if you’re going somewhere warm, but if you have to switch between layers of clothing while you study it’s going to be hard to maintain concentration.

Smell

The last factor that could make or break a study environment is something most people probably don’t think of, but it can make or break your quality of studying and how well you retain information. Smells can help or hurt your memory and also may create a distraction if you smell something that gets your attention.

As pointed out by this page from psychology.about.com, smell is very closely linked with memory. Picking somewhere with unusual smells could be harmful to your studying by taking your attention away from what you’re doing but picking the right smell could help you if you plan to have that smell around when you take the test you’re preparing for.

There are countless factors that should go into how you pick a study location and these are just a few of them. Just don’t let yourself get stuck in one spot all the time unless you’ve found it to work perfectly. If you’d like to know more about picking a study location, take this quiz from Virginia Tech concerning study environment analysis. Good luck finding the right location to get your studying done.