ATPL Study Tips and Advice
These items are what I found helpful for my study toolkit.
It will take a little while for you to find what works best for you, trial and error in taking class notes and best ways to retain the information but the main focus stays the same, practise, practise, practise!
Static Whiteboards are a MUST. I can't recommend these enough. Our flat was filled with these, a subject per whiteboard.
Perfect for a constant reminder, quizzing yourself and others and writing up notes/images that will help you remember the information. I even had one up in the bathroom...It works trust me :)
Revision Cards are great for testing yourself. For example, we would do a quiz/revision on a subject and anything we kept forgetting we would write on the cards and quiz each other in the evenings or even just ourselves. They're perfect little cards that you can carry around and great before school tests to go over important equations or things you struggle to remember.
I recommend having a play around with using revision cards but I'd also say not to waste too much time writing too many of them. I learnt that it was time-consuming so I ended up using them just for key facts/equations that I needed to engrave in my brain.
Coloured Pens/Highlighter are perfect for visual learners. It helps to make your notes look much more inviting and focuses the eyes on the important facts. Also looking back on your notes makes it much easier to find what you're looking for.
Little things like Meteorology lapse rates, Principles of Flight diagrams, Engine spools will all stand out and I personally found they're remembered much easier by colour coding.
A few other things you'll need is...
Notebooks. I got one book for every subject and just took in the ones I needed for lessons every day which I found worked well. Some students prefer buying these notebooks, taking in one book then putting it all in subject folders at home.
Mechanical Pencils. A must for Module two (Flight planning, General Navigation, Performance etc). Used on maps/charts/performance caps etc.
Folders. I used only one of these and put any stray paperwork in them. I didn't even fill one folder personally.
Pens. You'll need many pens, but also it's ideal if they are comfortable ones as you'll be doing a lot of note-taking!
Advice
Ground school is a tough and stressful time as you'll hear in my Ground School blog. It is a rollercoaster of emotions but it honestly goes super quick, before you know it you'll be getting your last results through! Try and enjoy the experience because it really can be just as fun, laughing with your instructors and classmates, getting to see your classmates and others in ground school every day, the structure of lessons and learning about aviation!
Everyone study's differently but I found that having a study buddy or two that we could run over things, quizzing each other (testing each other massively helped me!) and even just to know that others are feeling how you are was what got me my grades.
Don't be afraid to ask your instructors. We would stay behind with them, Teams meetings/messages if needed and our school were great at that. We would always get a reply with so much more than we asked, they really did want to see smash our exams and they were a huge part of our success. That's what they're there for! (Shoutout to our amazing theoretical instructors, we miss you!
Make a study plan. If you work well with a plan then I highly recommend making yourself a study schedule. Eg... 4:10 pm finish school, 5 pm Study Meteorology, 6 pm tests on Met, 7 pm Dinner, 8 pm study Instruments, 9 pm test on instruments, 10 pm look over previous class notes for tomorrow lessons, 10:30 pm relax and bed.
Revise in a different place. We used to revise on a Saturday in the library and found it worked wonders! It was a perfect learning environment with no distractions, different surroundings and meant when we went back home to our flat that we could fully relax.
Eat well. It is very important to fuel your poor little brain. It doesn't need to take long but try your best to eat as well as you can as it will make a huge difference.
TAKE A BREAK. A very important one, finding the balance for this is what I struggled with the most. I found it very hard to take breaks as you think you're missing out on valuable study time. Even if it's 10 minutes every hour it will allow you to work much more efficiently! Mealtimes try to use this as a good long break which you can recuperate.
If you're due to start ground school feel free to ping me a message. I know how daunting it is to start the big journey but it's also super exciting.
I'm sure there is more that I could cover so please let me know if you have any questions in the section below and I can add it on! :)
Ashleigh x
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