Quizlet: The App That Saved My Abroad GPA

I forgot how to study? Or so I thought when IES Abroad Milan slid into midterms week.  I looked at my spirals and Google Documents filled with notes from my courses and slowly felt dread wash over me. I had been traveling nearly every weekend. Classes had been fun and engaging. But I had totally forgotten that studying for exams was, like, a thing. 

When you're studying abroad, its quite common to spend nearly every weekend of your experience bouncing around Europe, and oftentimes that bouncing usually happens on budget airlines, like Ryanair and Easyjet. These flights usually permit very small pieces of luggage, which cannot squeeze in all of your necessities, plus a laptop and other study materials. So, weekends usually don't seem to be productive. 

I was in a quandry, in the weeks leading up to midterms. I had booked my weekends solid: Florence, Venice, Rome, Dublin. These intense and colorful trips really weren't conducive to studying for those exams. I had vocabulary to learn, definitions to memorize, paintings and sculptures and dates and artist's names to study for art history. There was a lot to be done. 

Back home in the States, I would've set up shop in the corner of the library, with a venti White Chocolate Mocha, my laptop, study materials and elbow room, but none of that was going to happen on a Ryanair flight to Dublin, or a high speed train ride to Rome. 

Enter Quizlet. 

To the unfamiliar, Quizlet is a website and application that permits students to create virtual flash cards and study guides. Its an interactive program, that helps with word pronunciation, creates quizes and tests and games with the study material, and let's you go at your own pace. 

And the best part is, you can do it from anywhere in the world. 

My number one advice to everyone studying abroad: DOWNLOAD THE QUIZLET APP AND CLING TO IT AND NEVER LET IT GO.

Because of its mobility, Quizlet was what I was able to use to prep for my exams, quizzing myself as I waited for my bus to Milan airport, as I waited for my food at a pub in Dublin.

I swear it seems that the average study abroad college student spends a solid 40% of her or his time on either an airplane, train, bus, tram, or metro. That’s an incredible amount of hours that someone can’t be tucked into the library reviewing: but its also an incredible amount of hours to be using Quizlet, reviewing vocabulary and definitions and key concepts.

Art history exam? No worry, you can flip through images on quizlet while taking the metro in Prague!

3 hour train ride in France? You mean, 3 hour study session with my new best friend, QUIZLET!

When you create your flash cards, you can use the app without data or wifi, and thus, flipping htrough all of your study material is a breeze.

I shall end this blog post with a haiku:

Dear quizlet, my love,

Thank you for saving my grades.

I am so grateful.