CAPER TIMES

In this issue...

- ProletariART
- New Caper Radio Schedule
- Studying Understanding vs. Remembering

Issue #11 - March 2, 2018

Studying Understanding vs. Remembering (Connor Taylor) - Arts

As university students, one of the things a lot of us struggle with the most is studying.
Largely, at least in my own experience, this is due to studying being very monotonous and
boring. I wish that was the problem I was able to address and give forth a possible solution to,
but sadly it’s a problem I haven’t figured out how to solve. However, what I do want to discuss
is how people study, and what the best approach to studying for you might be depending on
the subject matter you’re studying. Now, you might be wondering what has possessed me to
write an article about study methods. My answer to the question is quite simple; I see people
time and time again lament over their marks even though they study for hours and hours.
One likely culprit of this is that they aren’t using study methods that are effective, and instead
are using study methods they’re comfortable with. This is a fatal error, because often times the
study method you may have used in high school or otherwise in the past may not be applica-
ble to your current situation, especially if you’re a STEM major.
So what are these methods I am talking about? Well most of the methods are those that
deal in memorization. Memorizing information is something that I find many people try to
do, and attempting to memorize things is what ultimately can lead you to waste your time
studying. Of course this doesn’t apply to all courses, because sometimes you do just have to
remember specific details. However, most of the time memorization is unnecessary, instead
the focus should be on understanding the information. This may sound obvious, and you
may even think that by memorizing you understand the information you’re trying to learn.
This isn’t true, however, instead of learning to recite information, remembering how to solve a
specific problem, or recalling the exact reasons something occurred, it is much more produc-
tive to understand the mechanisms and events that occur behind those things. For example, if
you are looking to learn calculus and are struggling with a specific type of problem you may
be tempted to look up the solution and apply the relevant formulas to questions similar to
the one you just struggled with. There, now you can solve those types of problems. The issue
with this line of reasoning is, if you decide to just remember how to solve the problem instead
of understanding why that method works, you are required to remember how to identify the
problem as well as remember the steps you must take to solve the problem (and anyone that
has taken a calculus course will tell you, some problems can become very cumbersome). If
you focus instead on understanding the concepts that are relevant to the problem you are
trying to solve, no longer will you have to remember the steps to solve the problem. Since you
understand the problem, you will be able to deduce the steps by your understanding of the
concept.

 At this point you may be thinking that focusing on understanding over remembering
is only applicable to STEM subjects, but I would disagree with that way of thinking. Many
times in English, and in history classes you are taught specific events and reasons for those
events occurring, which does of course require you to remember a few things, but not as
much as you may think. What you may attempt instead is to understand the time period, as
opposed to remembering the things that happened in that time period.
This will again enable you to deduce the major events of the time and from those
events you will be able to determine the themes of the time period. If nothing else, by having
at least an understanding of the time period you should be able to bullshit your way to an
answer if you really can’t recall the relevant information.
How does one understand a concept though, isn’t that done by remembering it? The
answer to this question is yes and no, naturally at first you will have to remember some
specific things. But, when studying, breaking down the concepts into easy to understand
bits is what you should be focused on. After all, you don’t truly understand a topic until you
can explain it to a child, or at least a high school student. Practicing breaking concepts down
into ways you can easily teach to others is one of the most effective methods to create a deep
understanding of any material you’re trying to learn.
If you find yourself in the situation where studying doesn’t seem to be working for
you, I hope this article may help you change your study methods from trying to remember
all of the information you’re given to trying to understand the information you’re given. I
will once again say, the most effective way to do this is to break the concepts down, and if
you can teach those concepts to others. It will help you immensely to comprehend whatever
it might be that you’re trying to learn! Now if only we could figure out how to make study-
ing a bit more fun…
 Highland Arts Theatre
visit their website for contact info and to learn about more upcoming
shows- they have a student discount!
http://www.highlandartstheatre.com/
Hello Everyone,
Our annual spring event is just over a week away!

TICKETS:

Tickets will be on sale outside Caper Convenience starting TODAY and every day from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
(and 11:30 – 2:30 on March 6th).

If these times do not work for you to pop by the ticket table, I am happy to get tickets to you around campus –
just pop me an email!

ENTERTAINMENT

Our entertainment for the evening includes some very special guests and familiar faces in our CBU commu-
nity! Dr. Chris McDonald; Associate Professor, Ethnomusicology, Dr. Janice Tulk, Senior Research Associate,
Purdy Crawford Chair in Aboriginal Business Studies and their talented friends Johnny Hawkins and “Red”
Mike MacDonald will be providing the evening’s entertainment with sound provided by Christopher Jones
from the Digitization Lab here on campus.

FOOD & BEVERAGE

As always food will be made by some of our BHTM students under the direction of Chef Daniel Francois.
Beverage samples this year include wines, a sparkling wine welcome and our signature cocktail is a “Bathtub
Gin Rickey” – a classic cocktail from the 1920s and a play on the fact that spirits (gin being most common)
were homemade during prohibition. Sometimes the gin jugs were large to fit under the sink tap and the water
added would come from the bathtub.

PARTNERSHIP:

In Partnership with Career Services, we are also promoting this event to Job Fair Employers who will be com-
ing to campus for the March 7th CBU Job Fair.
We are also thrilled to have the Sydney Credit Union as an event sponsor for the second year as well!

FACEBOOK CONTEST (WIN 2 FREE TICKETS)

Share our event on your Facebook page and be entered to win 2 free event tickets! We are doing the draw
tomorrow morning!

https://www.facebook.com/events/2141725779391620/

The support from colleagues on campus and in the community is tremendous and greatly appreciated!

Get your tickets today! Remember - $5 discount on advance tickets!

- Stephanie MacPherson
It’s Pisces Season, My Darlings (Holly Schaller) - Arts
With Pisces season in full blow you are probably feeling all of the little extra emotions that
you’ve been holding in since last year’s Pisces season. So get your tissues ready and enjoy this
playlist of all the songs you can scream/cry/sing to! Let it out!

1. Helena
My Chemical Romance (Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, 2004)

2. I Will Always Love You

Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard Soundtrack, 1992)

3. The Mixed Tape

Jack’s Mannequin (Everything in Transit, 2005)

4. On My Own
Hedley (Hedley, 2005)

5. Wicked Games
The Weeknd (House of Balloons, 2011)

6. Beautiful Soul
Jesse McCartney (Beautiful Soul, 2004)

7. Black
Pearl Jam (Ten, 1991)

8. The End of All Things

Panic! At The Disco (Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die, 2013)

9. Somebody Else
The 1975 (ILIWYSFYASBYSUOI, 2016)

10. She Ain’t You

New Hollow (She Ain’t You, 2014)
 A Bite of Asia Restaurant
Located at 80 Dorchester Street, Sydney, NS
B1N 5ZL
Tele: 902-270-7777
CBU Art Gallery Presents: ProletariART: The People’s Exhibition

Holly Schaller (Editor-in-Chief)

The newest exhibition opens at CBU’s Art Gallery; ProletariART is an annual exhi-
bition that showcases art from people of all ages an experience levels. It is an exhi-
bition by the people for the people. Emily Frith gave us a tour of the gallery and we
were incredibly impressed with all of the local talent. The piece shown below, Bust-
ing Boundaries (2016), by Kayla M. Cormier, is an interactive needle felting piece.
The exhibition runs from February 23rd – April 20th 2018. I definitely recommend
heading over to the Art Gallery to see some inspiring work and lots of creativity!

Remember you can also check out the CBU AG online collection at:
http://cbuagcollection.ca/
Updated Schedule for Caper Radio
 Your CaperTimes Staff
Editor in Chief - Holly Schaller
Layout Editor/Social Media Manager - Ben Forsyth
Arts and Lifestyle Reporters - Connor Taylor & Riley Hill

Stay tuned for more in the future!

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