Building a Network Around Learning: The Magic in Co-Studying

11 Mar 2025

Are you stuck alone in the library until late night every day, wishing you could be spending quality time with your friends instead? The constant labour of studying, reading, writing, and revising in university can be really tiring and get repetitive quite fast. Especially during exams, you might find yourself isolated with your laptop and notes from morning till evening, hoping to get through the season as fast as possible so you can be social again. How about bringing the socialising into your study routine? Grinding is great from time to time and, yes, very productive, but isn’t productivity made better when you enjoy the process not just the outcome?

Co-studying is an excellent way to stay productive while creating a supportive learning environment. It promotes consistent study habits, increases motivation, and often the quality of your learning as it holds the great opportunities in terms of your enjoyment and active learning (which is the best kind of learning – speaking scientifically and from years of personal experience). I only really started implementing this more frequently in my second and last year of Bachelor’s, and I wish I had started sooner. Co-studying with my friends has taught me that often an exhausting afternoon of reading and writing can be turned around completely into a fun, uplifting study session.

Co-studying with your friend can take various forms. Very popular and great if you prefer silent study is ‘Body Doubling’ – basically working alongside someone else on your own work. This way, you can stay in deep focus mode yet still enjoy the company of a friend. I personally find this very motivating and it’s something I’ve been implementing a lot into my study routine with great results. I usually arrange a session with my friend and then we time block and go on breaks together or get a treat afterwards to add extra encouragement or reward for our hard work!

If you are feeling especially unmotivated, try the pomodoro technique and take a short walk together around the campus during your break. You can also move the whole study session into a cosy coffee shop for a change of scenery and catch up with your friend before you start working. This can also be a fun way to try out different spots around the city and still be productive!

Organising study groups is a great way to study for the same subject with your classmates. If you have a test coming up, you can revise the course material together, filling knowledge gaps, creating flash cards, and doing mock exams to really implement active learning into your preparation. You can try peer teaching where you take turns explaining the concepts from class material to each other, deepening your understanding in a fun, engaging way. You could also hold a weekly practice or problem-solving session, creating a sustainable environment for improvement, or meet-up after class to review and reinforce the concepts you just learned.

Even if all of your friends have different assignments and subjects to work on, you can still co-study, motivating each other just by sharing the process of learning. This is like Body Doubling but in a group form. You can make it into a routinely meet-up with tea and coffee at someone’s place or book one of the Group Study Rooms in the Boole Library. You can also hold online study groups with friends from other universities!

Peer Review counts into this too. Exchanging essays and assignments with your friends to get constructive feedback is an excellent exercise in improving your academic skills and gaining perspective on your work. Even if your friend is in a different field than you are, they can help you spot any grammatical mistakes and assess the clarity of your expression. In turn, read your friend’s work and provide feedback to return the favour. This will also allow you to see how their approach differs from yours.

Generally, co-studying is very adaptable so whatever it is you are tackling in university, you can turn it into quality time with your friends and enhance your productivity at the same time. This keeps you accountable and changes up your routine so that you don’t feel stuck in a rut and neglect your own personal needs. Happy studying!