Getting my license?

[Ashley Hines]

Hello again, Bigger Pockets Family.
I am taking my 63 hour pre-licensure class, online. I suppose if it were in a classroom I would be more engaged, but its not. The majority of the material is reading. Oh, and then some more reading (smile). My question is, how do you stay focused and how do you learn anything?
I find that I'm able to breeze through the units, but I can't retain anything I've read because its so much!
Anyone have a study method they'd like to share?

[Chris H.]

Hello again Ashley,

Congrats on working towards your license! I took my last 3 classes online as well, and I found myself to be in the same situation as you in regards to staying focused.

There are several ways you can tackle the course material. You could continue the way you are, read the bare minimum to try to pass the exam, or you could try the way I undertook it.

For me, and most classes, a lot of the information is filler. I am sure some people and subjects would disagree (math/engineering/sciences), however with real estate I found it so. What I would do is create a general outline of the chapter or course in a word document, and would fill in the necessary information which I found relevant. Each chapter is broken up by subheadings and other markings (such as roman numerals), and they usually have the definitions bolded. I would read, and try to summarize each subheading, and define each vocab word I came across. You can usually skim (or speed read) most of the filler, like when they tell stories, and then slow down and/or reread the important information. At the end of the book/course, you have your condensed study guide ready to take to the final/practice before the real estate exam.

I usually spent maybe 30 minutes a day, or 3-5 hours a week. It all adds up, and isn't too much of a hassle or commitment to hold onto. This of course depends on how quickly you wish to achieve your goal, but I worked 12 hours a day, and still had to workout and have leisure time, so 30 minutes was perfect for me.

Hope this helps, and best of luck!