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Victoria De La Hoa, kinesiology junior; Clark Santidad, biology senior; and Stephanie Ronquillo, biology “super super senior — as super as you can get, I think”

They all responded “group” in unison to the question, “Which is better: studying in a group or alone?” and then started finishing each other's thoughts.

De La Hoa: It depends on who’s in your group. Us — we met and we had a great dynamic.

Ronquillo: We fill each other’s weaknesses.

De La Hoa: We can challenge each other.

Santidad: And we get ideas from each other.

Ronquillo: Like something you never would have thought of. We look out for each other on mistakes you can make.

Ronquillo: We got lucky with each other. Because there’s a lot of groups where you find people like the lazy one.

De La Hoa: The one who lies to you and says they did the homework that they didn’t.

Ronquillo: Or the one who doesn’t contribute. We all contribute and challenge each other equally.

Santidad: And motivate each other too.

Ronquillo: So when one of us is feeling down or discouraged, the others say, “No, you’ve got this.”

Andrew Pregosin, freshman sociology major, and Chyna Glenn, freshman exploring major

Pregosin: I usually study in a small group, like with just each other. We actually get stuff done. It’s helpful because you get to talk it out. When you’re alone, you’re usually just looking at it on a paper; it’s memorization and repetition but when I can talk with someone I can make sure I understand the concepts.

Glenn: The greatest accomplishment this semester was not just passing, but actually understanding the concepts and what we’re doing.

Felicia Doblado and James Anderson, both physical therapy first-years

Anderson: When it’s rote memorization, you can do it by yourself. When it’s more complex concepts, I think you need to get into groups to really get it. It helps you integrate information from lectures that you may have missed. Other people pick up on information from a professor that you might not have.

Doblado: Group is a different modality for studying rather than staring at a screen all day. You can interpret the information verbally and bounce ideas off each other.

Anderson: Being in doctoral program is much harder than anything we had to do in undergrad. So being able to blossom as young clinicians — it’s been fun to watch, to see other people’s growth as well as my own. It’s fun to see someone else start to discover some cool things.

Joshua Rosoff, diagnostic medical imaging second-year

This is a group project right now but, preference-wise, with other subjects, I’d really rather do a solo study. I have my own groove, my own kinda of mojo.

Jessica Nodal and Brandon Lee, both athletic training seniors

Nodal: I like one-on-one rather than big groups. You can quiz each other.

Lee: If the group’s too big, it’s easy to get off track.

Jessica: Actually, we weren’t studying right then. I was just telling him that I got a job offer from a university. I'm pretty excited.

Nicholas Brow, film studies sophomore

I feel like groups would be really helpful but I’m more of an introverted person. I enjoy my space and silence. This has been a rough semester but I did, for the first time, create a short film, or a few minutes of one. That was a big deal to create a tangible project of my own.

Savanna Jadevery, biology freshman

In sciences, I prefer to work in groups — you get better ideas and another person can catch things. Like, she caught that I didn’t italicize one of the genus species, and I can do things like that for her. In something like literature, though, I prefer to study alone.

Kuvin Ayala, physics junior

I prefer studying alone because math and physics — I can’t really explain why. It’s just how I am. My greatest academic success this year was a research paper I did with Dr. (Michael) Pravica. I’m just volunteering right now but I’m hoping for grants this next semester for the research work.

Ashley Tsa, pre-nursing freshman

I prefer studying alone. I feel like I know the areas I need to study and I can concentrate on those versus with another person who’s areas might not be the same. I was nervous starting school here. It was a big accomplishment to get straight A's. I didn’t think I’d get straight A's my first year here.

Phil Borsellino, biochemistry senior, and Eli Fuller, exploring major sophomore

Borsellino: When you study by yourself, you can get locked into single thoughts, single constraints. So groups can help with that. The majority of the time I do prefer studying alone but it’s good to bring questions to a group.

Fuller: For me, honestly, it’s just boring studying alone.