Study Drugs -

[autisticdragonkin]

In some competitive universities students use drugs in order to achieve an edge over their competition in their work. This is problematic since it results in a misrepresentation of abilities in grades, inferior learning due to state dependent retrieval, as well as potential risk of overdose

What do other kiwis think about study drugs

 

[Fallensaint]

It is retarded. These drugs do nothing for someone without a problem except make them unable to sleep.

 

[AnOminous]

inferior learning due to state dependent retrieval

Unless you want to always be on drugs, this by itself is a reason not to study anything but sober.

 

[millais]

Ritalin is the big one I think. I just stick with good old fashioned caffeine though. Most potent of drugs that Mormons banned it.

 

[QI 541]

So is caffeine considered a study drug?

 

[Wallace]

If you need drugs to help you study, you have some seriously shitty study habits to begin with. All the drugs will do is make you dependent on them and worsen the situation.

To any college-age kiwis out there, don't study for an exam by trying to memorize the textbook.

 

[YI 457]

Lucky bastards.

 

[melty]

I used some in college to varying degrees of efficacy. I think they are okay, don't really seem to be all that dangerous. There are way worse things people do to get an edge

 

[Silver]

If you can't make yourself study without the use of drugs then you deserve whatever grade you might get

 

[waffle]

I used caffeine tabs and chewing tobacco to stay up later and study more through lawschool, but I can't imagine doing amphetamines to "get an edge" they're bad about state dependent recall and have too many side effects. I don't even like the feeling of being over-caffeinated, I can't imagine how awful speed might feel.

 

[BentDuck]

It is retarded. These drugs do nothing for someone without a problem except make them unable to sleep.

It depends. From the sounds of it, you're talking about adderall/vivance or other amphetimine derivitive, which I'll admit, did not help me when I tried it. I ended up staying awake for about 2 days and was pretty off task when I tried to study.

But there is some promise with nootropics such as the racetam family of drugs,which is freely available for purchase over the internet here in the US, has shown cognitive improvement in spacial learning (they used the Morris water navigation task) [1], but it's a bit of a leap, but it's shown to increase membrane protein kinase C (PKC) which has been implicated in Long Term Potentiation[2]. It increases the effectiveness of the Ca2+ cascade in NMDA neurons. I've tried an pramiracetam and oxiracetam stack, and I felt it helped, but it could have been a placebo effect, and I'm pretty bad at sticking with taking it reguarly (I had the same issues with anti-depressants), but if I stayed on my stack for a couple of weeks, I felt pretty well.

But the only reservation I have is that in my functional neuroanatomy course, we've seen that increasing the number of NMDA receptors in mice made them more susceptible to hypoxic damage, even under exercise conditions. I'm not saying that increasing the number of PKC within the membrane of NMDAergic will cause the same kind of damage, there is just not enough research to go around. I'm actually interested in nootropics and would like to potentially study how the racetam family changes the physiology of the brain.

There's also Adrafinil, which gets converted into modafinil (Provigil) by your body. Anyways, it's used to help avoid fatigue and help increase alertness, but it doesn't seem to give the same cognitive "boost" that the racetam family does.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Enhancement of hippocampally-mediated learning and protein kinase C activity by oxiracetam in learning-impaired DBA/2 mice
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2679942

 

[Magpie]

Study sober or just kick back some coffee and/or energy drinks. Save the drugs for after you're done with the crap that needs doing.

 

[ASoulMan]

You'd may as well flop in school if you're going to take drugs to help you study better.

 

[Pikimon]

Coffee is the study drug for most people

 

[Chippy]

I think that using drugs to study is shitty, but honestly, being a college graduate myself, I saw worse during my time at uni.

Hell, there's a booming industry for paid essay-writing, and my sister paid me to write some reports for her in her first few semesters (book reports, specifically, for some basic literature class), and just recently she offered me money to write a presentation for her, as well. (I declined it though because she wanted me to do it for a pittance, it was due in a few hours, and she wanted to use it as an excuse to party). It worries me because she's in a nursing program and she's not that bright to begin with, so I need to avoid ever going to a hospital she works at, hahah.

Nevertheless, now that I've been in the workforce for a few years, I've learned that grades and honors and all of that matter very little when it comes to getting a job, honestly-- as much as the schools try to tell you otherwise. It might give you an edge against someone qualified, but really the most important things are experience, connections, and not looking like a shifty jackass during the interview and probation process-- something that will, admittedly, be difficult if you're all hopped up on goofenthol.

 

[Kazami Yuuka]

Study drugs are certainly efficacious for studying, BUT, you must find the right "mix" or else you will be worse off from all the shaking and fidgeting. They aren't really hard to procure, and any idiot can make a simple Shake n' Bake batch (keep an extinguisher handy!). Of course, this comes with the side effects of your uppers & requires you to plan updays and crashdays.

But to be honest, all the complications coming from this means that you are much better off reading the textbook, and reviewing what you got wrong on earlier assignments (which surprise, those topics and questions are going to be on the test).

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I simply perform magick rituals for the placebo effect before studying

 

[Silver]

What if it's a good grade?

I did mean it when I said "you deserve whatever grade you might get". Some people get stuff innately and don't need to study, and get good grades. They deserve that. But if you need to study to get a good grade, and you can't make yourself, then you also deserve to get a bad grade.

 

[GS 281]

Some people genuinely need to take medicine to facilitate focusing. I take adderall to help. No shame in it

 

[Metal Sink]

If you can't make yourself study without the use of drugs then you deserve whatever grade you might get

(A+)