Finding Time to Study for the CIH Exam

#aihce

Finding Time to Study With a Busy Schedule

Justin Newnum MS, CIH

EnSafe Inc.

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Presentation Notes

I bet a lot of you are like me and not sure when you would be able to fit studying into your schedule. And don’t want to sacrifice activities to be able to fit in the studying. While I enjoy what I do, I enjoy spending time with my wife and friends a whole lot more. Warning I do not use a lot of words in my power point so you will need to pay attention as you wont be able to read the information off of the slide.

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Main Study Materials

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These are the materials I spent the most time studying and lost track of how many times I went through them Bowen EHS- Review course, recordings of review course, question database, forums and online review sessions. Quizlet- Online and phone based flash cards, can use flash cards created by other users. Since most of you like me always have your phone with you then you know you will have your flash cards with you. ACGIH TLV- Read it all multiple times AIHA- Industrial Hygiene Reference & Study Guide, 3rd edition – Great Cliff Notes Like study guide. Grad School and undergrad notes- good for information and practice problems

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Reading Materials

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These are items I read through once and might go back to a specific section when researching answers to questions I missed. Engineering reference manual- Great reference book noise, radiation, thermal, ventilation, indoor air quality. Ergonomics chapter really helpful. This just missed out on being on the main study materials slide The Synergist- knew the answer to one question from having read it the week before Recognition of Health Hazards in Industry: A Review of Materials Processes, 2nd Edition- Good overview of different industries, welding chapter in particular. Toxicology Principles for the Industrial Hygienist- Good Overview of toxicology, used a lot for reference if I missed Tox questions during studying MSDS/SDS; NMAM; Pocket Guide- Read on chemicals you work with info on hazards, ppe, analytical method etc. These are just the books that I found most beneficial to have read I read trough 10 other books including the white book during my study time. I did not use datachem at all in my studying.

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Things to Clear the Mind

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Some things to help clear the mind so you don’t go to sleep with visions of ventilation formulas dancing in your head. I found using a guided mindfulness meditation app helpful and clearing my mind and calming down before going to sleep at night. The techniques were also useful during the exam to help me concentrate and control my nerves. I was skeptical about it until I gave it a try. The guided tracks on the app last from 5-30 minutes. I also took up running using the coach to 5k program as a way to counteract the all the sitting and studying. Though I have now be come addicted to running. Studies have also shown that physical activity, even walking, can help increase brain activity.

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Study Time Line

• September: Bowen CIH prep class • September – February: 1-2 hours per day • March: 1-2 hours per weekday, 4+ per

weekend day • April 3: Absolutely Nothing • April 4: Take the test

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Presentation Notes

This is the general outline of what my studying looked Started studying in September with the Bowen CIH review course. From September to February I spent about 1-2 hours a day studying, hard to be accurate because of my study method. In February I did theme weeks were I spent the full week studying one or two specific topics I could use more time on ventilation, toxicology, epidemiology, ergonomics. April 4 was the first day my test center had a day available for me to take the exam. The day before I did nothing related to studying, I just relaxed. The morning of I looked over some random flash cards from all subjects to get my mind in the IH mode. My talk is going to talk about what this all looked like

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Work as Study Time

How can this help me prepare for the exam?

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I titled my talk finding time to study with a busy schedule, This and the next slide were the real keys to being able to study with a busy schedule. To be able to sit the CIH you have to be working in some way as an IH and covering 2 of the following areas chemical, physical, biological, and ergonomic. So your job should be providing you knowledge you need for the exam. This probably more true for consultants were we cover a wide range of facilities and projects in a short time but should be true on some level for every one. When I was asked to sample for something I would read up on the sampling method, health effects, and PPE. When looking at results I would make myself at least calculate a couple of the TWA values by hand and not have Excel do it automatically. The same is true when looking at noise monitoring. When taking on any task at my job I asked myself How can this help me prepare for the exam? What can I read up on, what formulas can I calculate by hand.

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Micro Study Periods

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It is OK to groan at the visual pun coming up. A large majority of my studying came in what I began to call micro study periods. I knew most days I wouldn’t have a solid block of 1 to 2 hours to spend studying but I would have small amounts of time through out the day. A few minutes while waiting in line some where, waiting for other people to dial into a conference call, waiting on an session at AIHce to start and many other times through out the day. I would even look through my flash cards during my cool down walk after going for a run So the trick was to figure out how to use these small time periods. If I was at work I would often use the Bowen site and answer a few quiz questions. The ACGIH book and the Industrial hygiene study and reference guide were the easiest ones to carry around. And it is easy to look over a small portion of them at a time. And this was the major advantage of using Quizlet to have my flash cards on my phone. I always had them with me, and could pull up any topic at any time. You can study more in 5 minutes than you think. I found I could get through 20 to 40 flash cards depending on the topic. Or look at 1 section in the TLV book. Also I became more efficient in these micro study periods the more I did it. Even if it was just a minute I could get through a couple of flash cards. And while that doesn’t seem like it would be too helpful there could be 10-20 times a day where I just had a minute so that’s an additional 40 or so cards I looked at that day.

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Macro Study Periods

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I tried to carve out at least a 30 minute study block during the weekdays usually right when I got home from work and an hour on the weekends. There are just some things that could not be easily studied in the micro study periods., like reading the white book because I was not going to carry that around with me. Also using the equations. While I had flash cards to cover the variables in them and how they were used. I needed to sit down and actually spend time using them. During my micro study periods I would make notes of flash cards I didn’t know and need more information that what would fit on the card. So the first thing I usually did was investigate these questions. Looking at not just the question I missed but what could similar questions be. Also I worked through at least 10 study questions a day with at least one involving an equation, though some days it was all equation problems. Just depending on what I thought my needs were. Besides these 2 activities the look of my study sessions varied a fair bit it would include a mix of any of the following: Bowen online study sessions More questions / problems Read / study from books or notes Flash cards Rewatch lectures from the Bowen class

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Theme Weeks

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That’s not exactly right No vent week is no where near as fun as shark week, though just as terrifying. 2 months before the exam I assessed how I felt about each of the subject areas. This was based on how I was doing at completing study questions and how often I was getting the flash cards right. My Weeks were Ventilation, Toxicology, Ergonomics, and a combined week of Radiation / Thermal stress. For these weeks I started with rewatching the Bowen lectures on them and reworking the homework problems from class. Then for the week I only looked at flash cards that dealt with the subject, worked only those problems, and read only material on that.

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The Final Push

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For the last month my week day schedule didn’t change. It was my micro study periods throughout the day and about 30 minutes to an hour at night. My studying on the weekends increased greatly to at least 4 hours every day. With a large portion of that time being spent answering questions. All my questions came from Bowen or Grad school work. Twice during this time I made my self sit down and answer questions for the max time allowed for the exam. This worked great because each time I was able to answer about 25% more questions then I would have had to for the exam. Which made me feel really confident that I could complete the exam in the allotted time. The rest of the time was spent reading and going over the study materials I previously mentioned.

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The Day Before

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The day before the exam I did no studying. I took a day off and relaxed. While I wish it involved a hammock on the beach it really involved this and binge watching 30 rock.

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Exam Day

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Day of the exam I looked through some flash cards for about 30 minutes over breakfast. This was more to get my mind in an IH mode than to try and learn anything. And before getting out of the car I listened to Eye of the Tiger to pump my self up. The last piece of advice I have is when taking the exam concentrate on what you know. First time through answer all the non math questions you know instantly, you don’t even need the choices. Then go back and work the math questions you feel confident in being able to work. Then back to the questions you skipped the first time through. Even if you have no idea about the question you might know enough about the answers to be able to rule some of them out.

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[email protected]

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My beautiful 1 month old pondering the CIH exam. If you have any questions feel free to email me.

Finding Time to Study for the CIH Exam

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