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Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

cs.stanford.edu

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Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#151

Post by klempner »

jackling wrote: post #22

Lots of good advice in this article. My favorite pieces that I agree with 100%: > Reading and understanding IS NOT the same as replicating the content. This happens to me all the time. It's really important to try and replicate everything that you learn. I would go even further and constantly reaffirm that you still know how to prove facts that you take for granted. > NEVER. EVER. EVER. Leave a test early. Every time…

> NEVER. EVER. EVER. Leave a test early.

It has been nearly 20 years, but my rule of thumb was that I wouldn't leave until I had done *three* review passes of the test. That is, quadruple checking, completing the exam and then reviewing my answers three times. That is pretty far into the diminishing returns for me catching my own errors.

That *almost* never happens, but there are exceptions -- sometimes they really do give way way more time than you need, especially if you are already strong at the material in question.

With that said, the key point is that the time tradeoff here for leaving early is terrible in typical college classes that have heavy weight on exams. Especially the first 10 -20 minutes of double checking is very likely worth 5+ hours of homework time or study time in terms of points towards the grade.

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#152

Post by screenoridesagb »

ropable wrote: post #150

Looking back at my time at university, I have to admit that I mainly attended group study sessions in order to spend more time with the attractive singles in our course. This had the accidental benefit of forcing me to study and discuss the material more (which led to better understanding) so that I could help coach others. That in turn led to 1) a reasonable side-hustle in tutoring and 2) dating and marrying my wife…

[dead]

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#153

Post by zippyman55 »

whatever1 wrote: post #99
brosco wrote: post #10

I have a tip for following lectures (or any technical talk, really) that I've been meaning to write about for a while. As you follow along with the speaker, try to predict what they will say next. These can be either local or global predictions. Guess what they will write next, or what will be on the next slide. With some practice (and exposure to the subject area) you can usually get it right. Also try to keep track…

Which is why I hate the PowerPoint presentation-based lectures. Speaker typically goes too fast, and their brain does not actually break down the arguments into logical steps. They just read the slides. Chalk and board is the way.

Watching someone up front and seeing them actually think is so inspiring.

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#154

Post by 121789 »

jama211 wrote: post #142
hufdr wrote: post #137

Although this advice is quite comprehensive, I think it assumes that you've already kept up with the pace of the course. In some schools, the curriculum moves so fast that students are thrown into problem sets before they’ve even grasped the basics. I’d love to see how he would advise someone who's already fallen behind and trying to catch up. For many people, that’s the more realistic situation.

This advice is aimed at students who are already getting good-great grades but want to optimise further. Advice for students that get poor grades is quite different. That being said my grades in university were middling to poor and once I got out I applied for jobs with my degree in hand and not a single one asked for my academic transcript. Perhaps more prestigious graduate positions might have, but I just didn’t ap…

Plenty of places ask for GPA for university graduates, and a low ine is disqualifying. After a few years no one will ever care again, again unless you want to go to a grad school like an MBA, where a very low GPA can again be disqualifying

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#155

Post by airstrike »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #130
airstrike wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I'll ever understand/accept the idea of curving grades.

It is, among other things, a way to adjust for the quality of evaluation and/or the quality of teaching.

I know that's the argument but it just leads to grade inflation and a diluted signal for the students ability

Any specific uncurved grade is already ultimately adjusted by the being put in a basket of other grades that the student obtained across many courses, which are generally uncorrelated (or at least just as uncorrelated before curving as they are after)

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#156

Post by airstrike »

supersour wrote: post #145
airstrike wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in that case it doesn't make sense. Why should the underperforming cohort be rewarded for doing poorly?

I think the prior probability in the bayesian sense is that the two entering cohorts are equally skilled (assuming students were randomly split into two sections as opposed to different sections being composed of different student bodies). If this were the case, the implication is that performance differences in standardized tests between cohorts are due to the professor (maybe one of the profs didn't cover the right…

Right, and if it depends, maybe we just don't do it then?

Intuitively and in my experience, course content and exams are generally stable over many years, with only minor modifications as it evolves. Even different professors can sometimes have nearly identical exams for a given course, precisely so as to allow for better comparison.

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#157

Post by airstrike »

vlovich123 wrote: post #135
airstrike wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in that case it doesn't make sense. Why should the underperforming cohort be rewarded for doing poorly?

Did the cohort due poorly or were the tests given to that cohort harder than in previous years? Or was the teacher a more difficult grader than others? You're jumping to the conclusion that the cohort was underperforming just because the grades were lower when other things out of their control could have been involved.

Tests are generally almost identical YoY where as humans are all very different! I think I'm making the simpler argument here

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#158

Post by airstrike »

joshvm wrote: post #133
airstrike wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in that case it doesn't make sense. Why should the underperforming cohort be rewarded for doing poorly?

The idea is to identify if there is a particularly easy/hard exam and the average score of the cohort is significantly different to how they perform in other classes. "Doing poorly" is quite hard to define when none of the tests, perhaps outside of the core 1st and 2nd year modules, are standard.

Tests can be consistent over time without being a true standard. Student competency can vary much more greatly than test content.

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#159

Post by arjie »

Fascinating. I wondered if this would suggest note-taking in lectures (it doesn't). This is something I never did and then finally I bent to everyone saying it's the most important thing and I did awfully in Algebraic Geometry. I had to return to my old technique of just paying 100% attention with 0% note taking, and then creating short cheat sheets of techniques in LaTeX before the exam.

This is the first time I've come across any college advice that does not mention this and I'm glad for it. I just never got good at note-taking to be able to properly pay attention to the lecture.

Re: Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

#160

Post by Shorel »

eastbound wrote: post #76
normie3000 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To predict the name revealed as the murderer at the end of a detective novel, you must have... Wait, can people do this??

It’s usually none of the people you can think about (otherwise it’s a very bad plot).

If that is true, which sometimes it is, you having suspected about anyone except the actual murderer, and at the same time it is totally obvious who the culprit is on a second reading, then it is a very good plot.
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