Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Study: A Brief Guide

cse.buffalo.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#31

Post by Spooky23 »

terminalcommand wrote: post #5

I think that this kind of advice can be detrimental to people like me. It basically says force yourself to study 5 hours a day no exceptions. If you get a job or other extracurricular activities don't count it as work time. Well, I lived that lifestyle in high school. I studied 4 hours a day, limited every extracurricular activities to not interfer with my study time. At the end I believe I have missed a great portio…

I think the point is you need to have time set aside as part of your normal process to study if you are serious about your education. It's time that you should be focused on your academic pursuits, not drinking, working, gaming, girls, etc.

I didn't follow this sort of advice, and paid the price. I sailed through most classes on my wits, but hit a wall when more advanced classes had time demands that I couldn't meet due to work or other obligations. When I tutored high school and undergraduates in math, I saw smart/lazy kids making the same mistake... they would pick up the material in class and never learn how to read a math textbook. Life was good until it wasn't, usually when they hit Calc 2 or 3. It was hard to watch.

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#32

Post by ams6110 »

terminalcommand wrote: post #5

I think that this kind of advice can be detrimental to people like me. It basically says force yourself to study 5 hours a day no exceptions. If you get a job or other extracurricular activities don't count it as work time. Well, I lived that lifestyle in high school. I studied 4 hours a day, limited every extracurricular activities to not interfer with my study time. At the end I believe I have missed a great portio…

Bear in mind that this guide was written by a professor. Someone who chose to make academia the focus of his life. Such a person may be likely to feel that academic achievement should be the highest priority in one's life, since it was for him.

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#33

Post by ams6110 »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #8

This focuses on how to study when you're in school and taking classes. But that likely only represents a small number of years in your life, while the rest will be spent outside of school! IMO, learning how to study when you're outside of school is just as important. Here's two comments I wish I'd been told earlier: 1. In the context of Computer Science, many books and research papers between the 70s and 90s cover a…

> be wary of snake oil salesmen

Indeed, and maybe it's just the ones I've read, but it seems to me that most "white papers" are written in the marketing department.

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#34

Post by ams6110 »

tw1010 wrote: post #14
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasted tons of time while I was in high school, so kudos to you for aspiring for more and trying to be productive. Respect. On the other hand, don't forget to have fun! You have your whole life to be "grown up", but only a few years to be young and reckless, don't squander em. I feel old for writing that, but whatever. Don't overwork yourself, and don't let others take advantage of your enthusiasm. Burnout is real,…

Meh, you can be plenty reckless when you're old as well. There's always parties. I wish I had realized this when I was younger. It would have made me feel a lot less angsty about "wasting the best years on my life" on coding (which I really enjoyed) instead of spending my youth on parties. Also; saying "don't overwork yourself" doesn't really work. It's better to let a person overwork themselves and learn the lesson…

Yeah but unless you're just a person who never grows up, or you leave all household responsibilities to your partner, once you have a spouse, family, and a "real job" the parties are a lot fewer.

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#35

Post by terminalcommand »

coolg54321 wrote: post #21
terminalcommand wrote: post #5

I think that this kind of advice can be detrimental to people like me. It basically says force yourself to study 5 hours a day no exceptions. If you get a job or other extracurricular activities don't count it as work time. Well, I lived that lifestyle in high school. I studied 4 hours a day, limited every extracurricular activities to not interfer with my study time. At the end I believe I have missed a great portio…

> There is only so much willpower you can tap into. Once that is over you basically drift not being able to do anything. It is much better to live a balanced life and never put yourself into impossible workloads for a prolonged time. I am a victim of this, Because of the competitive nature of things in my part of the world, I had to skip the extra curricular activities and dedicate all my free time (4-5 hrs a day) fo…

As a person whose been there, I can say that it is temporary. Drift for a couple of months, even a couple of years if you can afford to. You will eventually find balance in your life and be much more prepared for the future.

I always thought to myself when I felt bad that it was actually fortunate for me to have lived this kind of extreme burnout earlier in life where I didn't have serious obligations and had time to overcome it.

Now when I think back at the times when I worked crazy hard, I think the root of that problem was my insecurity. I thought if I had good grades, it would lead me to a good university. A good university would lead me to a good job. And a good job would lead me to a good life. It was a pretty hard blow when I realized that the cycle of work never stops. There is always something to do and what I got left with after high school was poor social skills and a massive burnout.

At Uni I stayed away from ambitious people, hanged around with slackers and misfits. I joined a band, became the go-to guy for making party posters/concert posters by leveraging my computer skills. At the same time my grades didn't suffer that much considering I studied considerably less.

I can't buy the tales of self-discipline anymore. If my body is actively fighting me on the work I think I'm supposed to do, I don't do it. I try to organize my work so that I don't lose track of the essentials. If I can't get myself to work more at least I get these covered. Most of the times, the work that I think that needs to be done turns out to be unnecessary.

Unfortunately ambition is a two edged sword: on one side you work yourself to the bone for a period of time exceeding all expectations, but on the other side once you depleted your energy, you can't get yourself to work at all.

That's why after many years of trial and error, I now manage the essential work in my life in org-files. I schedule a maximum of 6-7 essential items for my week. These tasks also include life-obligations such as getting a haircut, sending out job applications, going to the doctor etc. I usually try to do these tasks to avoid drastic outcomes in the future. My org-agenda works like a security rope for me. I cannot foresee my mental state or outside factors affecting my life, but at least I always know the few tasks that absolutely need to be done beforehand to sustain my living.

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#36

Post by pdm55 »

A key insight, that I got from Barbara Oakley's "A Mind for Numbers", was a way to avoid procrastination. The secret was to trick your mind. Don't think, "I have to do two hours of study." Just say to yourself, "I will study for 10 minutes." The mind says, "That's easy, I can do that." Once you are started, you can then keep going.

With this trick, study becomes a habit, something you really miss if you don't do it every day.

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#37

Post by chadlavi »

pdm55 wrote: post #36

A key insight, that I got from Barbara Oakley's "A Mind for Numbers", was a way to avoid procrastination. The secret was to trick your mind. Don't think, "I have to do two hours of study." Just say to yourself, "I will study for 10 minutes." The mind says, "That's easy, I can do that." Once you are started, you can then keep going. With this trick, study becomes a habit, something you really miss if you don't do it e…

Barbara Oakley's great. I wish her "learning how to learn" course had existed when I was in middle/high school!

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#38

Post by tw1010 »

ams6110 wrote: post #34
tw1010 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, you can be plenty reckless when you're old as well. There's always parties. I wish I had realized this when I was younger. It would have made me feel a lot less angsty about "wasting the best years on my life" on coding (which I really enjoyed) instead of spending my youth on parties. Also; saying "don't overwork yourself" doesn't really work. It's better to let a person overwork themselves and learn the lesson…

Yeah but unless you're just a person who never grows up, or you leave all household responsibilities to your partner, once you have a spouse, family, and a "real job" the parties are a lot fewer.

Sure, but at least that's a choice. When I was a kid and heard "enjoy it while it lasts" I imagined being an adult as being chained under some big rock called "responsibility". But it really isn't. If you're an adult, and you want to party, and you understand and accept the tradeoffs that is associated to, usually you can make it happen.

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#39

Post by citruscomputing »

bachmeier wrote: post #20
sixhobbits wrote: post #3

My Comp Sci lecturer always said you could get a lot by coming to class 10 minutes early and reading the relevant material and leaving 5 minutes late to read it again. I tried this method for a third-year compilers course and it was a very efficient way of getting a high frequency of "Gotcha" moments of understanding. As an aside, I really love how responsive and friendly web pages in this plain HTML style are. It's…

> It's a pity they're only used by older academics now. For about a year or so I've gone with the (nearly) plain HTML style. It sometimes feels weird to avoid styling, but it's hard to do better for anyone using a mobile device/poor internet connection. It really changed my perspective when I was using a 2G connection and couldn't even check the score of a football game.

I really appreciate the plain HTML too, but it can be a bit ugly, and too wide on my monitor. I use a bookmarklet with sakura[0] to make these pages look nicer.

  javascript:var head = document.head, link = document.createElement("link");link.type = "text/css";link.rel = "stylesheet";link.href = "https://unpkg.com/sakura.css/css/sakura.css";head.appendChild(link)
[0]https://github.com/oxalorg/sakura

Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide

#40

Post by applecrazy »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #6
applecrazy wrote: post #2

Excellent resource with many study tips. As a high school student, it's hard to balance school, leisure, and code, and any sort of advice is appreciated. In addition, I've found Cal Newport's blog both inspiring and also interesting, as he focuses on "hacks" to get higher quality studying for your time ("more bang for your buck") Edit: Cal Newport's blog: http://calnewport.com/blog/ Edit 2: Another one of my sources…

I wasted tons of time while I was in high school, so kudos to you for aspiring for more and trying to be productive. Respect. On the other hand, don't forget to have fun! You have your whole life to be "grown up", but only a few years to be young and reckless, don't squander em. I feel old for writing that, but whatever. Don't overwork yourself, and don't let others take advantage of your enthusiasm. Burnout is real,…

Thanks for the advice! I have noticed burnout firsthand: as a teen in SV, there’s an extreme push from parents and people around us in general. We are expected to start charities or found startups and take as many advanced courses as possible. There are very few that can handle a schedule like this, and some teens have even taken their lives. Luckily, a lot of us have writing code as an outlet for this stress.

I agree with you, it’s best to focus on subjects you care about and just take regular classes for the rest. The goal of HS should not be to pad your college app or increase your GPA, it’s to challenge yourself in subjects you’re interested in and show colleges and universities that you’re ready for a higher level of work. Sadly, today this isn’t the case, and that leads to depression and anxiety. A 2015 study of teens at a nearby Bay Area high school[1] found that 80 percent of the student sample suffered from anxiety and 54 symptoms of depression (and this doesn’t include students taking AP tests on the day the questionnaire was given out).

Everybody needs to calm down.

[1]: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/sunday/is-the-...

Edit: added citation

Post reply on HN