How to Study: A Brief Guide
cse.buffalo.edu
How to Study: A Brief Guide
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Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#2Excellent 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 of study inspiration is the MIT Challenge[1] by Scott H. Young. Not only does he finish an entire MIT CS undergrad curriculum, but does so in 1/4 the time, something that I wish to emulate once life permits.
[1]: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#3My 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 a pity they're only used by older academics now.
Obviously you've all seen[0], but just in case...
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#4My 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…
text.npr.org is a good example.
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#5I 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 portion of my life and it was not worth it.
Studying everyday is a great goal to aspire for, but no way you need to study that much every day. Go to classes with the textbook, mark the areas the teacher lectures about. Take notes during class. Once in a while review the book and your notes. In the meantime make thought experiments, try to apply the information you learned on imagined cases you made up for fun.
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.
Another point is that these kind of study hacks work for people who can already study. If you are a procrastinator in soul (a deep procrastinator in Newport's terms), this advice won't help you. If you're procrastinating heavily your mind is trying to tell you that what you're doing is pointless.
One powerful weapon to fight it is to keep an agenda. Plan your day before (for example using org mode or a simple paper agenda). Set very small goals and always reschedule if you need to. For example 22 Jan Monday: place the notes taken during X class in a file. 23 Jan Monday: Buy the book required for Y class etc.
If you can keep your study material somewhat organized, you will find it much easier to begin studying. It is all about tooling like programming.
One last note: studying in a silent place does not always work. Especially when I'm bored, can't start studying or mentally overwhelmed, it helps a lot to put on headphones and blast some talkshow in the background. The change in the tone and volume of the host and occasional jokes and laughter feed my stimuli seeking brain. After 30-40 minutes I can continue without listening anything.
These reflect my hard-earned experience and intensive soul-searching :) YMMV
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#6Excellent 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, so make sure none of your habits put you on the path towards self-destruction. Avoid the temptation of staying up 1 or n-more hours just to finish some thing; it'll always be there for you the next day, so it's usually better for you to get a full night of rest instead.
In my experience, some aspects of school are overrated. It's easy to get fixated on grades, but they're not always representative of someone's true skills. Of course, you shouldn't lie to yourself either, so strive to actually understand whatever subject you're focused on.
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#7My 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…
How do you do this when the lecture hall is occupied by the previous class or you have back to back lectures?
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#8This 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 huge amount of fundamental topics. Newer doesn't always mean better! People were just as smart 30 years years ago as they are today. Even if the context has changed, many aspects likely remain applicable.
2. Many companies publish "white papers" [0] on their technology. These are (sometimes) similar to research papers, expect that they haven't been peer reviewed. They can be a good way to acquire certain kinds of industry knowledge, but be wary of snake oil salesmen. I generally read white papers with the assumption that the source is heavily biased towards whatever perspective is most favorable to them.
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#9I 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 agree strongly with your first point, for the simple reason of “unknown unknowns.” Maximizing the optimization of your current situation, so to speak, can often result in missing out on opportunities which would bring you to a higher, better level than the one you are on currently.
Extreme focus and hours can be effective in short bursts, but need to be balanced with some time for randomness, wandering, and other non-planned activities. One should always be trying to expand their current intellectual domain, but it’s nigh impossible to do so if you keep your head down 24/7.
Re: How to Study: A Brief Guide
#10I 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 can strangely relate to this comment, to a higher level than I can usually 'relate' to other comments about workflow or thought processes.
Regarding procrastination, the advice on tying small tasks together is bang on. One task leading to another usually results in a more productive day, I've found. The pessimist in me wants me to credit/blame this to the games I've played as kid, where the level up/task done dopamine boost is enough to get through the next level/task.
YMMV.