Comments on: Ask Tony: “special methods” to study comp sci courses to ensure success

By: JardTheGreat

JardTheGreat — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:08:14 +0000

Just want to drop a message here as the topic caught my attention. Nice tips on acing your comp sci courses. I survived my comp eng undergraduate course by using some of your methods. But i gotta agree with Mike.

By: Prabhakar Ragde

Prabhakar Ragde — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:22 +0000

Nice theory, but it doesn’t work with first-year CS at UW. We go well beyond the set text in the first course, and the second course is more or less a synthesis from several places, with the required text playing a minor supporting role (teaching C syntax, as opposed to the real content of the course).

By: Davi

Davi — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:57:08 +0000

Mike i agree to your point I guess it just adds to the theory that you should do things earlier rather than later.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:40:50 +0000

One trick I’ve learnt over my years at university is that at undergraduate level you’re often being taught from set material. Most universities will point out what the class is being taught from, and often enough every answer you’ll ever need will be in these books.

In the summer before I started at my new university I decided to go through all the recommended texts for my classes. I was recovering from an injury at the time so I spent all my days in bed reading these books and making notes. I eventually got through all the books and started university to find it a walk in the park. I’m now looking on reading next years set texts to make life as easy as possible for me. I spend at least one week of my summer holiday bored, so that time can be spent cramming.

I guess it just adds to the theory that you should do things earlier rather than later.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:32:17 +0000

More on the topic from DHH -- Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:18:20 +0000

High expectations might have been involved. Success and good marks are subjective, and it might not always be reasonable to be able to keep up the same average as in high school.

@Greg — thx for the article. I especially like this point:

In the short term, working over 21 hours continuously is equivalent to being legally drunk.

Time management is a likely candidate for “best general habit to improve”. And if will power alone isn’t enough, there’s a bunch of software available to curb one’s distractions — from Firefox extensions to block or limit certain websites, to applications that shut off all internet access for set periods of time.

By: Greg Wilson

Greg Wilson — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:15:48 +0000

I’d start by reading http://www.igda.org/articles/erobinson_crunch.php — far too many students seem to think that pulling all-nighters is a badge of honor, when in fact it’s pretty much guaranteed to lower your grades. I’d then take a serious look at time management practices: one of my students used a stopwatch to keep track of how much of his “work” time was really spent working (as opposed to answering email or reading blog posts like this one), and came up with a rather depressing 28%.

By: Prabhakar Ragde

Prabhakar Ragde — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:03:23 +0000

Does Chris have a hypothesis as to what went wrong? Perhaps his expectations were too high.

By: spxtrader

spxtrader — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:43:53 +0000

The most important thing, in my experience, is that your objective when studying is to gain a _long term understanding_ of the underlying material and not just ace the test. Doing well one exams should be a consequence of your understanding, but not the point of studying.