Ask HN: how to kill it in university?

I don't think I'm a very high achiever--I'm taking 4 classes this semester and I'll probably get a 3.3 or something. But here's what works for me:

* Cramming/putting stuff off to the last minute helps with motivation. I did it too much and burned out. Find the right balance.

* Oftentimes I find that lectures are a really inefficient way to learn stuff. For example, in one class I can get through the slides of a 90-minute lecture in 45 minutes on my own, have more fun, and understand better. The key is actually getting myself to do this. Also, it's important to have a timer and glance at it frequently to make sure I'm keeping a 45-minute pace.

* Use triggers and condition yourself to concentrate on the triggers. For me it's original-flavor Trident gum + rainymood.com + somafm.com/play/groovesalad.

* I generally work in cycles: 50 minutes of work followed by a 10-minute break where I change my scenery and daydream. I rarely try to make myself work when I'm seriously not in the mood, as I don't get much done and I create a negative association. I don't hesitate to take much longer breaks if my morale or energy are really low.

* Every evening, I plan out the next day and have a rough idea of what I'm going to be doing at any given time. I generally don't follow my plan very well, but having a specific thing that I'm supposed to be doing seems to lower my activation energy for tuning out distraction. I use cron to open a tab in my browser reminding myself to make a plan, and I stick my tongue out until it's done.

* I'm pretty good at sleeping 8 hours a night. I think this helps me because it increases the portion of my days on which I feel energetic.

* Studying with other students always helps with motivation.

Why are you taking so many classes? At my university you need special permission to take more than 5 or so.

This site is probably good for more advice: http://calnewport.com/blog/

To give some background, I'm a graduating senior at a top CS university in California. In the past year I've managed to maintain a 3.8 GPA while taking 5 courses per quarter, but I would highly advise you (since you seem to be an underclassman) to not take 6 to 7 classes a semester.

My reason for doing so was because of an outstanding job offer that I accepted the year before that begins in June. Otherwise, I'd likely be staying one more quarter to graduate and take a lighter course load.

Here are a few reasons why I don't think overloading yourself with classes is a good idea:

1. You wont learn as much.

What I've noticed from taking this many classes is that you have a lot less time to devote to studying than many of your friends. Because I had to prioritize my time, I would often skip supplementary reading that would really have helped me understand the material we covered in class. In addition, I rarely went to office hours (computational theory was an exception). I did well in my exams because I studied what I thought was going to be on there, but after the quarter ended I realized that all the supplemental reading I could have done would have given me a lot more insight in the topics we learned in class.

2. You wont have any time to have fun.

You'll have to turn down a lot of offers to do fun stuff with others. Hack-a-thons, parties, etc., are thrown out the window. You just wont have the time to sacrifice to do these kinds of things. I studied approximately 40 to 50 hours a week on top of the time we spent in lecture and discussion. I didn't have a job though (had to quit my on-campus research job to study).

3. You'll have less time to complete projects and study (especially finals).

It becomes exceedingly difficult to keep up with projects and study for midterms or finals (especially finals). Last quarter we had a 3 week long OS project dealing with user-level threads. Because of my time constraints and deadlines for other classes (designing a CPU for my computer architecture course), I wasn't able really work on the OS project until 3 days before it was due. I managed to complete it, but it really wasn't an enjoyable experience due to the pressure. This was a common story for me all quarter. YOU WILL ALWAYS FEEL BEHIND.

Don't take multiple project classes unless you're a better hacker than your peers and can finish assignments significantly faster than others. I'd go against astrofinch's advice and say that you should always start on programming assignments as soon as possible.

4. You'll burn yourself out.

By the end of the quarter, I really wanted to give up. My reward for designing a 5 stage pipeline processor along with a dozen programming labs between my other project classes was 5 finals within a week. I had to pull all nighters that entire week AFTER pulling all nighters the previous week to finish my quarter-end projects.

5. You'll hurt your GPA if you don't know what you're doing.

I was extremely lucky to do well in my classes. If I messed up on my finals my grades would have been extremely poor. Unless you really know what you're doing, and you're confident you can be successful under this kind of pressure, taking too many CS classes at once will make your GPA suffer.

6. Your physical condition will suffer due to lack of exercise, sleep, and stress.

I always felt better if I had time to exercise everyday, but oftentimes, I'd skip out on my weekly routine, and I'd feel like crap throughout the week. Unfortunately, I'd always be catching up on sleep so I never got a chance to hit the gym.

In conclusion, the wise thing to do is to take less classes and do well in them. Take the time to hang out with other students, go to office hours, and read stuff that interests you from class. Unless you have a really good reason for doing so, you shouldn't be subjecting yourself to 6 or 7 classes a semester. You really have to be motivated.

I always made sure I was really paying attention in class and tried to take care of myself physically (I didn't party in college, made sure I slept enough, etc) so I was able to focus like that. When studying, I would stop and close my eyes and see if I could "repeat back to myself" what the key points were of the last couple of paragraphs or so. If I couldn't, I would re-read it. Before exams, I would review my notes and such but I never "crammed" for a test. I found that making sure I really got it as I went along meant that some review was helpful but cramming was not necessary (and I suspect cramming where you get hopped up on caffeine and hardly sleep and all that is probably counterproductive).

I also was good at taking tests. If you aren't good at that, do some googling. Taking tests is not just about measuring what you know. It's also a skill you can develop, especially tests for something like University where you tend to run into some of the same formats and such over and over.

Best of luck.

PS if you need my advice credentialed: I graduated high school STAR student, National Merit Scholarship Winner, state alternate for the Governor's Honors program and was inducted into Mu Alpha Theta in 11th grade (the earliest you can be inducted). I got other academic awards in college, though I remember them less well and, well, dropped out and went and did other things for a long time because college wasn't my highest priority. (I dropped out in part to go figure out who I was other than an obnoxious brainiac -- being one of the top students at the high school I attended while the rest of my life crashed and burned was not a healthy experience for me.)

I'm kind of a snob who enjoys tearing apart poorly put-together arguments written by folks who have a PHD.* Call it an obnoxious hobby. I try to be less obnoxious than I used to be. I don't dislike PHD's per se. But those folks who are jerks about it and think they are so superior to everyone around them because they have a PHD and think they can then put out any old crappy unsupportable opinion because we are supposed to kowtow to the letters behind their name, yeah, those folks tend to end up not much liking me. (Blame it on my father, a high school drop-out who taught at a college for a time while in the Army and who used to take glee in correcting the spelling, grammar and punctuation of notes sent home by college-educated public school teachers. Right is right, regardless of your credentials or lack thereof.)

* Or other credentials. It's just an example.

I had a bit of a rocky history in school, and looking back I think I can block out the things that really hurt my performance.

1) Working part-time more than a handful of hours a week.

2) Having a girlfriend.

3) Not exercising and eating well.

Don't do those things, and you'll be off to a much better start.

(Having a s/o can arguably be good for mental stability and relaxation. Just make sure you pick someone low-maintenance.)

P.S. Don't race to the finish. There's no big prize at the end of college, it's not a race. Get everything out of it you can; there's little value in taking as many classes as you can at the same time.

Do you want high grades, or do you really want to learn something useful?

If I were you, I'd not worry so much about "getting the most out of of university grades" and join the board of some student organisation instead. Or start an evening startup. You'll learn plenty difficult engineering stuff also if you get average grades. Meanwhile, you'll learn about the real world in a safe environment, without the risk of having no money to buy food if you fail.

That said, if your main worry is to pass the exams at all (or to finish that report, etc), I've learned two tricks: 1) start with the easy parts. Sounds stupid, but it helps motivation tremendously. Especially works with reports etc, but you can do the same with exercises while preparing for exams. 2) Remember why you're doing this. I'll assume it's because you want to get the degree, you want to show yourself that you can take on this difficult program, because you know you can. Or something along those lines.

Steve Pavlina graduated in 3 semesters.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

Are you working out?

Here are two things I would suggest just off the top of my head based on personal experience going through an engineering undergrad, having gone through grad school, and taught undergrad engineering courses.

1) Try to meet some people going through the same courses as you. I found it tremendously helpful to have people to study/do assignments with. You will have people to motivate you. And you will waste less time trying to figure out certain things when you have someone to ask.

2) Your final year of courses is the best opportunity to get to know some professors. This can help you a lot down the road if you want to apply to grad studies, need an academic reference, get involved in some cool research, or even get recruited into a prof's startup. Show your face at office hours, ask some inquisitive questions in or after class, things like that. This is something that I did not take advantage of while in undergrad but now that I have been on the other end (teaching), I can see how this can open a lot of doors for the student.

Also, in the engineering programs that I have seen, I found that the workload dies down a little after second/third year. You also get used to working the "triage" by then as well. Good luck!

My advice is probably going to be different from most others here: don't worry about it, enjoy yourself.

Unless you are really lucky, once you're out of university you will be in a 9-5 job for some significant time, with a few weeks a holiday each year. Now is the time you can happily let your hair down a bit, if that's what will serve you well.

Consider what you want from these few years. If the answer is superb marks and academic achievement then the other answers are for you.

But an average degree (which doesn't always hold you back in the next stage!) will serve then take this opportunity to explore other things (social or academic). I spent my first year of university working like stink, much the same way you suggest. I came within the top of the class, but damn I was knackered and had barely made any new friends.

Second and third year slipped (I ended up with an average degree) because I started hanging out with new people, skipped the occasional class, did some activities, joined societies, made my voice heard.

This wasn't just losing interest in the course, in that two year period I changed totally, losing a lot of my social awkwardness. I can pretty much attribute my moderate successes today to the people I met at uni.

Anyone who plays down this aspect of being in university is badly wrong.

I think there is a balance. If you find yourself struggling to stay on top of a project, or lacking motivation to listen in class... find something else to do for the evening. Go to the cinema, go rock climbing, hang out with interesting people. The problem probably comes from being "tuned in" to the work constantly, so forget about it for an evening. University is as much about developing as an individual and an adult as it is about the academic work!

The good piece of advice already in this thread is eat well. That can make a significant difference. Learn to cook properly; that can be an adequate distraction in itself (see above).

Find a way to exercise, this is the one thing that will make you sleep a whole lot better.

I also recommend finding a partner; obviously a good one. I found that thinking about someone else (i.e. what they were up to, when I would see them, anniversaries/events that I need to remember etc.) really helped. And it is another person to remember stuff you forget :) (my GF in third year basically saved my degree by reminding me that an essay was due in the next day...). It is also good to have someone you can confide in, and someone who is close enough to see when something is getting to you.

In general I'd suggest not bothering with special sleep or work cycles, drugs or other extreme "hacks". Forcing yourself out of a natural cycle is often risky.

Ultimately; if you're not having fun, change something. It is still early enough that this is possible to do. It gets harder as the years pass.

1) Eat well - this is paramount 2) Sleep well - again paramount 3) Attend class - unless you are extremely adept at absorbing information very very quickly. You must go to class at least and find a work pattern that suits you! 4) Pick 2-3 things and focus on them over the 3 years

My own example is I had 12 hour a week lessons, worked in the media from 7am-12pm (all my classes were after mid day) and then i'd go to class do a couple hours in the library then evenings free to date, play sports or pick up other hobbies like attending conferences, lectures or just going out.

Good resources to read are 1) Study Hacks by CalNewport 2) Racing towards Excellence by Jan Sramek 3) Anything by Stevepavlina.com

Hope that helps.

Don't take so many classes. You aren't going to absorb the content from 7 advanced courses a day.

If you are taking classes to get a degree as quickly as possible, you'll find that five years from now you remember nothing and you wasted $200,000 or whatever college is costing you.

Personally i hardly ever learned much from lectures, mainly because i found it hard to pay much attention...

I found i learned most when doing the actual assignments/studying

You might question whether focusing on grades is the best way to really "get something" out of university. I've benefitted a lot from my time in undergrad, but mainly thorough what I've learned working on CS research with a professor, or the time I've spent hacking on startups/projects.

That said, I can understand the drive to do well in class. I've done pretty well myself, despite my nonchalance. I also share your aversion to studying (generally speaking, I don't "study"). My advice then, if you want good grades, is first to take seriously any problem sets you are assigned, and second to go to class. At least in my case, the rest seems to take care of itself, studying or no studying.

Do you have to take so many courses? If you want to do well in your classes, you should be able to dedicate at least an hour or so outside of class to studying and homework for every hour of lecture time that you have. That gives you time to really get into the material and reinforce it in your own way.

Otherwise, you'd have to make a lot of compromises with things like hobbies, socializing and networking, mastery of the material, and even your personal health.

A good hobby and some socializing will ward off depression and keep you feeling upbeat and motivated. Friends can also support you when you're down. This is key to preventing burn outs.

Networking will give you the contacts you need to find opportunities to apply what you learn in school -- otherwise all you can do is apply to open job offers and try to compete resume to resume against all the other recent graduates many of whom will look exactly like you on paper.

A mastery of the material in earlier courses will make the future coursework and material much easier to grasp and work through. You can't do this if you're juggling too many courses and constantly worrying about grades. Think of it as a feedback loop -- the harder you make it to master the earlier course material, the harder the remaining courses will become. Learn to make the difficulty curve work for you, not against you.

Finally, maintaining your personal health will allow you to live a longer, better life. You'll look better, feel better, and more importantly, think better. You're young, so yes, you can bounce back from a bad year or two, but get into a habit of taking good care of yourself now and never compromise on it. You'll thank yourself later.

Personally, I wouldn't compromise on any of these points for more than a year or two. You may get ahead in one aspect, only to set yourself back in another.

So don't be afraid to slow down. Burning out and getting in over your head will make your life miserable and difficult, but one extra year of school can make the next twenty years of your life that much easier.

Most of my impressive stuff has come from being nice and treating everybody, students, counselors, and business people like they are people too.

Example 1: Went and talked to my teachers a semester early. Set up an extra credit project on a whim that let me data analysis on a Berkshire Hathaway company.

Example 2: After a failed business deal, I called up a vendor and explained what happened and why we wouldn't be working with them. After the sales rep heard what happened and heard that I didn't have anything to do this summer, they offered me a cool internship working on a way better project.

The basics for academics: http://calnewport.com/blog/ The yellow and red books were great. Haven't read the white book yet though.

Thanks for the responses so far. I guess I should elaborate a bit more:

- Yes, I do have to take 6-7 courses/semester. It's the program.

- I've already spent most of my time thus far "enjoying myself" so to speak. I'm not necessarily the nerd-kid going to engineering who needs to make friends, I'm closer to the opposite and now that I appreciate my education I want to take it more seriously.

- Why GPA? Well I like competition for one, and I want to prove to myself that I can excel at it despite the challenges. I guess I'm tired of pretending I'm smart while only getting a 3.2 GPA. Plus I may want to get into a good graduate school.

Someone mentioned something about test-taking: that's my main weakness for sure. I do well on projects and assignments, but tests just destroy me. I get too much "tunnel-vision" and seriously under-perform for the knowledge I have.

Also, what types of classes can/should be skipped? I feel like certain solving courses are worthless for lecture (for example, beginning-level electromagnetism which is well-documented online and reduces to a small number of vector calculus equations and definitions). But I feel something like computer organization is best attended.

Honestly, diet and exercise help a lot with that.

AEB. Always Eat Breakfast. I don't care if you have lunch in 2 hours. I don't care if you're going to be late to class. I don't care if you're X. Always Eat Breakfast. I don't care if you have to eat breakfast, then throw away 90% of your lunch. ALWAYS eat it.

--

On the other stuff you can do: Make being prepared into a project. I like going over all the materials, identifying all the techniques I'd have to master (in outline format usually, but some materials are bad, so I reorganize it), then figuring out a way to determine if I can perform the techniques.

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Lastly: Are you sure all the lectures are useful? I always found at least one teacher in a courseload that size to be completely ineffective and it a much better use of time learning the objectives elsewhere and reclaiming those hours.

It's really simple: read the syllabus.

The syllabus tells you so many things: - what the lecturer considers fundamental; - what is optional; - what you will be asked about in the exam.

The syllabus is better than any revision notes. At the end of the term, and at least twice in the month before the exam you should read through it and put each part into three categories: 1) stuff I know well 2) stuff I don't know well 3) stuff I don't need to know Then, spend your time moving stuff from category 2 to category 1. By the time the exam comes everything should be in first category.

This system has two advantages: 1. you learn what you need to pass the exam; 2. you learn what the lecturer considers important. It's not cheating. If you trust your lecturer to put the important stuff in the syllabus and you focus on the important stuff then not only are you showing respect to your lecturer but you are also learning the fundamentals for the next step. Do it.

Planning is indispensable, it usually equates into time management as well. Even though you won't follow through with the plan completely, it's always good to have one.

Basically have a rough plan sketched out in your head what has to be done tomorrow, this week, this month and how you'll go about doing it.

Example: Wake up 9am, shower & eat, study for an hour, class at 12, lunch, gym, class at 4, study till 7-8, socialize after.

Make sure you account for burning out, so you plan for exercising and socializing.

Analyze parts of your plan that didn't work out, figure out why, and try to plan better next time.

I would even plan in skill acquisition, such improving studying habits. Learn to become focused, while your studying at the library don't be socializing, getting distracted every time someone walks by, or even letting unrelated thoughts interrupt.

http://www.easwaran.org/complete-instructions-in-passage-med...

Study with other people. It'll help you gain realizations/insights, and a deeper understanding quicker than you would yourself. Make sure you carefully select who you study with though!

In addition, utilize some of the resources people have already posted on this thread on how to improve your studying habits. Studying is a skill, and like everything else you can optimize it. High achievers have just figured out the best path.

Study with others. Preferably others who are motivated, but don't know quite as much as you. You'll end up teaching them the material. This forces you to explain the same concept five different ways (until you find a way to say it that your friend actually understands it) and this forces you to make all sorts of new connections.

It also gives you near-term motivation to stay on task -- your friends are counting on you to focus.