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

(cs.stanford.edu)
674 points peterkshultz | 7 comments | 19 Oct 25 16:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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Almondsetat ◴[19 Oct 25 17:42 UTC] No.45636163[source]▶
The real truth is that the good advice has always been dispensed, it's just that students don't want to listen.

1. Follow actively the lessons.

2. Study and exercise every day what you covered in the previous lessons

Every one of us has been given these age old platitudes, but, as spaced repetition, testing, and active recall prove, they are actually an excellent starting point for good performance

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1. sfn42 ◴[19 Oct 25 17:46 UTC] No.45636205[source]▶
They told us which chapters to read before each lecture, nobody else that I knew did it. I did. It was super helpful.
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2. ido ◴[19 Oct 25 17:53 UTC] No.45636279[source]▶
I suspect the reason is that most late-teens/early-twenty-somethings are not responsible/emotionally mature enough to put in the required amount of work in the relatively free environment of university where nobody is checking if you’re doing your homework or show up to class.
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3. SoftTalker ◴[19 Oct 25 18:07 UTC] No.45636423[source]▶
Related, for me, was that high school just wasn't very challenging. I got As without ever really studying or feeling that I was working very hard. I took that approach into university and it worked for my freshman and most of my sophomore courses. Then things got actually tough and I realized I could not just intuit my way through exams, and I had never really learned how to study.
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4. quacked ◴[19 Oct 25 18:08 UTC] No.45636440[source]▶
Every undergraduate student I met over the age of 22 was much, much better than their young counterparts within the same ability cohort.
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5. SoftTalker ◴[19 Oct 25 18:42 UTC] No.45636762{3}[source]▶
I've read that the highest levels of brain development are not complete until about age 25.
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6. 9dev ◴[19 Oct 25 20:56 UTC] No.45637902{3}[source]▶
Failing to realise that school was just about learning how to learn was also the main mistake I made, for the same reason as you. I was always good at soaking up stuff I found interesting, but to this day learning something because I have to is hard, awful work.
7. Jach ◴[19 Oct 25 21:21 UTC] No.45638102{4}[source]▶
Unfortunately this is a pop-sci myth similar to the "you only use 10% of your brain" myth.