How I Ace Midterms at a Top CS School by Studying 1-3 Hours (and Skipping Class)

I feel like point of lectures and classes, if you have a good professor&#x2F;lecturer, is to be able to have the opportunity to understand how someone else understands a concept and is able to convey it to you. I personally think I did learn alot from passionate lecturers and professors, so I&#x27;d try to give some courses a chance, especially in upper levels when class sizes are smaller and curriculum is more specific (vs a intro to programming class, sure skip it if you know how for loops work)<p>The strategy itself is pretty nifty though, I feel like lecture notes with no person speaking behind it are very dry and content light, so claude being able to read it and probably look at external references to populate a study guide is pretty smart.

I was in a situation where my CS degree was not challenging, so I decided taking graduate classes, and then branching out to courses offered by the Maths department both undergrad and graduate classes. I took many proof heavy courses in both departments, and I don&#x27;t think you can get away with passing courses without putting in the effort of doing homework, attending lectures, and getting deeply involved with the courses. I feel this guy is just wasting his money.

Chiming in with a Purdue alum perspective.<p>If you can get away with this, keep doing so, but definitely recommend putting some time into the 59000 &#x2F; 69000 classes taught at the grad level. Advisors let you swap elective classes in your track for the higher level ones, and they’re far more interesting (especially for the AI&#x2F;ML track). Also connects you with more professors that would be research oriented (if that was something you were interested in). The program also had an exchange with ETH&#x2F;KTH which unfortunately I couldn’t take advantage of due to COVID.

&gt; I just don’t care enough about school to spend anymore time than what I give.<p>It sounds like you&#x27;re wasting your time.<p>If you&#x27;re spending the money to get a degree, at least choose one that&#x27;s worthwhile in that the professors you&#x27;re paying to hear, the labs you&#x27;re paying to access, and the environment you&#x27;re paying to be a part of are all actually helping you to learn something.<p>&gt; For me, this is because I feel like, particularly in computer science, I have all the necessary skills and knowledge to do what I want.<p>Go out and do it! Found that startup. Build that MVP. Apply to those jobs! A lot of the life experience you&#x27;ll pick up while doing that will help you to realize what a treasure a good education can be. And to want that, since it sounds like you&#x27;re experiencing an absence of that right now.<p>Your education shouldn&#x27;t be just a certificate that you know how to develop software. Use it as an opportunity to dive deeply into something you&#x27;ve always been curious about. To absorb knowledge from people who know more than you do.<p>As you grow older you will realize that time is something that you have less and less of. Both literally and metaphorically. As a student you are in the rare position where you are able to pursue 100% learning about whatever you like. Once you launch your career, the time you can spend on this shrinks by a LOT and you will miss this opportunity if you don&#x27;t fully take advantage of it.

I mean the guy states that the concepts aren&#x27;t new to him. If you start from there then most people wouldn&#x27;t need to study very much.<p>I&#x27;m sure as a graduate I could go back, not study and score well.<p>If you&#x27;ve never heard of it before then it&#x27;s going to take a lot more effort to understand.

Actual secret trick: learn next years course this year. It takes 6-12 months for neurons to mature in a human brain.<p>Remember how easy last years math was the next year?

I&#x27;m doing the same kind of thing for my college classes no matter the subject. But mine is a little different. Instead I do:<p>1. Feed lecture slides, labs, homework into ChatGPT and have it generate flashcards.<p>2. Write these flashcards into Anki and study them using Anki.<p>3. Run through some practice problems<p>I had originally intended for this system to be used long-term, but I get irresponsible and study the day of the exam. It really depends on the material, but for the most part, it takes around 5–7 hours of studying and preparation to feel completely confident about the exam. Often times, I wake up super early on the exam day to give me some time. This is not ideal of course and is just a product of my bad habits.<p>It&#x27;s definitely doable to ace exams with only 2–3 of studying, but usually I need to pad it with another 2–3 hours of preparation like creating high quality flash cards and stuff. I believe most people can adopt this system and perform very well, but at the same time it&#x27;s a very radical departure from traditional study practices and even then I&#x27;m not even using this system in the way it&#x27;s actually intended (not the day of cramming-style method).<p>This system is not something I made up, but rather backed from a collective community effort that has produced amazing techniques, guides, research, etc.:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;isaak.net&#x2F;mandarinmethods&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;isaak.net&#x2F;mandarinmethods&#x2F;</a> - in depth guide detailing best practices with Anki regarding language learning (THE BEST)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cademcniven.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;20211119&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cademcniven.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;20211119&#x2F;</a> - recommended number of cards per day to study based on some grassroots research<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;open-spaced-repetition&#x2F;fsrs4anki">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;open-spaced-repetition&#x2F;fsrs4anki</a> - the most modern spaced repetition algorithm which uses machine learning to optimize for each individual&#x27;s learning capabilities (THE BEST)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Anki&#x2F;comments&#x2F;18jvyun&#x2F;some_posts_and_articles_about_fsrs&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Anki&#x2F;comments&#x2F;18jvyun&#x2F;some_posts_an...</a> - meta resource on fsrs<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justinmath.com&#x2F;individualized-spaced-repetition-in-hierarchical-knowledge-structures&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justinmath.com&#x2F;individualized-spaced-repetition-...</a> - a reading which i&#x27;ve incorporated into the way i create flash cards pertaining to more problem-solving type of learning as opposed to pure memorization like facts about history<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehardway.guide&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehardway.guide&#x2F;</a> - a damn good book teaching about actionable and pragmatic advice about language learning that i&#x27;ve applied to all of my college courses

it&#x27;s Purdue... it&#x27;s a good school no doubt but this guy acts like he&#x27;s acing things at MIT or Stanford... c&#x27;mon.

Step -1:<p>&gt; I’m a decent test-taker and code a lot, so most concepts aren’t new. I rarely attend lectures and do the bare minimum homework required to pass. My broad curiosity gives me wide, shallow knowledge. Interestingly, I enjoy taking tests, especially multiple-choice.<p>This also worked for me. I did however go to the classes I liked and replaced steps 1-6 with cramming for several hours the night before.