Since I really got nothing important to talk about, I will just discuss why I think I am successful in this course so far. My current projection is I will get A+ in this course, and my friends and my ability to study "correctly" were the most important factors contributing to this. If you want to do well in the assignments, friend is a MUST HAVE. Not only in this course, but also in other courses, my butt was saved more times than I could count by having friends who I could compare my answer to and discuss methods to solve problems with.
It is sort of ironic in that I didn't plan to make any friends in this course at the start because I thought I could handle everything the professor threw at me. Before the first assignment was due, I had the opportunity to be acquainted with a fellow student in the course. Initially, we got to know each other through discussing a problem the professor urged the students to try in class (the magic of CSC165 by Prof. Heap). By some weird miracle that seemed like fate, we met again in the tutorial session in the following day, so we hit it off nicely despite it being the first tutorial. Soon afterwards, I got to know several other people in the tutorial, and ever since then we would always compare and discuss the assignments. Without them, my marks in the assignments easily could have being 20% lower than what I had gotten.
I guess the other factor, the ability to study efficiently, is not something everybody has immediate access to. Since I am a 3rd year student, I learned in the first two years what I have to do to survive in University, especially in a brutal University like U of T, where you are competing with over thousands of other brilliant minds. I think a lot of the students in computer science courses make the mistake of thinking that they can understand everything the professor teaches just by attending the lectures. This is actually a really easy mistake to make, because everything in computer science at the beginning is so straight forward, that students forget that there are thousands of different ways that you can twist those fundamental mechanics into something deep and unfamiliar. They don't realize that having an understanding in uncharted territory is just as important as understanding the basics.
I don't have a complicated studying habit for this course. If you have read my previous posts, then you would know that the only thing I do is understanding exactly what the professor was trying to teach in all of his slides, understand the purpose of each slide, and understand how I can use what I learned in those slides to apply to new problems. If you are lucky, then those slides might even contain things that are "deep and unfamiliar" might appear on the exam, and you are the dumbest person in the world if you don't recognize it and prepare for it immediately. You might be wondering, what happens if you encounter the "deep and unfamiliar" on the exam? Well, that is what your thinking brain and mad skill is for.
I guess the last important factor that I forgot to mention that is important for my success is how hard you work. The two factors I mentioned previously is something that you obtain. Once you obtain them, there is not much more you can do to those factors that will further lead you to success. But you can always work harder than how much you work now. Let's say if you spend ten hours doing an assignment, but another you from another dimension spends fifteen hours doing the same assignment, the you from the other dimension will beat you. In that sense, how much work you put on something is unlimited, and if you are willing to put in more work than your competitors, then you will naturally come out to be at the top.
No comments:
Post a Comment