4 ms·

Anybody have good advice for a first year university student who slept through most of high-school, got good grades, and then failed his first calculus exam bec

Anybody have good advice for a first year university student who slept through most of high-school, got good grades, and then failed his first calculus exam because he was reading "Practical common lisp", instead of studying? How do i learn to study if i find the subject boring? How do i get disciplined? I know a lot of you have been here, how did you handle it?

aaronbrethorst 17y ago
No, I do not have any good advice to give you. I had the same problem, and never figured out the answer. Instead, I was able to squeak by with C-minuses in all of the subjects I found horrendously dull, and make it up with A's in my senior and grad level computer science and psychology courses. I graduated a month after I turned 21; I think my final GPA was 3.02/4.00. Microsoft hired me a few months later to work on Visual Studio. They never asked about my GPA. In fact, my first manager was a college dropout. I hope you figure it out because I absolutely do not recommend this path, but it is workable.
Estragon 17y ago
In my case, it was the reverse. Loved Mathematics, shunned everything else. They had something called a "Distinguished Scholar's Program," which meant I was basically able to design my own curriculum. By the end of the first year, when I'd figured out just how much latitude that afforded me, I was taking only Math classes. Now, I think that left me with a somewhat unbalanced view of the world, and I paid for it later. But if you go and talk to your professors about how much flexibility there is in the degree requirements, you might be pleasantly surprised. You'll be sorry if you don't learn calculus, though!
zoba 17y ago
Tell yourself you're going to do it, trick yourself into thinking you're going to do it, and then actually do it. I get the most work done when I feel like I "fit the bill" for what someone who is about to get a lot of work done is like. Sort of like "Well, gee... I've got a clean room, and a clean desk, and I got a good night sleep, no distractions, had some caffeine, wont be hungry for a while... There is no way I'm not going to get some work done!" Then I just do it. I find that starting work is a lot harder than sticking with it, as well. Once I get in to some problem or homework then I find its pretty easy to keep going. So, this thought is good to keep in mind when I'm having trouble starting because I know if I start I wont feel so bad. I think the most important part is tricking yourself into thinking you're going to do it. For me, it was having a desk and clean enough room that I felt "studious"...but it was also reading books about how to get work done. The advice in the books didn't work for the most part, in my opinion, but because I felt like I was really headed towards "being able to buckle down and get stuff done" and had examples in mind of how I was headed there, I tricked myself into doing it. Then once I actually started doing it, it because easier because I could say "well, I've done it before!" One last tip: I like reading biographies of impressive, academically accomplished people. Being inspired by other people helps me stick to things I find boring because I want to be like them, and having a good GPA certainly isn't going to hurt anything in my goal of achieving greatness! Ok, seriously one last tip: listen to music without words. Words distract my thoughts, but I really need to have some music on to keep me from being distracted by all the noises outside my room.
pchristensen 17y ago
Um, keep reading PCL? How about writing programs to implement and demonstrate the calculus principle du jour? You have to do a certain amount of grinding. For school, optimize around what grade you'd like to get (the answer shouldn't always be "A") and how grades are calculated. Then optimize around whatever least amount of work gets you that grade. If it's something important but boring, first build a story about why it's important to you. Then find an interesting way to solve it (whether by writing a program to show it, forming a study group with a hot girl, reading background information on blogs or library books, etc).
jimbokun 17y ago
Set a time when you are going to do something, then arrange things so as many distractions as possible are eliminated during that time so you have no other choice but to study, or whatever your goal is. Without distractions, you will eventually get bored enough that you actually work on what you are supposed to be working. If you failed your first exam, that indicates it is not as boring as you thought. Calculus, specifically, comes up constantly now that I'm trying to understand Machine Learning, for example. Whatever you are studying, if you can figure out what some real world applications are, it should become much more interesting.
marr 17y ago
It's not hard. Just choose to do your schoolwork BEFORE you have fun reading your lisp book. Then you can truly enjoy reading it because you know the b.s. schoolwork is done for the day. Here is your new mantra: "What is the most PAINFUL thing I have on my list of to-do's?" Figure that out every hour or so, and go get it done. (It helps to realize that four or five years is a really short time. I know it doesn't feel that way when it is like 25% of your current lifespan, but really.. it will be over before you know it. And what's more - you'll actually get to enjoy it because you're not flunking out.)
btilly 17y ago
Advice. Review early. Review often. Don't review for too long at a time. If you've done it right you won't need to study for the exam. The key to math is that it builds on itself. If you miss one thing early on, you may not notice then but you'll get killed later. So you need to not just learn the facts, you need to internalize them. Luckily internalizing them is not that time consuming, but it does require being exposed to the same idea multiple times over a period of time. One thing that I did, for instance, was routinely attempted to prove random theorems from scratch. Any time I failed I tried to figure it out. If I had to I went to the book, but I would mark it down as something I had to review again not too much later. I figured that if I could write down a proof of the product rule from scratch, I could probably remember the rule. I was right. And not only did I remember the rule, but when I took differential equations a couple of years later I was the only person in my class who could recite off all of the definitions from memory.
donaq 17y ago
There is only one way to handle it if you want to graduate. Grit your teeth and do it. Take it from a guy who's like you and spent 6.5 years in university because he refused to study. I graduated in the end by becoming a sort of hermit before exams. No meeting with friends, redirecting all the non-productive sites I frequented to 127.0.0.1, not going out except when foraging for food, etc. I wish I'd done it sooner, because 1) 2.5 years extra was a bloody waste of youth, and 2) I racked up more debt than my peers, which I am still paying for. Besides, if you're really smart, you should be able to pass everything just by starting the hermit routine about 2 weeks before your papers. Take that total of 16 weeks (if it's a 4 year course with two major exams per year) as a temp job that makes you ~$12000 - if you take my figure of an extra 2.5 years at $5k per year, which I'm pretty sure is less than what your education is costing you (I'm Singaporean). :) Don't make the same mistakes I did!
joegaudet 17y ago
Well to be honest... just do the homework. My experience was that profs are lazy, and recycle a lot. So if you do the homework, you will know how to do the exam. It sucks, some of it won't make sense for ages, I honestly didn't understand what the limit definition of a derivative actually meant until 2 years after I got an A in calc. Some really good advice, hang out with people you know are smarter than you. They will get off on flaunting their intellect, and you'll get taught by some truly brilliant people... everyone wins? Finally try and have fun. I found a strong positive correlation between having fun and my performance in my undergrad.
yardie 17y ago
I was in the same situation. Not reading PCL, but Actionscript. Starting the work is harder than the work itself. The best grades I had were when I wasn't distracted by my PC. My mom was starting her company and needed a PC. I gave her mine and relied on the computer labs. The time restrictions because of lab hours meant I had a real deadline to get work done. I went in knowing I had 2 hours to allocate to one project, 2 hours for another, etc. When the lab closed, I left feeling confident that I did what I needed to do and could get some rest, finally. Whether they are boring or not doesn't matter. They are all boring at some point.
steveklabnik 17y ago
I basically didn't, and ended up going to school for an extra year and a half from all the failed classes, which added quite a bit onto the student loan total. In the end, the degree doesn't even matter, because I'm doing startup stuff. A warning, more than advice.

aaronbrethorst 17y ago

No, I do not have any good advice to give you. I had the same problem, and never figured out the answer. Instead, I was able to squeak by with C-minuses in all of the subjects I found horrendously dull, and make it up with A's in my senior and grad level computer science and psychology courses. I graduated a month after I turned 21; I think my final GPA was 3.02/4.00. Microsoft hired me a few months later to work on Visual Studio. They never asked about my GPA. In fact, my first manager was a college dropout. I hope you figure it out because I absolutely do not recommend this path, but it is workable.

Estragon 17y ago

In my case, it was the reverse. Loved Mathematics, shunned everything else. They had something called a "Distinguished Scholar's Program," which meant I was basically able to design my own curriculum. By the end of the first year, when I'd figured out just how much latitude that afforded me, I was taking only Math classes. Now, I think that left me with a somewhat unbalanced view of the world, and I paid for it later. But if you go and talk to your professors about how much flexibility there is in the degree requirements, you might be pleasantly surprised. You'll be sorry if you don't learn calculus, though!

zoba 17y ago

Tell yourself you're going to do it, trick yourself into thinking you're going to do it, and then actually do it. I get the most work done when I feel like I "fit the bill" for what someone who is about to get a lot of work done is like. Sort of like "Well, gee... I've got a clean room, and a clean desk, and I got a good night sleep, no distractions, had some caffeine, wont be hungry for a while... There is no way I'm not going to get some work done!" Then I just do it. I find that starting work is a lot harder than sticking with it, as well. Once I get in to some problem or homework then I find its pretty easy to keep going. So, this thought is good to keep in mind when I'm having trouble starting because I know if I start I wont feel so bad. I think the most important part is tricking yourself into thinking you're going to do it. For me, it was having a desk and clean enough room that I felt "studious"...but it was also reading books about how to get work done. The advice in the books didn't work for the most part, in my opinion, but because I felt like I was really headed towards "being able to buckle down and get stuff done" and had examples in mind of how I was headed there, I tricked myself into doing it. Then once I actually started doing it, it because easier because I could say "well, I've done it before!" One last tip: I like reading biographies of impressive, academically accomplished people. Being inspired by other people helps me stick to things I find boring because I want to be like them, and having a good GPA certainly isn't going to hurt anything in my goal of achieving greatness! Ok, seriously one last tip: listen to music without words. Words distract my thoughts, but I really need to have some music on to keep me from being distracted by all the noises outside my room.

pchristensen 17y ago

Um, keep reading PCL? How about writing programs to implement and demonstrate the calculus principle du jour? You have to do a certain amount of grinding. For school, optimize around what grade you'd like to get (the answer shouldn't always be "A") and how grades are calculated. Then optimize around whatever least amount of work gets you that grade. If it's something important but boring, first build a story about why it's important to you. Then find an interesting way to solve it (whether by writing a program to show it, forming a study group with a hot girl, reading background information on blogs or library books, etc).

jimbokun 17y ago

Set a time when you are going to do something, then arrange things so as many distractions as possible are eliminated during that time so you have no other choice but to study, or whatever your goal is. Without distractions, you will eventually get bored enough that you actually work on what you are supposed to be working. If you failed your first exam, that indicates it is not as boring as you thought. Calculus, specifically, comes up constantly now that I'm trying to understand Machine Learning, for example. Whatever you are studying, if you can figure out what some real world applications are, it should become much more interesting.

marr 17y ago

It's not hard. Just choose to do your schoolwork BEFORE you have fun reading your lisp book. Then you can truly enjoy reading it because you know the b.s. schoolwork is done for the day. Here is your new mantra: "What is the most PAINFUL thing I have on my list of to-do's?" Figure that out every hour or so, and go get it done. (It helps to realize that four or five years is a really short time. I know it doesn't feel that way when it is like 25% of your current lifespan, but really.. it will be over before you know it. And what's more - you'll actually get to enjoy it because you're not flunking out.)

btilly 17y ago

Advice. Review early. Review often. Don't review for too long at a time. If you've done it right you won't need to study for the exam. The key to math is that it builds on itself. If you miss one thing early on, you may not notice then but you'll get killed later. So you need to not just learn the facts, you need to internalize them. Luckily internalizing them is not that time consuming, but it does require being exposed to the same idea multiple times over a period of time. One thing that I did, for instance, was routinely attempted to prove random theorems from scratch. Any time I failed I tried to figure it out. If I had to I went to the book, but I would mark it down as something I had to review again not too much later. I figured that if I could write down a proof of the product rule from scratch, I could probably remember the rule. I was right. And not only did I remember the rule, but when I took differential equations a couple of years later I was the only person in my class who could recite off all of the definitions from memory.

donaq 17y ago

There is only one way to handle it if you want to graduate. Grit your teeth and do it. Take it from a guy who's like you and spent 6.5 years in university because he refused to study. I graduated in the end by becoming a sort of hermit before exams. No meeting with friends, redirecting all the non-productive sites I frequented to 127.0.0.1, not going out except when foraging for food, etc. I wish I'd done it sooner, because 1) 2.5 years extra was a bloody waste of youth, and 2) I racked up more debt than my peers, which I am still paying for. Besides, if you're really smart, you should be able to pass everything just by starting the hermit routine about 2 weeks before your papers. Take that total of 16 weeks (if it's a 4 year course with two major exams per year) as a temp job that makes you ~$12000 - if you take my figure of an extra 2.5 years at $5k per year, which I'm pretty sure is less than what your education is costing you (I'm Singaporean). :) Don't make the same mistakes I did!

joegaudet 17y ago

Well to be honest... just do the homework. My experience was that profs are lazy, and recycle a lot. So if you do the homework, you will know how to do the exam. It sucks, some of it won't make sense for ages, I honestly didn't understand what the limit definition of a derivative actually meant until 2 years after I got an A in calc. Some really good advice, hang out with people you know are smarter than you. They will get off on flaunting their intellect, and you'll get taught by some truly brilliant people... everyone wins? Finally try and have fun. I found a strong positive correlation between having fun and my performance in my undergrad.

yardie 17y ago

I was in the same situation. Not reading PCL, but Actionscript. Starting the work is harder than the work itself. The best grades I had were when I wasn't distracted by my PC. My mom was starting her company and needed a PC. I gave her mine and relied on the computer labs. The time restrictions because of lab hours meant I had a real deadline to get work done. I went in knowing I had 2 hours to allocate to one project, 2 hours for another, etc. When the lab closed, I left feeling confident that I did what I needed to do and could get some rest, finally. Whether they are boring or not doesn't matter. They are all boring at some point.

steveklabnik 17y ago

I basically didn't, and ended up going to school for an extra year and a half from all the failed classes, which added quite a bit onto the student loan total. In the end, the degree doesn't even matter, because I'm doing startup stuff. A warning, more than advice.