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A lot of it was stuff that is basic to someone with years of work experience: * Start assignments as soon as they are given out. Stupid, right? * Don't be shy

A lot of it was stuff that is basic to someone with years of work experience: * Start assignments as soon as they are given out. Stupid, right? * Don't be shy about asking lots of questions. Don't be egotistical or afraid about asking for clarification. * Build personal relationships with the professors and TAs. They are there to help. This is not an adversarial relationship. Show genuine passion for the material. * Find real-world analogies or applications of the theory. An intuitive understanding is far more important memorization. It is also far more motivational. By seeing how a technique can be used to solve a real problem, the value becomes tangible. * Be curious. You are there to learn, which means digging beyond the provided material. So many students are sadly focused on the grade or assignment, not on the learning. I could probably write a book about this... Edit: formatting

rweba 9y ago
This is great stuff! I am a CS professor and these are exactly the kind of things my undergraduate students struggle with! Especially these two points: * Start assignments as soon as they are given out. Stupid, right? * Be curious. You are there to learn, which means digging beyond the provided material. So many students are sadly focused on the grade or assignment, not on the learning. You should definitely write a book!
- LolWolf 9y ago
  I was recently and undergrad (now a grad student)---I've done research, work, taught classes, led competition teams, etc... and I still struggle with this. You should definitely write a book!
ccajas 9y ago
How did you deal with the financial issues about returning to college? Non-STEM graduate here, looking to work in places that have more deeply engineering related backgrounds. I'd prefer getting a CS or ECE degree. My situation is especially complicated. I have been unemployed (save a few short freelance gigs) since early 2015. I cannot interview effectively anymore. This, I think, is my biggest problem I live with my mom because I can no longer make ends meet, but she is retiring and moving countries soon so I too have to eventually move out. I have no friends or relatives with whom I can stay living with. Because I already have a previous degree, financial aid opportunities for me are more limited, I hear. If I were to register for the fall and aim to get into a university with a decent to great engineering background, how would you lay out a plan?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rhizome 9y ago
  At the very least, I would call the local community college and talk to a counselor. You could get a two-year CS degree that will give you the important concepts and plenty of programming exposure for not a lot of money. If you really want to transfer for a full bachelor's, the community college can still give you cheap units for everything you need up until you switch schools, and it may just be that your previous degree can help out here (NB: IANA couselor).
  - ccajas 9y ago
    I can think of a few local community colleges I can go to for starting. And then ask about housing options, or perhaps get into a campus job. If the campus job can waive most of your tuition, do you think just having that would suffice? Also, do you recommend more on transferring out of the CC later to go to a very reputable CS university (UC Berkeley for example)? I'd like to be one of those people who can land an internship at Jet Propulsion Labs (I'd like to combine my interests in computing and space exploration). Like the OP said in his old topic, I have a passion for coding (check my username for Github), but I can't interview worth a damn anymore. So I don't know if it's delusional to think that a CS degree (and the education that comes with it) will automatically open up many doors for me. I wish I can maximize my utility for a business or an org even if I can't pass most interviews, because failing interviews is just making my skills go to waste. A local job recruiter (a specialized one, not from a big agency) once told me to seek companies that offer SWE apprenticeships as a refresher. But those sorts of companies are hard to come by here.
    - rhizome 9y ago
      All I can say is to keep interviewing and reflecting on your experiences (take notes!), which will tune you in to the kinds of preparation you have to do in order to pass through the process successfully. You can do it!
    - 9y ago
aidenn0 9y ago
Glad to know students haven't changed w.r.t. meeting professors. I graduated in '04 and it astonished me how empty most professor's office hours were (modulo a particularly tricky homework question or an upcoming test). I can learn from a textbook just fine; there are accomplished researchers in various fields who are literally paid to sit in an office and talk to you if you show up. And almost nobody took advantage of it!
stephen82 9y ago
I'm in my mid-thirties who has graduated years ago but still struggling with motivation and maintaining updates with technological advancements. Your points were really motivating to me. Will you announce it here when you have that book ready? I'm looking forward to buy it!

rweba 9y ago

This is great stuff! I am a CS professor and these are exactly the kind of things my undergraduate students struggle with! Especially these two points: * Start assignments as soon as they are given out. Stupid, right? * Be curious. You are there to learn, which means digging beyond the provided material. So many students are sadly focused on the grade or assignment, not on the learning. You should definitely write a book!

LolWolf 9y ago
I was recently and undergrad (now a grad student)---I've done research, work, taught classes, led competition teams, etc... and I still struggle with this. You should definitely write a book!

ccajas 9y ago

How did you deal with the financial issues about returning to college? Non-STEM graduate here, looking to work in places that have more deeply engineering related backgrounds. I'd prefer getting a CS or ECE degree. My situation is especially complicated. I have been unemployed (save a few short freelance gigs) since early 2015. I cannot interview effectively anymore. This, I think, is my biggest problem I live with my mom because I can no longer make ends meet, but she is retiring and moving countries soon so I too have to eventually move out. I have no friends or relatives with whom I can stay living with. Because I already have a previous degree, financial aid opportunities for me are more limited, I hear. If I were to register for the fall and aim to get into a university with a decent to great engineering background, how would you lay out a plan?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rhizome 9y ago
At the very least, I would call the local community college and talk to a counselor. You could get a two-year CS degree that will give you the important concepts and plenty of programming exposure for not a lot of money. If you really want to transfer for a full bachelor's, the community college can still give you cheap units for everything you need up until you switch schools, and it may just be that your previous degree can help out here (NB: IANA couselor).
- ccajas 9y ago
  I can think of a few local community colleges I can go to for starting. And then ask about housing options, or perhaps get into a campus job. If the campus job can waive most of your tuition, do you think just having that would suffice? Also, do you recommend more on transferring out of the CC later to go to a very reputable CS university (UC Berkeley for example)? I'd like to be one of those people who can land an internship at Jet Propulsion Labs (I'd like to combine my interests in computing and space exploration). Like the OP said in his old topic, I have a passion for coding (check my username for Github), but I can't interview worth a damn anymore. So I don't know if it's delusional to think that a CS degree (and the education that comes with it) will automatically open up many doors for me. I wish I can maximize my utility for a business or an org even if I can't pass most interviews, because failing interviews is just making my skills go to waste. A local job recruiter (a specialized one, not from a big agency) once told me to seek companies that offer SWE apprenticeships as a refresher. But those sorts of companies are hard to come by here.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    All I can say is to keep interviewing and reflecting on your experiences (take notes!), which will tune you in to the kinds of preparation you have to do in order to pass through the process successfully. You can do it!
  - 9y ago

aidenn0 9y ago

Glad to know students haven't changed w.r.t. meeting professors. I graduated in '04 and it astonished me how empty most professor's office hours were (modulo a particularly tricky homework question or an upcoming test). I can learn from a textbook just fine; there are accomplished researchers in various fields who are literally paid to sit in an office and talk to you if you show up. And almost nobody took advantage of it!

stephen82 9y ago

I'm in my mid-thirties who has graduated years ago but still struggling with motivation and maintaining updates with technological advancements. Your points were really motivating to me. Will you announce it here when you have that book ready? I'm looking forward to buy it!