Since embarking on the journey to pursue further studies, the most important aspects is currently planning. How can I possibly plan to accomplish? Should it be done in a daily, weekly or some other level? How can I gauge whether whether I’m on track on behind the times?

I believe in principles, they’re far easier to remember and adhere to:

  1. Always remember to exercise, especially if your workout is as simple as going for a 15 minute run. If you can’t keep that habit, what other habit can’t you keep?
  2. Push your deadlines forward by a week. You don’t know what will happen before your assignment or exam is due.
  3. Focus on the end result. Seriously! Nothing else matters in the end.

On face value, these principles are easy, but will help me stay sane. In this post I will focus on the last point.

The End Result

There is no shortcuts.

That is the hardest thing to remember. It is always tempting to say that I will go and do the bare minimum to maximize marks. Perhaps that is what you’ve interpretted this statement to be. And truth be told that isn’t exactly the wrong intepretation. But perhaps I should clarify.

Please don’t do all the readings. There is just so many, to truly understand it all is absolutely ridiculous. However it isn’t enough to do the bare minimum, so what can we do?

Asking Questions.

The most important aspect and under appreciated tool in the online lectures is the rewind button. We should relentlessly ask questions on what the lecturer is saying, no matter how trivial or stupid it may be.

For example, does the lecturer actual tell me what is the definition of a neural network?

But don’t just ask questions, write it down as well. Then provide evidence to yourself to support that question, and finally your conclusion. Have you answered your question? If you still haven’t then perhaps you should consult your readings.

This is important, because this is where it really checks your knowledge. You could indeed listen and watch all your lectures and do all your readings; however how do you test your knowledge? How do you test this end result?

This is used as focused question cluster strategy

The end result is that the big ideas matter. No one cares if you can memorize formulas, but if you understand the underlying reasoning behind the formula, and understand why it is important, you should be instead be able to derive it. That is by far more important.