Larry Law

Larry Law

Member of Technical Staff at DSO National Laboratories

Undergraduate Study Tips

2 minute read

Published:

Motivation

With yesterday’s results release, I have finally graduated! Having been tested for many years of my life, here are some study tips I found useful for my own undergraduate studies. I hope they come in useful for a junior out there :).

The ones I like most are bolded.

Tips

Study Techniques I Swear By As A Medical Student by MDProspect. MDProspect’s advice formed the basis of my study strategy; I highly, highly recommend it.

  1. Study from core out. That is, study from the testable materials outwards.
  2. Concise note-taking
  3. Active recall
  4. Review in chunks
  5. Study harder for midterms
  6. Strong study mindset
  7. Competition
  8. Study partner
  9. Consistency
  10. Control anxiety

Doing well in your courses, by Andrej Karpathy. I refer to Karpathy’s advice primarily for test taking tips.

  1. Study very intensely RIGHT before the test
  2. Look over all questions very briefly before start
  3. On test, do easy questions first
  4. Always try to be neat on the test
  5. Always BOX IN/CIRCLE the answer
  6. Communicate with the marker
  7. Consider number of points per question
  8. If there are <5 minutes left and you are still stuck on some question, stop!
  9. When doing part (b) of a question, consider the previous part

How to reduce careless mistakes?. Simple steps to save some careless marks (which amount to quite abit for me).

  1. Get enough sleep
  2. Be neat and organised.
  3. Do not skip steps
  4. Pay attention to mistakes
  5. Always check your work

Finally, I’ll add some undergraduate-specific advice:

  1. Manage your workload. In NUS, we get to plan the number of modules we intend to take and which modules to take - exploit this freedom! That is, pick the optimal workload: not too heavy such that you can go the extra mile in your coursework (e.g. do extra practices), not too light such that you get complacent.

  2. Manage your finals schedule. Finals constitute majority of your coursework’s grade. Picking modules such that your finals are spread out will give you more-much-needed time to revise.

Closing thoughts

Finally, I’d like to echo Karpathy’s take on grades: the smartest student will get an average of A-. This way, you do well enough for opportunities that depend on grades (e.g. research assistant, TA, your first internship). Yet, you free up the time to pursue more important endeavours. If you are keen in research, ask a prof to do research. If you are keen in software engineering, try part-time internship / open source projects / leetcoding. University is a time for you to explore what you are truly interested in; the world is your oyster here.

Good luck!

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