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Evzen40

Hey, are English-speaking and never-been-to-a-meetup-ing individuals welcome as well?

Evzen10

It could also be that the brain uses weights that are greater than 1 when weighting the priors. That way, we don't lose the gradation.

Evzen10

If the plan was to understand the given subject, then yes, that would work. And of course, that is the ultimate plan.

However, the more pressing matter are the exams. I would be afraid that the intersection of the two programs won't contain all of the important concepts; that's my experience with "other" textbooks (meaning, other than the few recommend ones), at least.

Evzen10

A month+ is plenty of time for spaced repetition to work its magic.

Thanks, that sounds encouraging.

For math, I recommend Anki; for non-Latex-intensive subjects like biology, I recommend SuperMemo for fast card creation while you read and review material.

I have to admit, I despise Anki. I love well-designed tools, to the point it's probably detrimental to my life. But alas, it is like it is — and so every time I see Anki (and I've made around 300 cards for it past the last few years), I have an urge to throw the computer out of the window.

But, that's just a detail. I plan to use Mochi, by the way.

I like to look at the "cheat sheets" for courses and ensure I know how to reason using the key concepts. Add cards for the key concepts you find in course review notes.

Ok, so the main advice is: don't make a card for everything, just the important concepts. And those concepts can be found in "cheatsheets" and "course review notes", it seems — unfortunately, I don't have any of those things.

So, I'd be grateful if you could illustrate what do you think constitutes a major, Anki-worthy piece of information. Let's say you're trying to revise (in the context of my current exam prep) a base chapter on vector spaces from Linear algebra done right. You probably want a card with the VS axioms. What else do you view as important enough?

Evzen30

It so happens that every six or seven months an article like this pops up, and revives my interest in Anki for a short while. So far, it has never stuck with me, but maybe this time…
 

I’m preparing for a bunch of Maths (linear algebra, analysis, automata and grammars, and the like) and Biology (molecular bio, immunology, genetics) exams, all due in June. I haven’t seen/used any of the subjects in question for at least a year, although I have passed each of them with perfect marks back then.

  1. Is it too late to construct the cards now as part of the refresh/relearning process?
  2. If it is, what other learning routine would you recommend? I usually just go through a book and try to connect everything to everything else. I’ve also adopted Zettelkasten notes for some of the subjects, formalising this notion of connecting things.
  3. If it isn’t, how granular should I be wirh the cards?
    1. A card for every definition, every theorem, and the main lemmas? (there’s literally hundreds of those)
    2. Or just a few high level cards like “explain the matrix subspaces” and “what are the eigenvectors about”?
    3. Or should the granularity be chosen relative to the expected granularity of the exam? (They probably won’t ask me to proove every little theorem)
Evzen10

use all vacation time to pursue this

 

I understand your point, however on the other hand isn't this unhealthy? It's actually an interesting question; 'workaholism' is usually looked down upon, and this could be classified similarly, but what about situations when the persons really enjoys the 'work'? But then, don't alcoholics also enjoy drinking?

That's wildly off-topic, though. Thanks for your viewpoint, I think in general it's important to realise that it's good to invest both time and money in learning, even outside of school and work.

Evzen30

Thanks, this is a nice POV, and sounds about right. Once I'm there (wherever that is), what should I strive for? Being in a small team with a dedicated person to ask things? Or being alone so that I ave to do everything myself, i.e. learn to do everything? 

That's the problem I see with going small, by the way. I think having a 'mentor' (or something as close to one as possible) would be really good for my learning, but show me a startup that can afford more than a week or two of onboarding time; I'd be afraid they just show you the basics and leave you to struggle alone.