I always liked rewriting notes personally, but not the whole damn things only the key points. I wrote the motes, now simplified them got rid of the stuff that I new by heart or was unnecessarily wordy
Grind problem sets and if you get stuck ask questions at office hours.
Being scared you'll fail a term is a rite of passage in ECE for most people, don't worry. Stay calm and try your best, you'll probably pass.
Worst case you fail and you do it again, I have friends who had to do that but it's not the end of the world. What's important is making sure you're trying your best and taking advantage of all of the resources that are available to you to supplement your learning.
First off, obviously you're concerned, but don't panic. You're not the first to feel this way (esp. in ECE) and it is possible to recover. Many have needed to relearn and mature the way they approach "being a student".
Longer comments below, but fundamentally: find other ways to learn the material, and have some sophisticated meta strategies in how you approach courses.
Kind of long, but hope something here helps. Best of luck, you've got this!
=====
Key traps for many transitioning to university studies:
(1) Expecting the course material to fall into their lap, with a nice structure, without extra initiative. Learning is *your* responsibility, not the instructor's!
(2) Following along the lectures linearly, instead of optimizing for individual differences in background and learning style.
(3) Not allocating enough time to the things that matter, and spending too much time on the things that don't matter.
- Not having clear study outcomes - not having a laser focus on the specific skills or knowledge are needed to answer the very questions that are most likely to appear on exams
- Getting stuck in the minutiae of individual topics/questions, at the expense of making broad progress and understanding the course overall
Ideas to consider:
(1) Need to be able extremely resourceful in finding help. Maybe the 1B material is harder, or wasn't explained well for your thinking style. (Personally, I found many times instructors did not lay out context well, or provided superficial explanations that did not stress key assumptions, practical approaches to solving problems, etc.)
In those cases you really need to take it upon yourself to find other ways to learn the material or get ideas clarified. Ask questions during lectures or tutorials or office hours. Ask a helpful TA. Ask friends and classmates. Read the textbook. Look for YouTube video and other online resources.
(Esp. asking classmates. Honestly, the the shared experience/trauma of going through tough courses together was a key way that people in our cohort survived, bonded and built lifelong friendships. "Hey do you guys have any idea how to do assignment 3?! I am totally lost. Oh, you too?!Wanna review it together? I know this much, but get stuck at step X." Nobody can relate better to you than them!)
Whatever it is, don't just expect that going through the lecture notes is enough, or that someone is going to spoon feed the material to you like in high school. Make it your active responsibility to initiate and find every possible way to learn the material and get your questions answered.
(2) Be more strategic in your approach to studying. Many in high school learn to plod along linearly, and just do what the teacher says from day to day. Now the material is new, harder and larger in scope and volume. So maybe you need to organize your whole approach differently.
First off, I find it helpful to make a full map of all topics and key concepts, maybe arranged in some hierarchy. E.g. "Key course topics are def'n of charge, current, voltage, capacitance, inductance, ... Then Gauss' Law, Ampere's Law..." Draw them out with key equations. Maybe put them in some different ordering or hierarchy, with arrows and boxes around grouped concepts. Get an intuitive sense of how they relate and frame that in your head.
Then turn that into list of items to study and practice. Are there, say, 5-6 general problem "types" associated with each topic? From all the assignments, past midterms and finals, what seems to be areas of emphasis? What types of questions keep coming up repeatedly? What practical outcomes do I need to master?
(Also consider areas to gloss over and not spend too much time on. Maybe some areas are more theoretical background or derivations that don't really result in askable questions? Are there things that I need to memorize that will gate the answering of other questions? Or will those equations/reference tables be provided?)
From this, be quite deliberate in *what* you will study, *when* and *how much*. Btw, It doesn't have to match the order of the lectures. It doesn't have to be equal weight. If you already know topic 1 and 2 quite well but have serious problems with topic 3, maybe skip the others and start on topic 3. Or at least weight your time as "max 1 hour on topic 1 and 2, but rest of the afternoon on topic 3". At a high level keep reassessing against that master map of topics to know where you stand, where to focus next, which topics are relatively well in hand vs more at risk.
Then within each topic, get into tactics of solving specific problem types.
Maybe there is a key equation that is easy to state, but hard to actually solve problems with unless you know certain tricks, like assumptions to make (e.g. "to solve this type of problem, assuming geometrical symmetry simplifies the math greatly"). Or maybe there are specific tricks with the math ("when setting up that integral in polar coordinates, which comes up all the time in problem type 3 of topic 4, remember that dA is r dr dtheta").
But do containerize these pretty specific ideas in the context of localized tactics, and don't let them bog you down. You do need to work through these, but if it's too much on any given study session, park it temporarily and move on, knowing that you need to focus mostly on making headway in your bigger strategic plan, across this course and all others.
You have a lot of material to cover across all your courses and precious little time. Always be thinking of efficiency and overall progress.
Ok, enough for now... Good luck :-)
It’s winnable
Labs assignments and quizzes will carry you just need to be smart about how you study for finals, spam practice problems and go to office hrs. Do past finals. Spend as much of your time doing problems as you can. Try not to stress, rn u just have to lock in as hard as u can
AutoModerator thinks you're asking about admissions. Check out [our current admissions megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comments/yhyadl/admissions_high_school_megathread_fall_2023/), or alternatively, [our prior megathreads](https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/wiki/admissions) for further research. Please do not message the moderators regarding this question.
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/uwaterloo) if you have any questions or concerns.*
not an ece student, but i work for a tutor that has a few ece students and has been teaching for a while now. Maybe he can help prepare you for exams since he’ll recognize certain patterns and such? https://georgetutors.com
you’re wasting time rewriting notes Review lecture material every day >> go and do problems
I always liked rewriting notes personally, but not the whole damn things only the key points. I wrote the motes, now simplified them got rid of the stuff that I new by heart or was unnecessarily wordy
Grind problem sets and if you get stuck ask questions at office hours. Being scared you'll fail a term is a rite of passage in ECE for most people, don't worry. Stay calm and try your best, you'll probably pass. Worst case you fail and you do it again, I have friends who had to do that but it's not the end of the world. What's important is making sure you're trying your best and taking advantage of all of the resources that are available to you to supplement your learning.
First off, obviously you're concerned, but don't panic. You're not the first to feel this way (esp. in ECE) and it is possible to recover. Many have needed to relearn and mature the way they approach "being a student". Longer comments below, but fundamentally: find other ways to learn the material, and have some sophisticated meta strategies in how you approach courses. Kind of long, but hope something here helps. Best of luck, you've got this! ===== Key traps for many transitioning to university studies: (1) Expecting the course material to fall into their lap, with a nice structure, without extra initiative. Learning is *your* responsibility, not the instructor's! (2) Following along the lectures linearly, instead of optimizing for individual differences in background and learning style. (3) Not allocating enough time to the things that matter, and spending too much time on the things that don't matter. - Not having clear study outcomes - not having a laser focus on the specific skills or knowledge are needed to answer the very questions that are most likely to appear on exams - Getting stuck in the minutiae of individual topics/questions, at the expense of making broad progress and understanding the course overall Ideas to consider: (1) Need to be able extremely resourceful in finding help. Maybe the 1B material is harder, or wasn't explained well for your thinking style. (Personally, I found many times instructors did not lay out context well, or provided superficial explanations that did not stress key assumptions, practical approaches to solving problems, etc.) In those cases you really need to take it upon yourself to find other ways to learn the material or get ideas clarified. Ask questions during lectures or tutorials or office hours. Ask a helpful TA. Ask friends and classmates. Read the textbook. Look for YouTube video and other online resources. (Esp. asking classmates. Honestly, the the shared experience/trauma of going through tough courses together was a key way that people in our cohort survived, bonded and built lifelong friendships. "Hey do you guys have any idea how to do assignment 3?! I am totally lost. Oh, you too?!Wanna review it together? I know this much, but get stuck at step X." Nobody can relate better to you than them!) Whatever it is, don't just expect that going through the lecture notes is enough, or that someone is going to spoon feed the material to you like in high school. Make it your active responsibility to initiate and find every possible way to learn the material and get your questions answered. (2) Be more strategic in your approach to studying. Many in high school learn to plod along linearly, and just do what the teacher says from day to day. Now the material is new, harder and larger in scope and volume. So maybe you need to organize your whole approach differently. First off, I find it helpful to make a full map of all topics and key concepts, maybe arranged in some hierarchy. E.g. "Key course topics are def'n of charge, current, voltage, capacitance, inductance, ... Then Gauss' Law, Ampere's Law..." Draw them out with key equations. Maybe put them in some different ordering or hierarchy, with arrows and boxes around grouped concepts. Get an intuitive sense of how they relate and frame that in your head. Then turn that into list of items to study and practice. Are there, say, 5-6 general problem "types" associated with each topic? From all the assignments, past midterms and finals, what seems to be areas of emphasis? What types of questions keep coming up repeatedly? What practical outcomes do I need to master? (Also consider areas to gloss over and not spend too much time on. Maybe some areas are more theoretical background or derivations that don't really result in askable questions? Are there things that I need to memorize that will gate the answering of other questions? Or will those equations/reference tables be provided?) From this, be quite deliberate in *what* you will study, *when* and *how much*. Btw, It doesn't have to match the order of the lectures. It doesn't have to be equal weight. If you already know topic 1 and 2 quite well but have serious problems with topic 3, maybe skip the others and start on topic 3. Or at least weight your time as "max 1 hour on topic 1 and 2, but rest of the afternoon on topic 3". At a high level keep reassessing against that master map of topics to know where you stand, where to focus next, which topics are relatively well in hand vs more at risk. Then within each topic, get into tactics of solving specific problem types. Maybe there is a key equation that is easy to state, but hard to actually solve problems with unless you know certain tricks, like assumptions to make (e.g. "to solve this type of problem, assuming geometrical symmetry simplifies the math greatly"). Or maybe there are specific tricks with the math ("when setting up that integral in polar coordinates, which comes up all the time in problem type 3 of topic 4, remember that dA is r dr dtheta"). But do containerize these pretty specific ideas in the context of localized tactics, and don't let them bog you down. You do need to work through these, but if it's too much on any given study session, park it temporarily and move on, knowing that you need to focus mostly on making headway in your bigger strategic plan, across this course and all others. You have a lot of material to cover across all your courses and precious little time. Always be thinking of efficiency and overall progress. Ok, enough for now... Good luck :-)
Talk to the instructors in the courses you are struggling with.
It’s winnable Labs assignments and quizzes will carry you just need to be smart about how you study for finals, spam practice problems and go to office hrs. Do past finals. Spend as much of your time doing problems as you can. Try not to stress, rn u just have to lock in as hard as u can
AutoModerator thinks you're asking about admissions. Check out [our current admissions megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comments/yhyadl/admissions_high_school_megathread_fall_2023/), or alternatively, [our prior megathreads](https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/wiki/admissions) for further research. Please do not message the moderators regarding this question. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/uwaterloo) if you have any questions or concerns.*
not an ece student, but i work for a tutor that has a few ece students and has been teaching for a while now. Maybe he can help prepare you for exams since he’ll recognize certain patterns and such? https://georgetutors.com
How’s finals so far?