skeleton 💀 study

mingshi | MIT 2018 | computer science major | I track the tag skeletonstudy

[skeletonstudy]

{how I got a 5.0 this semester}

Hi everyone! Yes, I haven’t written a post in  f o r e v e r, but I figure now is a good time to update y’all on what’s going on in my life.

Last semester (aka Fall 2016), I took 6.034 Artificial Intelligence, 6.046 Design and Analysis of Algorithms, 21G.901 Korean I, and Conversations You Can’t Have on Campus (a seminar style class). I ended up getting 100% in 6.034 and scraped by with an A- in 6.046, so overall I am pretty satisfied with my grades :)

I want to use this post to reflect on what I did last semester to do well in my classes, and hopefully give you a few tips on how to get the most out of your classes as well!

The theme in all these tips is simple: don’t just study harder, study smarter.

Make a schedule and stick to it. I use the Calendar app on my Macbook to schedule in all my classes, office hours, study time, and even breaks. I use different colors to denote different classes, and I use one color for scheduling break time. That way, I can hold myself accountable for using all the time I scheduled to study for an exam and also motivate myself until the next break. It’s also easier to change around my schedule, and I never forget events.

Know the syllabus. If homework is only worth 5% of your grade in Class 1 and it’s worth 40% in Class B, but you only have time/energy to complete one of the assignments, then it’s a no brainer which one you should do.

Know the teacher. After the first quiz or exam, you should learn how the teacher writes exams. Then, for the next quiz, you can try to predict what kind of questions will be on it and study for that material. This is especially useful for multiple choice questions.

Know yourself. If your first exam grade is lower than what you want, don’t just study for longer -- learn from your mistakes. Why weren’t you able to come up with the right answer? What was your thought process and how did it differ from the answer key? If you ran out of time, what did you spend your time on during the exam and how can you cut down on it? On the flip side, if you are satisfied with your grade, learn from your success. How did you study for this exam and what helped the most? What was your thought process during the exam and how can you replicate it for the next one?

Go to office hours!!! I’m pretty sure teachers are required to make themselves available to answer students’ questions outside of class. If you can’t go to the teacher’s office hours, then ask if you can come in during lunch or before or after school. If that doesn’t work, write them emails with questions that you have. Teachers love to see that you’re putting in effort to do well in their class, and going to office hours is the best way to show it.

Ask questions. If you don’t completely understand a concept, the first thing to do is try to find an answer for yourself. The second step is to ask your teacher if your understanding is correct. The algorithms class I took is notoriously difficult, and one thing that really helped me was asking questions and then trying to put the explanation in my own words. That helped me get a better understanding of the answer and if I didn’t quite get it right, the teacher can explain further.

Find your motivation. Try to motivate yourself beyond just “I want a perfect GPA.” For me, I wanted to a TA or grader next semester, and I knew that I needed to get A’s to qualify, so I used that to motivate me to learn the material to the best of my ability. For quizzes or exams, I would treat myself to a nice meal, a gadget I want, or half a day of shopping when I get a good result. Positive reinforcement works!

Study and do homework independently. I know a lot of people will encourage you to form study groups, but all the exams are completed on your own. When you do homework in a group, if someone else figures out the solution, you can convince yourself that you would also have gotten it on your own, which isn’t always the case. What I found most helpful was attempting all the problems on my own, writing down questions I have, go to office hours and work on it with a TA, and then confirm my solutions with my friends.

Get 7+ hours of sleep. This is actually probably the most important point. On average last semester I would say I got around 7 hours of sleep every single night. When you sleep, your brain solidifies everything you learned that day. For classes that require memorization, read through your notes before you go to bed, and flip through them again in the morning. But if you’re only getting 4-5 hours per night, your performance goes down drastically.

Go on studyblr. Honestly the studyblr community on tumblr is so pure and filled with people who love to study and do well. Surround yourself with this positivity. When you’re around people who love learning and doing their best, it pushes you to do the same.

So yeah that’s it! I hope these tips help you this next semester as school starts up again. As always, if you have questions or just want to talk, please send me an ask or a message!!

[skeletonstudy]

7:00PM // Tues Nov 15 // I haven’t made a deskpo post in a while, so here is me, pretending to be left-handed and revising my notes for 6.046 Design and Analysis of Algorithms while subtly showing off my Fitbit. I received an offer to work there next summer as a Software Engineering Intern!

I hope everyone is having a great week and staying warm! I can’t wait for Thanksgiving :)

[skeletonstudy]

Hello! I was reading one of the last asks that you answered, and I need a advice (but I'm not sure if can help me). I'm Brazilian, and I think I want to apply for MIT as international student when I finish high school (I'm on 11th grade, in your system). But I think I have nothing to offer in application, like accomplishments or other things (our exams to get in the college are SO MUCH different), and I'm afraid to apply, because my chances are very low. What you think? Thanks.

Hi there! A big disclaimer first off is that I’m not an admissions counselor, so everything on my blog is based off of my personal application process and the anecdotal experiences of my friends. However, overall a little over 10% of MIT’s 4.5K undergraduate students are international, which is around 480 students. That means around 120~150 international students are admitted every year. I believe that a good number of international students are from Western Europe, East Asia, and South East Asia (India mostly).

Unfortunately, that means around 3-5 Brazilian students are probably admitted every year. The sad truth is that MIT is an American university, so it admits mostly Americans. It is very well-known for giving students a high-quality education, which is why it is already highly highly competitive for American students. Nearly all of my international friends have placed in some sort of national or international level STEM competition. However, MIT is definitely trying to increase its class size. We’re currently the same size as Dartmouth College, the smallest Ivy League college (4.1K students), whereas Harvard has 7K and Cornell 14K. I think we are hoping to add around 500-1,000 students to the total population. This change probably won’t happen for a few more years though, because the limiting factor now is space.

Another thing is that international students who want to go to American universities tend to go to international schools. For instance, the students at Korean International School (KIS), where I am teaching in January, all speak perfect English, are educated by American or British instructors, and their curriculum is tailored to American standards. My cousin went to an international school in China, and now he is attending college in North Carolina; his high school provided numerous resources to help him with his Common Application, just like American high schools. This also makes the application process for international students very competitive.

With all of this anecdotal information in mind, I don’t think you should let it discourage you too much -- only to keep your expectations in check. I think the most important thing you can (and need to) have on your MIT application is a demonstrated passion for the MIT “way of life”, mens et manus -- critical thinking and hands-on experimentation, going above and beyond the basic expectations and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. How well you embody the spirit of MIT is the biggest question you should try to answer in your application.

I wish you luck in the rest of your time in high school and in your college application process! If you have any other questions, please send me another ask! As a parting thought, I’d like to share with you the words of the great Michael Scott, “’You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take -Wayne Gretzky.’”

[skeletonstudy]

Life updates: Thank you for 3,000 followers +++ I’m going to Korea!!

I’m super excited to announce that I will be spending January 2017 (MIT’s independent activities period) teaching computer science at Korean International School! I’m going in a group of 8 students as part of MIT’s global STEM education initiative, called Global Teaching Labs.

I will be co-leading a 1 week workshop about programming, robotics, and electrical engineering, that I am in the process of creating with the rest of my team!

If you have been following me for a while, you might remember that I did something similar last January in Italy, also part of Global Teaching Labs :)

Stay tuned for posts about my workshop and the rest of my time in Korea! I’m thinking of doing some videos about Korean life and culture while I’m there.

Last but not least, THANK YOU FOR 3,000 FOLLOWERS! I’m so incredibly honored to have passed this milestone. I’m honestly flattered that so many of you have asked me for computer science/college advice, and I will work harder in the future to come up with good content! Thank you so much everyone!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[skeletonstudy]

Hello, I was wondering how your school notebook system works? Thank you!

Hi! I just made a post about it!! I’m so sorry it took so long for me to answer this question :(

[skeletonstudy]

{how I take notes - for STEM subjects}

How I take notes depends a lot on how the professor of a class decides to present their notes. For instance, in 6.005 Software Construction, all of the assigned reading+problems were on the class website, so naturally it made sense for me to take notes on a computer. Also this class was heavily code-based, so there was hardly ever a need to write down complex equations or draw diagrams. For 6.046 Design and Analysis of Algorithms and 6.034 Artificial Intelligence, however, the professors write up notes on a chalkboard and theres optional textbook reading, so it makes more sense to write my notes in a notebook. It’s also much easier to draw charts, matrices, equations, etc. on paper than on a computer.

Now I’ll explain what’s going on in each of the images.

The top image is a screenshot of my 6.005 Software Construction notes. I took them in the OS X Notes app, which allows you to create “notebooks” and individual notes. So I had a 6.005 notebook and each lecture was its own note. I mostly followed the structure of the online notes, and occasionally moved definitions and things to where I thought they made more sense. That’s the nice thing about taking notes on a computer - copy and paste.

The bottom left is an image of my 6.034 Artificial Intelligence notes. They are from recitation, which is kind of like a review session that we have every week. It is led by a teaching assistant (TA) and we usually go over things in lecture and a couple extra bits. In this recitation, the set up for an example problem was quite long, so I cut it out of the handout and taped it into my notebook.

The bottom right is an image of my 6.046 Design and Analysis of Algorithms notes. for both of these classes, I like to take notes during class and recitation on loose leaf white paper, and then I copy them over into a smaller notebook when I get home. This helps me because recitation often makes concepts clearer to me and so they get copied into my notebook clearer as well, and it takes pressure off my to make my notes look nice during lecture (which gets often gets very dull).

I use a few basic principles:

write the date of the lecture at the top of every section

underline for new headings/topics

underline for new vocabulary or theorems in handwritten notes, bold in typed

leave space between concepts

use charts and diagrams where it is helpful - print them out if it’s easier

don’t stress too much about good handwriting; neat notes rely more on formatting than handwriting. Just keep it legible.

I hope this helps! I’ve gotten a ton of requests for showing how I take notes, and I’ve been so busy recently, but I wanted to post this for you guys :)

[skeletonstudy]

hi I'm a new follower so I'm not sure if you've answered this, but what did you do in high school? anything you think helped you get accepted? thank u!

Hi Anon! I don’t think I’ve answered this explicitly before, so I can talk about it now. In my knowledge, colleges tend to consider your “accomplishments” based on circumstances such as your school demographic, available classes, and previous examples of people they have admitted. So for instance, a student from a private boarding school that has a teacher to student ratio of 1:5 will be put to higher standards than a student who grew up on a farm and was homeschooled by their parents. In either case, colleges like to see that you have gone above and beyond what was expected of you, you pursued your passions, and you have a demonstrated interest in bettering your future. So while you can draw inspiration from what I did in high school, in no way should you take it as a “how to get into MIT” guide. I hope it helps you!

My main three activities in high school were captain of the speech and debate team, founder and president of figure drawing club, and volunteer at a senior living center + hospital. I spent 12+ hours on debate every single week, including going to tournaments on the weekends, leading in class debates, and doing research on cases. Figure Drawing Club was (and hopefully still is, although I don’t know) a group of around 20 students who practiced drawing the human form with a live model, so I spent 1-2 hours per week on that. I also volunteered 1 hour weekly at a senior living center from sophomore-senior year of high school. During the summers I volunteered for 40 hours a week at a hospital, and I mostly worked with the elderly and physically disabled. Outside of those, I was also in a youth orchestra, I was a tutor for National Honor Society, and I was on the cross country team for one year. One summer I went to Junior Achievement Business Week, which was a camp where we learned how to run businesses (kind of). I also attended Georgetown Debate Seminar and Spartan Debate Institutes. I don’t remember if I put these on my applications, though.

I also self-studied quite a bit in high school. I found that some of my classes were not taught as fast-paced as I liked, so I learned a year of Latin on my own during high school, so I wound up taking Latin 1, Latin ¾ Honors, AP Latin, and Independent Study Latin. I also “learned” a year of chemistry on my own, so my science track looked like Physical Science Honors, AP Chemistry, AP Biology, and AP Physics C. In middle school, I skipped a year of geometry, so in 8th grade, I took math at my high school, and ultimately my math track looked like Algebra 2/Trigonometry Honors (8th grade), Pre-Calculus Honors, AP Calculus BC, Multivariable Calculus/Differential Equations, Abstract Math/Linear Algebra. Only 7 people were in the last one in my high school total.

The final thing I think “helped” me was that I am from a single-parent household, which made it very difficult for me to participate in all the activities I wanted to do (both financially and time-wise). Since my school is in an affluent neighborhood, it was fairly uncommon for students like me to succeed in my circumstances (I guess that’s the reasoning behind it). I don’t like to think of this as an “advantage” although on a surface level it does “help” somewhat, and I hope you can see why not.

It has been nearly 3 years since I applied to colleges, so I apologize for being so woozy on the details. Those were the main ones I can think of.

[skeletonstudy]

You're not really active these days. Are you alright?

Aww thank you for reaching out :) Yes, I am super okay, but I have been completely SWAMPED! This week is our “career week” so I’ve been going to some company info sessions and fixin’ up my resume. Friday is the Fall Career Fair and I have a whole day without class just to dress up in fancy “business attire” whatever that means and try to get a job. My classes are no joke either, so mostly I’m just trying to fill my time up studying and working on my interviewing skills. This weekend, though, I will definitely be answering more asks and posting again. Thank you again!!! <3 <3 <3

[skeletonstudy]

Can you recommend cool blogs to follow...other than yours ofc..I visit yours manytime. it's good. Thankks.

Haha, this is a good question, and thanks, I’m glad you like my blog! My number 1 recommendation is @selamie, one of my best friends since middle+high school. She is a Mechanical Engineering Major at MIT, and her blog is seriously rad. A few blogs with nice aesthetics that I like are @productiveflower and @shellstudies. I’ve been following @architectureofdoom since forever just because their photos are really nice. And I love reading posts by @pettyrevenge. [By the way, sorry if we’ve never talked before and I tagged you in this post :( ]

[skeletonstudy]

12:05PM // Tues Sept 13 // OK so I am back on the grid for the second week of the semester!! These are my notes for 21H.009 World History 1400-Present. There's a ton of reading but I'm really enjoying it! This class is more about analyzing the impact of Eastern and Western powers rather than memorizing facts, so I'm really looking forward to it!

[skeletonstudy]

How do you define success in life?

Hmm...I really like how this question makes me think about myself, haha. In general I believe that as long as you set goals for yourself and fulfill them by any means, that is achieving success. I think that there are an infinite number of ways for every person to be successful, in large and small forms. I also feel that even if you didn’t necessarily fully achieve your goal, if you tried your best and truly put all your efforts into it, then that in itself is a form of success.

Personally, I have set a number of goals for myself, for the short, mid, and long terms. For instance, a huge short term goal is to develop my CS skills this semester and put them to good use during IAP (MIT’s independent activities period in January) and summer 2017. As for mid and long term goals, they are more personal and overall I would like to do good work that aligns well with my skills and interests and enrich my understanding of and experiences with the world around me.

[skeletonstudy]

Your blog looks so much cooler on a computer screen. I love the design.

Thank you! It’s made my sorrism, and I’ve made a couple of additions (more buttons, etc.) I’m getting more interested in HTML/CSS, and I’m currently in the process of rebooting the website for my independent living group, Fenway House.

[skeletonstudy]

What's your favorite programming language?

Hmm...I don’t have a favorite, but I like writing code in Java, just because it has so many uses and you can design your own classes, interfaces, etc. with a lot of ease. It also checks your code for completeness as you write it, as opposed to Python, for instance, which waits until you run the entire code to reveal errors. You can pretty much make Java do anything you want, (although certain tasks will be slower and less straightforward), and it can be quite fun :)

[skeletonstudy]

10:59AM // Thu Aug 25 // Today is my penultimate day of work! I’ve learned so much about machine vision summer, and it has truly been a life changing experience :) I saw Cafe Society yesterday at the E Street Cinema, which is an indie/alternative theater in Washington DC. It was a very pleasant movie, so if you like that sort of thing, I would recommend!

Can you spot my Brass Rat (MIT class ring) in this picture? It’s a tad too big, so I take it off when I’m programming. I’m seriously going to miss my desk set up when I leave. I have gotten so accustomed to the larger keyboard, the wireless mouse, and the huge monitor. I can’t wait to start school again, but tomorrow is definitely going to be a melancholy departure.

[skeletonstudy]

hey! im a cs major as well, going into my sophomore year. i go to bu so im also in boston! :) i really love computer science but im struggling so much - i got in a C in my freshman CS class despite going to office hours almost every single day. do you have any suggestions/tips for taking better notes or just doing better in class in general? :) also if you dont mind me asking, how did you get your internship? i woud really like to get one for next summer! :)

Hi there! I think it’s awesome that you’re sticking to computer science even though you find it difficult. The most important thing is to put in time and practice, so you’re on your way to being successful. Something you might want to consider is what kind of help you are getting in office hours. Is the TA/Professor helping you understand the solution, asking you leading questions and allowing you to arrive at the answer yourself, or are they simply showing you the correct steps? If it’s the latter, it might be good to attempt the problems again after getting help.

I find that reviewing homework problems and redoing practice problems (even the ones I did correctly the first time) is really helpful in sticking concepts and methods in my head. For theoretical classes, such as algorithms, you really just have to memorize the way that your professor solves the problems in class and learn to apply them to similar problems.

When it really comes down to it though, your grades don’t matter as much as your experience in research, internships, and personal projects. Many of my friends don’t always have high GPAs, but their interest and demonstrated skill (in coding challenges, for instance) is enough to garner them multiple internship offers.

To be completely honest, I got my internship completely by accident. My boyfriend spent hours convincing me to go to the spring career fair, and I finally agreed to talk to companies for 30 minutes maximum. The second company I talked to is the one that offered me an internship! (And I was the first student they talked to!) Learning from that experience, I would advise you make a list of potential companies and what kind of experience you would like (software, data, UI/UX, etc.) and then start fine-tuning your resume. Many top employers like Google and Facebook send out summer offers in the fall, so you have to plan ahead. Another way is if your parents work at/know people who work at a company you are interested in, you can ask them to refer you. A number of my friends have gotten internships (at Google, Facebook, and Salesforce) this way.

I hope this helps you. If you have any more questions, feel free to drop another question in my inbox. I am happy to answer any more :) Enjoy the last days of summer!!

[skeletonstudy]

I'm starting at MIT this year and I just wanted to say thanks, 'cause this blog is super helpful!!

Thank you! Maybe I’ll see you on campus sometime, haha. I’m super pumped for the semester to start, and I hope you’re looking forward to it too!!

[skeletonstudy]

I go to school in Boston as well (Wentworth Institute of Tech)! Was gonna apply to MIT but I was just too intimidated haha. I got accepted to WIT for Computer Science but I never coded before uni so I was a little scared and I felt hardware was more familiar to me than software so I switched to Computer Engineering. I was (am) still interested in coding especially after learning that coding experience wasn't needed in the Computer Science major. So now I am---

—minoring in CS. I’m also minoring in math which gives me the option to take a course in Machine Learning. I’m going into my 2nd year this Fall and I am taking my intro CS course. I just had some questions: Is it hard taking the intro to CS course without prior coding experience? Also what is machine learning like when learning it in uni and also in your job? Thank you so much and your blog+content is really cool!

Hi there! I took 6.01 Intro to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science without any prior coding experience whatsoever. I got a B in the class (take from that what you will, but I am proud of this grade). In the first few weeks I had a relatively difficult time because it was expected that you knew how to code in Python, so I had to attend many office hours in order to get past the initial learning curve. Once I understood the basic language of Python, however, I was chugging along as fast as the students who already knew the language. The thing is that once you know what you don’t know, it’s easy to search your questions on Google/Stack Exchange (such as how to remove duplicates from a list or how to concatenate two strings). If that’s gibberish to you, don’t worry – you’ll catch on pretty quickly. I’m assuming that your intro to CS course will be taught in Python, which is very simple. If not, other basic building block languages like Java are also fairly intuitive once you get the hang of it.

I haven’t actually taken a machine learning course yet, so I’m eternally grateful that my supervisor took a gamble on me and gave me an internship this summer. At my job, I’ve learned a ton about how neural nets work and how to train them. They’re basically a function approximator that switches the weights of various inputs until they look like the expected output when combined. My project is meant to help make the job of another team easier (currently they have to do some image labeling by hand, which takes forever) by automating the process. I think that having to learn a lot of concepts in order to do a job is actually more helpful to my development as a programmer compared to learning the theory behind the concepts in a class. If possible, definitely try to supplement your academic studies with an internship.

I hope this helps you in some way, and thanks for your compliments on my blog. If you have more follow-up questions, definitely shoot me another ask. Have a great week!