Going back to college

pen and paper.
Advice: study

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>>56179721
>because my dad didn't let me stay in the city.
>Any gadgets I could get that would make my life easier this time

Yes. Get a van and move in it, tell your parents you got together with some college kids and got a apartment where six of you are living in, why six? Because its just above the number where they wouldn't think of coming by, and then start living your life independently, with your now four free hours you can get a part time in the city.

>>56179768
That's what my father told me last time.

I guess that is a good advice. I mean people went to colleges 500 years ago when there weren't even pens.

Thanks. I think I needed that kick back to reality. Come to think of it, other students mostly used gadgets to cheat and I don't want to take that road.
>>56179808
I live in eastern Europe and full time jobs for students usually pay around 1-2 euros per hour so nobody is hiring part time. But I'll be sure to bring up living there next time I talk to my parents.

>>56179862
>I live in eastern Europe and full time jobs for students usually pay around 1-2 euros

I live in western Europe and I got paid that amount exactly when I worked a four hour part time at a call center. I know what the commute shit is like I had to deal with the same shit, the van sugestion still stands, you would need to find a place to take showers and wash your clothes I have to assume the college you go to would have showers available, washing clothes is where it could become a problem.

I imagine you're taking public transportation to get there? What exactly are you taking? Train and bus? You could probably invest in a foldable bike and get around the city faster than the bus will which may give you some time on your commute, use your commute time to study also, and take notes take notes take notes and listen and understand, if not use youtube there are all kinds of videos on everything.

>>56179963
I take a bus and a trolleybus. It's not an intercity commute because I live far outside of the city so I can't take a bike.

No, colleges here don't have any sanitary facilities. Even the toilet is professors only.
I'd wash clothes at home if we stay in good relations.

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Tech is an afterthought. But general advice...

1. Visit each prof during office hours in the first week or two. "Hey I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself. This is my second time at college and I never really made connections with my professors last time, so I wanted to do things differently this time. Blah...blah... blah"

2. Have focused study sessions in the library. It's an ideal study environment for many people - especially given all the distractions in the world in 2016.

3. I noticed I was able to focus much better if I did 50 pushups and had some caffeine every morning. YMMV.

4. You can knock out some reading during your commute. Pick up a large yet cheap android tablet (like a used HP Touchpad) and load it with your ebooks/textbooks.

>>56179721
>Any gadgets I could get that would make my life easier this time? I have a good smartphone now so that's a start.
kek, you're just going to fail again if you think gadgets are going to make you pass.

i've had the same (dumb) phone for all of undergrad and over 3 years of grad school so far. my desktop is even older than that, and my laptop i bought half a year before entering grad school but i barely use it.

i never took pictures of notes with my phone like a lot of lazy cunts, and all my notes were hand written in paper notebooks. finished mechanical engineering undergrad with a 3.88 GPA and my phd GPA is 4.0.

gadgets won't make you study and understand the material. they will just allow you to become even lazier.

>>56180258
>1. Visit each prof during office hours in the first week or two. "Hey I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself. This is my second time at college and I never really made connections with my professors last time, so I wanted to do things differently this time. Blah...blah... blah"

My college works differently. The staff doesn't have office hours because "you can ask everything you need in lecture" and our professors are available only a few days a year to give us signatures required on our documents we need to enroll in the next year.

All the lectures are done by assistants and various other staff.

We don't have study groups or a library.

>>56180258
So you are a college professor, tell me why you should give a fuck about some kid bothering you in your office? And as that kid how does making a nuisance out of yourself work in your favor?

>>56180548
it doesn't. i have been a TA and worked closely with multiple professors. many of them wouldn't lecture if they had the choice of only doing research. all of the ones i worked with just outright say to go speak with the TAs regarding any grading or homework questions. so what else would you speak to the professor about? their research. if you come in to ask them about what they do and show interest in working in their lab they'll be very happy to speak to you. otherwise they'll try to get you out of the office as soon as possible and convince you to see the TA from then on.

also study groups are a shit idea too. all the one's i've see turn into social activities and people would drift off checking social media on their laptops/phones instead of focusing on studying. they are also a great opportunity for kids that don't understand the material to pester the one guy in the group that does, so it benefits them but the guy that understands the material just wastes his time explaining it to them.

>>56180666

i went to a small non-research college, so I suppose my perspective is different

if you can get permission to record (video, audio) lectures, that can be quite a boon

some people don't function on "physically writing notes", some people just need to hear something a second time

if that's not available to you, just find similar narrated material online for what you learned today

- Don't skip class
- Study everyday
- Stay organized. (Use binders, color code notes etc..) If you stay organized you wont waste time looking for things
- Manage you schedule (I use google calendar)
- Automate everything you can
- Eat healthy and exercise
- Be productiuve on your downtime. Listen to podcasts on your commute, read a book etc...

I failed my first time too OP now I'm doing pretty well. Good luck

>>56180753
>- Be productiuve on your downtime.
You're breaking that rule by being on here

>>56180753
How do you stop thinking about that if you pulled the trigger on yourself you wouldn't have to do any of those things?

If I could just get rid of that thought I'd do fine. It overpowers everything in my head, it's like a virus.

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>>56180180
>any sanitary facilities. Even the toilet is professors only

What? Please tell me what college this is, the town, what classes are you taking, I want to know more.

>>56180830
Then you're battling depresion anon and my advice would be to just keep your mind occupied, learn to enjoy what you're doing. Also, if you are overweight or unhealthy, then learn a bit about nutrition and start exercising, that shit will seriously improve your mental health

>>56179862
Did the man who invented college go to college? Hmmm...

>>56180934
I don't want to get doxxed but it's in a poor country in eastern Europe and I take these courses:
>Calculus 1 and 2
>Introduction to English 1 and 2
>Introduction to electrical engineering 1 and 2
>Introduction to business management
>Physics
>Introduction to electronics
>Introduction to programing
>Introduction to computational systems
>Introduction to Microsoft Office

Develop good study habits.

Recognize when you are shit at something and non-natural-talented. So that you make up in discipline. Be ready to study for long periods of time that might seem ridiculous but are necessary. Visualise your goal and don't stop. Further if unable to concentrate for long hours because you haven't develop the habits, use drugs like adderall WHEN necessary and then remove yourself from so that you don't become tolerant to them.( ex: I use 3 pill last 3 days before all my finals to that I could have 24 hours of concentration to cover any material I might not had fully understand for my finals)
NEver give up , always remember that what you lack in talent can be made up in discipline.

>>56181061
>>56179862
>>56180258
>>56180369

I am gonna be 30 and am considering going to college through open university, the thing that concerns me is how the people I know who went to college all seem to be inside this little box with concrete walls and they're all focused on a very narrow path of solutions and everything else is for ignorant people, when they couldn't solve everyday problems at the company I worked at and I had to solve those problems for them otherwise we'd still be stuck today.

Is going to college going to put me in that fucking concrete box?

Yeah a smartphone is a great tool for procrastinating. Bravo lad.

even if I'm poor, I had better opportunities than OP... and I failed hard. now I'm a NEET
I should kill myself for being a useless waste of human meat.

move to east Germany

I hear they have toilets

>>56181246
nah bro, just go back to school get a mcjob and dont get in debt, what do you have to lose?

>>56180369
> Profs only there to sign documents sometimes
> Assistants teach and mark
What are you even paying for?

>>56181487
Not OP, but he's paying for a diploma which will get him employed even if he didn't do none of the work or had any of the knowledge.

And besides, its eastern Europe, I don't think he is "paying" for it.

>>56181487
It is completely and utterly free of charge.

>>56179721
>electrical engineering
>Last time I was there I failed everything
>didn't know how to manage my time
>didn't make any contacts or friends and I just faded out of life at the end
Are you me?

>>56179862
>I live in eastern Europe and full time jobs for students usually pay around 1-2 euros per hour so nobody is hiring part time. But I'll be sure to bring up living there next time I talk to my parents.


Jesus dont go to an eastern europe college.
Or atleast not a nationally supported university.

Source : I went to uni cause i wanted to get into engineering. Didnt pan out. Ended up joining a much more laid back private programming course and became a programmer instead.

Sorry op but key me tell you from experience that nothing will change. You'll struggle, and if you're lucky you'll be able to skirt by doing the least work possible. You graduate hardly any more knowledgeable than when you got in and you'll hate yourself for it.

You won't do anything these people suggest, or you'll do them so half-assedly you might as well have not done it at all.

Good luck tho

>>56179862
>other students mostly used gadgets to cheat
>I don't want to take that road
Enjoy being at a disadvantage then. Basically every college program will alter the difficulty of its work based on the grades of the students. if you're in a class where everyone is cheating, the work is going to get harder in response to the improved performance of all the students. If you're not cheating, you're taking on that extra work without the help the other students are getting from cheating.

>>56181087

>>Introduction to Microsoft Office

HOW IS THAT A COURSE

What happened to all the EEs that used to be on /g/ years ago?

>>56181594
They probably left when they noticed everyone else here is retarded.

>>56181594
/g/ is shit now and full of softwareonly babbies

if we didn't leave 4chan we're probably on /diy/

>>56181590
Most students here don't get to type a lot before college and not everyone has a PC so the assistant will put up a text on the projector and we have to type it over and edit it in Word.
It helps because Introduction to programing is in the second semester and like 30% of it is done at the computers.

>>56181590
You should've seen my first year.

Semester 1 :
Introduction to programming in C

Semester 2 :
Microsoft - Word & Excel

>>56181655
>Introduction to programing is in the second semester and like 30% of it is done at the computers.
wat

>>56181729
>wat
Not OP but i've had a C programming exam that had to be done on paper.

I left uni the following semester.

>>56181750
That sounds a lot like my college especially if you're this guy
>>56181668

>>56181729
Most of the lectures is done in the notebooks and exams are done on paper.

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>>56180804
>days left in summer vacation: 2

>>56181859
I am that guy.

"College" was Sofia Technical University.


I'd suggest you avoid places like what you describe. You'll finish your education and realize that you've spent a bunch of time on skills that are solid but extremely disconnected from the real world.

Also, having a Diploma might not be as valuable as you think.

>>56181087
What the fuck.

I'm from Poland and we learned C in fucking high school.

>>56181949
What do you suggest then? Because if having a diploma isn't as valuable as portrayed, you also can not get a job without one, no one trusts that you can be self taught those skills either.

>>56181998
>we learned C in fucking high schoo

So you're all programmers now?

>>56182032
>What do you suggest then? Because if having a diploma isn't as valuable as portrayed, you also can not get a job without one, no one trusts that you can be self taught those skills either.

Atleast for programming it works. Left uni 2 years ago. Studied programming intensively for about a year at a private software academy and immidiately after started a junior Unity3D developer position for pretty decent pay, with a bangin' office and a very positive environment.


Best thing you can do in your position is get an internship doing something you'd expect your diploma would allow you to do.

If you know the basics and know what the responsibilities of a non-critical beginner position are ,you could probably even get away with getting a "real" position.

Though @ most internships either you get kicked out early or get promoted 6 months down the line.

Expect a decent but not a life-altering paycheck .(unless you currently live in a hole in the wall)


Get experience, there are no magical documents that will qualify you for any position.

>>56181668

Im very glad my university doesnt suck dick.

>>56182200
These are pretend-universities that get paid by the government on the basis of how many students pass. Thus there is bribery everywhere and you get let through even if you know nothing ( though there isnt enough effort put in to teach you much ).

During my time i actually made more than the tuition by getting paid to write C projects ( sort a 2d array in some arbitrary way )
and draw CAD sketches for charting.


If you're in a real university you'll be much better off.

Adderall

>>56179862
Pens have been around for thousands of years bro. My advice: don't talk about things you don't know about.

>>56179721
Graduated in '09 BSEE, my advice is to have as little tech as possible. Get a cheap chromebook or thinkpad to submit web assignments and read pdf files. Take notes with pencil and paper only. Have several physical filing folders for your notes and keep up with them meticulously. Go over them weekly if at all possible.

>>56184226
is audio recording the lectures for later review a bad idea?

buying technology does not make you do better at college, all the resources required are already provided by and at college

A generic advice for ANY area: don't try to be a jack of all trades, be good in something, very good, something that makes you a valuable asset.

Bitches and whores are dispensable, so are drugs, but acquaintances are not.

Humans beings are interested in what you can do for them, they want results. Do something once, they'll expect you to do again, for free. You don't want that.

Learn to talk what others want to hear. Having assburger wasn't an impediment at all for me.

Here's how I passed my first year (most intimidating year):

-Tablet for pirating textbooks (not just the prescribed text books, learn from different textbooks)
-Khan Academy for an easy introduction if I didn't understand the lecture
-Math tutor DVD collection (used to be on KAT) Calculus, Physics and Engineering Circuits (Circuit analysis)

Don't fall behind, it just snow balls from there. Tell a teacher if you're falling behind, ask for help. My school had a Drop in learning centre - help from a on scheduled physics/maths teacher - if your school has something similar USE IT.

But srsly the math tutor dvd collection legit saved me. Made me master that shit. Just checked there's torrents on TPB.

>>56186316
its called "math tutor"?

is it the 60gb torrent on pirate bay?

>>56186406
Yeah that's the one I'm talking about. I downloaded a ~120GB on KAT but the 60gb one looks good (skips basic primary and high school math). Might have to download the "math tutor dvd engineering circuits" and "laplace transform" separately.

The engineering circuits one covered up to AC circuit analysis.

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Don't make friends with people who are not there to learn. They will try to drag you down with them. Unfortunately, a lot of people are there for the experience and not the education.

You can make great friends though: just be selective.

Don't procrastinate. It catches up with you. Learn your shit.

Sit close to the front. This will help you from getting tempted into slacking off instead or paying attention during the lecture, unless you really don't care about being rude.

Try to find what you are passionate about in your field and make sure to pursue conversation with graduate students and profs in that field. They tend to love to discuss their field of research with others who are also passionate about it.

>>56179721
Damn anon. You just basically described me. I'm also studying electro-mechanical engineering. I started in spring of 2013 and it wasn't until December of last year that I got a smart phone before that I only relied on my laptop. I also spend a third of my day on buses.

>>56186870
I probably do need the basic math and highschool math though, never been good at that shit and the khan academy videos go at such small steps that they leave me in worse shape. I don't have the hd space to download it, I will soon and then download it.

>>56187289
Do yourself a favor and master calc and trig before going into engineering. Otherwise you're going to fall behind fast.

Engineering is just applied trig, calc, linear and memorization of various physical laws. If you can do the math you'll get the rest easily. If you can't do the math, you're teaching yourself two things at once and then you're fucked.

t. dropout turned software developer

>>56186870
Looking for the 120gb torrent. Does anyone have the link? I'd prefer not having to download all the separated torrentz individually.

>>56179721
I have one semester left in my Bachelors and had good grades so far.
My best advice is for any student to go to the library to learn, unless it's a place where you can't concentrate for some reason (it's crowded, too many people talking etc.).
When I learn at home, I can't learn for more than 2 hours before slacking off. This didn't happen in the library since the atmosphere is completely different and you don't have so many distractions.

Also look at the Pomodoro technique and split your learning time in 25 to 45 minute chunks.
Use a combination of a calendar and a todo list to keep track of what you have to do.
Assume that the workload for stuff like projects, exercise sheets, exams is 50% more than first expected and start early.
If you have group assignments and you have lazy group members who don't do their part, first talk with them about it, and afterwards try to get rid of them / get another group if they are still lazy, otherwise you have to do the workload of multiple students just to have good grades.

>>56180258

this is good advice; to the people citing exceptions -- are you all really that unadaptive?

MEDIOCRE

>>56187639
https://kat.cr/math-tutor-dvd-collection-t9205522.html This was the old page for it. doesn't work on wayback machine. There's two on torrent project but not the same one.

>>56181127
no, living in automatic mode is

>>56179721
Identify smart kids as soon as possible
Make friends
Cheat of them during exam

or

Write stuff down and study
And no you dont study math and physics by reading

>>56181887
Holy shit I feel you buddy.

>>56180180
>Even the toilet is professors only.
So there's a designated shitting alley for students closeby?

>>56179721
Fuck everyone telling you to "not use gadgets". Get a laptop, learn how to use Matlab, some kind of circuit simulation software like SPICE, and whatever your school will expect you to know. Look through course descriptions if you need to.
If you get a hybrid like a Surface with a pen you can use it to take notes. Let's say you decide to use OneNote. All of your stuff will be accessible from any device, including your phone, just in case you need to reference it. If you set every page to the size of printer paper minus margins, you can have a hard copy of your notes if you print. If you have neat handwriting, you can search your notes as it scans your handwriting. You will have your notes easily accessible for later classes when you need to review something. You can also annotate PDFs including any textbooks you pirate and slide sets. Yes, you don't need this to succeed, but it helps a lot. The biggest downside is that you have to charge it every night, so you should have a notebook and paper as backup just in case.
Laser printers are great if you can afford it and you expect to print shit before going to class. Toner does last a long time for one person. Ink printers are almost always a scam but they're cheaper.
There are a few apps that can help you. I use Google Calendar to set up my class schedule for the entire semester. I can easily refer to it for the first week or two, and I usually throw in the location of the class and the course section number in the description for easy reference. I also delete entries when I have a day off. Even after you don't use it anymore you can still share your shit with others so they know when you're busy. Also, there's a few apps that can turn pictures of pages on paper into nice scans. Office Lens integrates with OneNote, but I don't use OneNote anymore so I've been using Genius Scan.
Good luck

>>56179721
Please ignore this idiot >>56192081 OP. I've got a Master's in Comp. Eng. and I can tell you that there really isn't anything better than pen an paper for taking notes. Computers, even drawing tablets are constant sources of distraction and if you've got issues paying attention to begin with, a tablet for taking notes is only going to be so much worse. Better yet, if the teacher uses slides and puts up the slides they're using on a course website you really want to just pay attention to what they're saying.

Seriously, sometimes the old ways truly are the best. A regular laptop is literally the worst thing you can have for taking notes when you have problems paying attention as it is.

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>>56179721
Memes aside I would legitimately recommend a ThinkPad X220 Tablet. Its a nice sized laptop, its from 2011 so its available regularly for under $200, performance is solid but it can't do much in the realm of gaming(probably an advantage if you have trouble with focusing on your school work), and its a Wacom enabled convertible tablet. Paper notes are obsolete and typed notes are okay but studies have shown that handwriting increases memory retention. This is the best of both worlds. You can handwrite your notes in something like OneNote and then they're automatically synced so you can review them from your desktop or phone(before an exam or something) or wherever else. Its helped me a lot and has also moved me to be mostly paperless. Look into it. Good luck man, you got this.

>>56192951
>portrait-oriented mousepad
fucking heresy

>>56179721
> only visit classes i like or i am interested in
> only learn things for tests 2 weeks before the test
> instead use my free time to work as a assistant in university research, learn things that are interesting and arent covered by lectures or actually put the things i learn in pratical work
> drink, play and have fun when i want
> dont have any stress at all
>still manage to be in the top 10% of my class
Either you guys are doing it wrong by sacrificing you life to memorize some lecture that is just copied from some shitty textbook or i am doing something really right

>>56192951
>x220
>under $200

Certainly not in eastern Europe, you'll easily pay at least 1.5x or 2x the amount if it's in any good shape.

>>56193465
>eastern Europe

I found your problem.

>>56192148

The big problem with taking notes on a computer isn't even distraction. Even back in the days when we didn't have wifi on campus (we didn't when I went to school), typing your notes was a bad idea because if you're a good typist you're transcribing. The words are coming into your ears and out of your fingers and you're not comprehending them on the way through. This subject has been well studied, and no, you're not a special snowflake and exception to the rule.

When you take notes you're going to abbreviate and paraphrase and it forces you to at least try to comprehend what you're hearing and seeing.

>>56193354
Let me guess: you're majoring in a qualitative science like Chemistry or Biology and have a good memory. I was like you when I did that. When I got bored with life sciences and went back to school for Engineering that shit didn't fly at all.

>>56192951
>Paper notes are obsolete
What else is obsolete according to you, food and air perhaps, because they've been around for so long?

>>56193522
I say obsolete because something significantly better has come along that can(for me) fully replace the use of paper notes. Stop trying to be edgy.

>>56187370
This is very accurate.

>>56185971
Audio fidelity will be a problem in most classroom settings. I wouldn't rely on recording that way. Hand-written is the way to go. It can help to take pics of detailed drawings with your smartphone if you can't keep up, but make sure you go back and draw them immediately afterwards so you retain it.

>>56192951
>Paper notes are obsolete

Legitimate tell that you didn't graduate or haven't graduated yet. The professional engineering world is still full of pencil and paper work at the highest levels. You cannot draw sufficiently detailed or quickly enough with a tablet to replace engineering paper and a fine pencil.

>>56194810
>The professional engineering world is still full of pencil and paper work at the highest levels
Its also full of older folks who don't always take full advantage of the technology available to them.
>You cannot draw sufficiently detailed or quickly enough with a tablet to replace engineering paper and a fine pencil
I disagree, it depends on the tablet and software you use. There's a reason why many artists have started picking up drawing tablets in the last few years.

Besides that, I was talking about school notes specifically. Professional level design and such is a different discussion altogether from what OP is talking about which is college work. You can write words and numbers just as well on a tablet as you can on paper but having those notes in a digital medium is simply more convenient than having them in an analog medium.

>>56189374
Well said

>>56184197
I don't think he was being serious. You're either too stupid to post here, or you're great fun at parties. Which is it?