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Exhortation about studying!
Important!!
From experience of circuits courses, the following advice is offered ...
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It is important to keep up with the course. The Topics are not
a set of unrelated concepts. Almost every part of the course builds
upon (i.e. requires) the majority of the previous parts of the course.
If you fall behind, the next Topic will arrive, and you won't easily
understand it. The same applies to the two Parts of the course: the
early subjects are necessary in the later work.
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Actually doing circuit analysis -- solving problems -- is very
important to becoming competent at the subject.
Yes, it's also nice to read explanations and look at examples, but you
should also ensure that you can do circuit analysis by yourself.
A common story from students who fail the course is that they thought
they knew how to do it, because it seemed so obvious when they read
solutions to past exams or heard a friend explain it ... but because
they didn't actually try solving lots of new problems, alone,
unaided, with realistic time-limits, they never realised that actually
there were steps they did not understand! It's much too late if
this happens at the exam.
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Working in pairs or groups appears to be a very useful way to study,
for many people (although not all!). You can do study and homeworks
with friends, helping each other to understand the right way to go.
But make sure you first try solving some of the parts by
yourself, unaided, so that you really know how competent you are at it.
Use friends and model answers as the next step, after you've
tried it by yourself.
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Take advantage of the homeworks as a way to keep up to date with the
course material. Don't just try to finish and submit the homework with
the minimum work "because you have to". The main point of the homework
is to ensure that you have practised the material early in the course,
and that you are prepared for the later Topics, and that you keep an
up-to-date reality-check about your skill-level.
We have a tolerant marking system, and avoid giving different grades,
in order that you can focus on doing the practice, instead of on
having to get it right first time. But please study each homework
and its solution as a way to get its Topic well learned.
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If you have spare time during the course, start doing further exercises
in the subjects that you've already studied: you can find these in
past exam papers, textbooks, etc.
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Take advantage of the exam structure. Although the mini-exams (KS) are
optional, you should work hard at these, so that you have less risk and
more time in the exams.
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Try hard to pass the course on the first time! You can try to improve
the grade later, of course, but getting a pass is very important for
being free to move on without creating later problems when you want to
move to later stages in the program.
Our system is very "kind" at offering re-exams -- too kind!
This can be an unkindness if it encourages postponing (delaying) the
work in a difficult course.
By dropping such a course, and trying to take it in a later year, there
will be bad effects on later courses due to time taken in studying for
re-exams. It will also be more difficult to study some later courses
if you haven't yet achieved a high competence at circuit analysis.
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Don't be inhibited about avoiding things that seem a bad use of time,
even if other people appear to use them.
For example, if you like reading and thinking at your own speed, without
disturbance, and can't concentrate in lectures or tutorials, then perhaps
it's best for you to miss these events and instead read and practice
by yourself or with a colleague.
Choose your best way of studying, as long as you manage to do the
required things of homeworks, labs and exams.
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Even if you don't like the subject, or find it very hard, try to find a
way to feel positive! Think of it as a training of your ability
to be efficient and organised in your studies. Think of your studies
as a job where you have a duty to spend (in total) at least 40h/week
of focused work, because of all the time and money being invested in
your education. If you like technical things, but feel that the
early years are too theoretical and abstract, try to find out more
about the interesting masters-level courses you can later choose in
your preferred direction ... you will probably be surprised later to
realise how important practically all the early theoretical
courses can be for understanding the more technically interesting
later courses.
It might also help to think of the general mental training that you
get from the course, even if you feel more interest in applying the
maths and concentration skills to other subjects in your later work.