What are optimal study habits in college?

[Sithis]

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Why would understanding the java methods you implement come at the expense of your other CS courses? Every CS major takes classes on data structures, algorithms, linear algebra/optimization, discrete math, and usually operating systems and databases.

It doesn’t come at the expense of other courses… the other courses make understanding the methods you implement through Java largely irrelevant.</p>

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There are very few classes that focus primarily on programming–in those classes, there is no reason not to understand the code you are using.

A lot of schools have 3 “program-centric” classes… Intro to Programming and then CSI and CS2. More than enough, in my opinion. What do you mean by “understand the code”? I think the point of those classes is to give you a general overview of writing programs and the methodology behind the practice of programming. Encouraging students to get bogged down in minutae seems counter-productive.</p>

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You want to learn while in school. You also want to get good grades. Just because you can’t study code on the job doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it on your own time.

You will never, ever learn a significant amount of programming technique in an undergraduate CS/SE course. Like 80% of what you know ends up being real-world experience with working in the software industry, etc. To pretend that one can become a programming guru through studying Java code and taking closed-book tests on said code is disingenuous. You learn programming through experience, pratice, discussion with other programmers, etc.and have to continue this throughout your career. Grades…well that’s another matter. I guess it depends on how your coursework was designed. At my school, the CSI and CSII tests were always open-book. And still the class average was about 85 on those tests, so you can’t argue that open-book tests are bad and render tests useless. If you did not know how to use a reference efficiently and did not have a decent understanding of coding practices in general, you would not do well on the tests. The rest of the grades were programs and projects, which still presented a something of challenge despite having unlimited access to references (short of merely cheating), so clearly there is more to coding than the methods in the books.</p>

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I agree, the reason to study code isn’t to memorize nuances in the language. Computer languages are going to be updated and expanded making what you memorize now obsolete (which is why I’m advocating learning the primitive languages–not just Java). But looking over code teaches you how others think and how others maximize efficiency. It’s like an applied algorithm. This is how I learn to improve my coding style and, more importantly, my thinking style.

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<p>Hence the Algorithms and Data Structures course, etc. What do you mean by “primitive” languages? Low-level languages like assembly? I think there is generally a distinct difference in function and methodology for low-level and high-level languages. I am dubious of how much you actually learn by “studying” code.</p>

<p>EDIT: Note that I had not read your previous post before posting this…we cross-posted I guess. The concept of reversing an array is hardly unique to coding. Also, I bet one could program for years without ever having to reverse an array (not using a class). You are generalizing too much i.e. “If you can’t write this one method you clearly can’t program at all.”</p>

<p>As for context:</p>

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That means reading all the chapters relevant to the assignment beforehand. It also means doing the assignment without a book/other unnecessary tools in front of you. Treat all material as a mini test. Finish the programming code without looking in the sun java manual. etc., </p>

<p>If you can’t complete assignments without a book, then you haven’t learned the material. Re-read that material. Personally, reading carefully is FAR more useful to me than doing a bunch of random problems.

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<p>Read code, memorize, references are unneccesary tools, make writing code a closed-book test; learning = perfect recall of material; reading is more important than practicing. I think I attacked your position well within context.</p>