Ask HN: How do I get myself on track with studying?
I'm a first year undergrand Electrical Engineering and Computing student in a top-20 university in the UK. My first term has passed and mock exams show that I am barely passing what I have been taught so far, if even that.
I think the reason is that I simply do not put hours in. But I find it hard to make the mental connect between "hours" and "success". I find it hard to motivate myself. Usually I just want to work on hobby projects (related more to programming than my course) or gaming.
Perhaps one of the reasons is beacuse I initially applied to do Compsci, but I didn't make the cut, so I was offered E&CE instead, which I accepted.
My main issue is that there isn't much indication as to what I ought to be doing. At school I was given homework and textbooks, past papers etc. and I could work my way through them. Now I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing, and beacuse it's not prescribed (and not checked) I'm left in the dark. The university is very sparse of past papers, too.
So I would like to ask,
1. What methods do you use to motivate yourself to study?
2. What methods to organise study and discover what needs to be studied?
3. What does studying for this topic, which is part knowledge (memorisation of certain facts, like the factors of an ideal op-amp, what a prime implicant is, how p-type and n-type works, semiconductor physics, finite state machines etc.) and part applied mathematics (integration, solving circuits, bode plots and all the usual Calc stuff etc.)?
And if anyone has experience with Electronic Engineering at university undergrad level, what would you recommend for this field of study? For example I don't understand (complex impedance) phasors. The textbook I use doesn't have a way which I can understand, and I find it hard to find time to discuss with my lecturers about this, because the pedagogy seems so impersonal.
Thank you for taking the time to read my question.