Read this text, and everything else, with a critical eye. Don't fall for the appeal to authority fallacy, believing that the author of a book is an expert and therefore must be right. It's almost certainly true that someone who wrote a book about a subject knows much more than you do, but they are not infallible. They make mistakes and still have a few misconceptions despite all the experience and research that went into writing the book. The only way to be certain of any assertion is by checking the facts for yourself, or applying sound logic to infer conclusions that available facts do not indicate directly.

On that note, don't blame your teachers, book authors, or anyone else for your misconceptions, even if they did misinform you. Take full responsibility for verifying everything you hear and read. To quote Obi-Wan Kenobi: "Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows?"

Go well beyond what you learn in your classes. Your teachers know only a tiny fraction of what you'll need to know during your career, and only have time to teach you a tiny fraction of what they know. If all you know when you graduate is what you were spoon-fed in lectures, you won't have much to offer your employer. All employers care about grades, but the better ones care more about what you've done outside your classes. This shows a real interest in your field and shows the ability to solve problems independently. Develop this ability while in college so that potential employers will see you as an asset to their team.

Instructors should maintain a reasonable pace in lectures. Be thorough, but don't rush. Give students the opportunity to ask questions during lecture. On the other hand, don't try to make every student understand every point during lectures. This is not possible. Full understanding comes from practice outside of class. If the course includes labs or discussions, allow them to serve a purpose as well. The purpose of lectures is to give students material to think about and practice, so that the time they spend practicing outside of lecture will be well-spent.

If there is a lab/discussion associated with this course, one simple example should suffice for each topic in lecture. Additional examples can be covered in lab/discussion and in the homework. If there is no lab/discussion, then an additional example may be appropriate in some cases, but students should still be expected to practice outside of class.

Remember that a typical university expectation is at least three hours spent outside of class for each hour in class.

Learning results from TIME and REPETITION. Lectures only provide material for students to practice. Don't expect to leave a lecture, discussion, or lab session of any class with a deep understanding of the material. Take thorough notes in class, read the course materials, and then immediately start practicing by trying to put the new knowledge to use. We provide an extensive set of practice questions for this very purpose. Without practice to cement in the concepts, you will forget quickly. Use it or lose it.

Study early so your brain has time to digest the material. Study often to reinforce the neural connections that make up long-term memory. The learning process literally involves rewiring your brain, a slow biological process that cannot be accelerated.

Everyone should take pencil and paper notes during lectures rather than rely on online materials. Take notes on everything, even if you think you know it already. The act of writing or explaining something has a powerful effect on memory and understanding. Writing something once does as much for your memory and understanding as reading it ten times. Don't sit back and be passive about your education. That strategy will fail. You'll learn much more with less effort by actively engaging.

Make sure you get off to a good start so the rest of the semester won't be a struggle to catch up.

If you do have a good start, don't fall victim to the common tendency to think you can coast for a while. Some topics will be harder for you than the ones you just aced. What's hard varies from student to student, so ignore what others are saying about it, and just put in the amount of effort that you need to for each new topic. Be thorough about studying every topic throughout the semester, regardless of how you've done on previous topics. If you just stick to this simple strategy, you'll do well overall.

In general, if you want to know whether you want someone in your life, observe them for a while and see if they can laugh at themselves. If not, smile, walk away, and don't look back.

One of the most important goals in any scientific education is to get over the fear of being wrong. Ego is the enemy of quality science and engineering. Let go of it. Learn to feel comfortable making suggestions and having them shot down. Maybe it was a good suggestion and others just aren't seeing it. Maybe it was a dumb idea and you're not seeing it. Don't get upset either way. Don't push too hard, keep thinking about the problem, and let the situation play out over time.

We all make mistakes, and should not judge ourselves or others for this. Judge the action, not the person. Transition your thinking from "My code sucks, what am I doing in this field?" to "My code sucks, how can I improve it?". Top-notch scientists and engineers are completely humble, emotionless, and objective about their work. They abandon bad ideas without hesitation, embarrassment, or regret, and immediately turn their focus to finding better ones. They are grateful when others point out their mistakes.

The sooner we let go of bad ideas, the less time we will waste trying to make them work, and the more time we can spend at the beach. An objective scientist or engineer will accomplish more in an 8 hour day than one who struggles for 16 hours and has no fun because [s]he can't accept the fact that their initial approach was flawed. Take your pick. It's entirely up to you which one you want to be.

All that really matters is that we keep moving forward. It won't always be quickly enough to get straight A's, and that's fine. Just put in a solid effort and you will grow as a result. Growth is more important than grades.

Every customer wants a quality product, but what's the real motivation for creating them? Why should we write fast, reliable programs? Why design fast, reliable, inexpensive hardware? So the boss will give us a raise? Probably not. Most bosses wouldn't recognize quality work if it licked their face. So we'll be admired by our peers? No, doesn't really work. Most of them will just be jealous.

Think about how often you've wasted time waiting for something that seems inexplicably slow, or worse, breaks down so you have to start over. As a result, you missed happy hour, your kid's soccer game, or something else you were really looking forward to. Low quality products cause vast amounts of wasted time and aggravation, multiplied by the number of end-users of the product. The best reason to do quality work is to help everybody (including yourself) get their work done quickly and correctly, so we can all spend more time with our families and friends. Quality work simply makes our lives better. This is how you can have a positive impact and garner real appreciation as an engineer.

So how to we get there? Some would say "take pride in your work". But this often backfires, because it depends on what makes an engineer proud. Many engineers are proud of how clever they are.

Clever engineers make things needlessly complicated to prove that they're clever. Wise engineers make things as simple as possible so they will be reliable, inexpensive, and easy to use. Remember this simple equation:

cleverness * wisdom = constant

Also remember the KISS principle: "Keep It Simple, Stupid". If you follow this ideal, you'll be a top-notch engineer.

The materials provided for this course are all you should need to succeed. Do not trust alternative information from web forums such as stackoverflow.com, geeksforgeeks.org, etc. These sites do not provide curated information. Anyone with a web browser can post their opinions there, no matter how wacky. Most of the information on these sites ranges from suboptimal to complete rubbish. If you really must look to web forums for information, be sure to verify any assertions you find there via experimentation or other, curated sources. Never believe the first answer you find on a web forum.

Outside sources should only be used to help you understand the course materials, and rarely for this purpose. They should never be trusted as a substitute. If anything in the course materials is unclear, it is better to contact the instructor than to use outside materials as an alternative. This will prevent you from straying off course, and will help the instructor improve the course materials by making them aware of misunderstandings.

If there is anything in the course materials you don't understand, RISE TO THE CHALLENGE IMMEDIATELY and make sure you master the material. Don't try to work around it by finding a quicker, easier way to get the homework done. Doing the latter will only cause you to fall behind in the class and you will not do well in the end.

Most questions are short answer, coding, or diagram format rather than true/false or multiple choice. The act of expressing a concept in your own words goes a long way toward helping you remember and understand it, so writing out the answer in your own words is a far better learning experience than picking the answer out of a list.

In fact, you can help yourself understand the material better by explaining it to your mom, your cat, or anyone else with the patience to listen to nerdy ramblings about computer science.

Also, the real world is not multiple choice. Good luck finding a job where your boss solves all the problems and pays you to pick the correct solution from among several incorrect ones. The real world is open book, but it also has time limits, so you do not want to rely on references entirely. You need important knowledge internalized in order to be efficient and productive. The goal here is to practice for that scenario.