🎓Stanford University experience: 11 technics how to study effectively
👋🏼 Hi, I am Ellen, and I am a studyholic: I LOVE studying.
👋🏼 Hi, I am Ellen, and I am a studyholic: I LOVE studying.
I am finishing my math Ph.D. this year and taking 2–3 big courses and 4–5 small ones EACH YEAR.
👩🏼🎓 Recently I finished 2 Stanford Courses and learned not only Product Management and Fundraising but also best practices in organizing the learning process.
🥇First of all, all Stanford University courses are highly practical, following the technique “learning by doing”, that means that the team has classes AND delivering the project at the same time during the course in 2–3 months.
🥈At second, all people studying were full-time working professionals from Silicon Valley that invested $500–700 to be on the course and aiming to spend no more 2–4 hours per week on it.
🥉Lastly, we proved advice working, collaborated productive enough to spend 1–3 hours per week and during the course launched our project — tripmizer, AI-powered travel planner.
This is how we worked and why it was a great fun experience:
1. 👨👩👧👦 To win as a team and get to know each other. Spend 30 min having fun, learn about goals (state 1–3 personal goals for a program) and discussing expectations (how much time do we agree to spend and what are the working ethics).
2. 🖼️Keep in mind BIG PICTURE: What is this lesson about? What is the role of learning? What is the key deliverable? Read the materials carefully and ask the professor or assistant about the key result UPFRONT.
3. 🗝️ Prioritize what will help you to deliver 80% of the answer. Avoid boiling the ocean. In case you have 5 deliverables, identify the key one. If you’ll need to analyze the market, identify the key questions and search for existed market analytics!
4. 🧾Focus on deliverables, not the process. One great example: start the meeting with opening the next deliverable, starting sharing the screen and feeling your 1st draft of the document with the 1st thoughts together. Just split the responsibilities based on experience or learning goals right away!
5. 🗒️ Quick and Dirty. Do not be afraid of your 1st ugly draft, and iterate later. The earlier you’ll deliver 1st draft, the better. The best time is NOW, during the meeting. Try to deliver as much as possible together over an hour of meeting.
6. ⌚Boost the quality of the meeting by just a 15 min prep before it. Study the deliverables, write down your ideas, and answers drafts. You’ll save TONS of productive discussion time later. While discussing, try to be structured and communicate top-down: announce the key thought in the first sentence.
7. ⏰ Track time smart: Introduce a timekeeper role (could be rotational) that will announce milestones (45 min, 30 min, 15 min, etc.) and keep track of the speed of covering key results.
8. 🔝Walk an extra mile in the organization: Commit for the next steps and split the responsibilities at the meeting, add stickers with names on a shared doc
9. 📩 After the meeting: chat effectively and respect each other’s time. Instead of writing a long-long message with random qs, summarize in 3–5 bullet points your key message for the sake of time effectiveness.
10. 🚏Do not switch off right after the meeting: spend an extra 15 min writing down your ideas and drafts, you’ll thank yourself the next day, and 15 minutes now will save an hour later.
11. 🦜Be proactive and commit: IT ALWAYS pays back! Take responsibility and be the person others feel comfortable working with.
Good luck with learning and working together, because education — is the best social lift!
👋🏼 Hi, I am Ellen, and I am a studyholic: I LOVE studying.
I am finishing my math Ph.D. this year and taking 2–3 big courses and 4–5 small ones EACH YEAR.
👩🏼🎓 Recently I finished 2 Stanford Courses and learned not only Product Management and Fundraising but also best practices in organizing the learning process.
🥇First of all, all Stanford University courses are highly practical, following the technique “learning by doing”, that means that the team has classes AND delivering the project at the same time during the course in 2–3 months.
🥈At second, all people studying were full-time working professionals from Silicon Valley that invested $500–700 to be on the course and aiming to spend no more 2–4 hours per week on it.
🥉Lastly, we proved advice working, collaborated productive enough to spend 1–3 hours per week and during the course launched our project — tripmizer, AI-powered travel planner.
This is how we worked and why it was a great fun experience:
1. 👨👩👧👦 To win as a team and get to know each other. Spend 30 min having fun, learn about goals (state 1–3 personal goals for a program) and discussing expectations (how much time do we agree to spend and what are the working ethics).
2. 🖼️Keep in mind BIG PICTURE: What is this lesson about? What is the role of learning? What is the key deliverable? Read the materials carefully and ask the professor or assistant about the key result UPFRONT.
3. 🗝️ Prioritize what will help you to deliver 80% of the answer. Avoid boiling the ocean. In case you have 5 deliverables, identify the key one. If you’ll need to analyze the market, identify the key questions and search for existed market analytics!
4. 🧾Focus on deliverables, not the process. One great example: start the meeting with opening the next deliverable, starting sharing the screen and feeling your 1st draft of the document with the 1st thoughts together. Just split the responsibilities based on experience or learning goals right away!
5. 🗒️ Quick and Dirty. Do not be afraid of your 1st ugly draft, and iterate later. The earlier you’ll deliver 1st draft, the better. The best time is NOW, during the meeting. Try to deliver as much as possible together over an hour of meeting.
6. ⌚Boost the quality of the meeting by just a 15 min prep before it. Study the deliverables, write down your ideas, and answers drafts. You’ll save TONS of productive discussion time later. While discussing, try to be structured and communicate top-down: announce the key thought in the first sentence.
7. ⏰ Track time smart: Introduce a timekeeper role (could be rotational) that will announce milestones (45 min, 30 min, 15 min, etc.) and keep track of the speed of covering key results.
8. 🔝Walk an extra mile in the organization: Commit for the next steps and split the responsibilities at the meeting, add stickers with names on a shared doc
9. 📩 After the meeting: chat effectively and respect each other’s time. Instead of writing a long-long message with random qs, summarize in 3–5 bullet points your key message for the sake of time effectiveness.
10. 🚏Do not switch off right after the meeting: spend an extra 15 min writing down your ideas and drafts, you’ll thank yourself the next day, and 15 minutes now will save an hour later.
11. 🦜Be proactive and commit: IT ALWAYS pays back! Take responsibility and be the person others feel comfortable working with.
Good luck with learning and working together, because education — is the best social lift!
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