How to Study CS Properly
The wrong way vs the right way — and why practice beats passive reading every single time.
The wrong way to study
Most first years do this, and most first years are surprised by their test results. Sound familiar?
- Watching YouTube videos for hours without doing anything
- Reading slides or notes without testing yourself
- Copy-pasting code from examples without understanding it
- Cramming the night before a test
- Highlighting text and calling it revision
These feel productive. They're not. Passive consumption doesn't build the mental models you need to actually answer questions under pressure.
The right way
CS is a practical subject. The study method that works is active and iterative:
- Learn → Practice → Review — not Learn → Read more → Hope.
- Active recall: close your notes and explain the concept out loud or on paper.
- Practice until it's boring. When something feels boring, that usually means you've actually learned it.
- Review your mistakes — that's where most of the learning actually happens.
The rule: If you can't solve a problem without looking at your notes, you haven't learned it yet. You've just seen it.
How to use YouTube without wasting time
YouTube is genuinely useful for CS — but only if you use it as a trigger for practice, not a replacement for it.
- Watch 5–10 minutes max per concept.
- Pause. Don't just let it play.
- Write notes in your own words immediately after.
- Then do 3–5 practice questions or tasks before watching anything else.
If you've watched 2 hours of content and done zero problems, you've wasted 2 hours.
How to study programming (PRG)
Programming cannot be learned by watching. It has to be built.
- Retype code yourself — don't copy-paste from examples, even correct ones. The act of typing forces your brain to process each line.
- Start with tiny tasks: input/output → conditions → loops → functions → classes. Don't skip levels.
- Build mini-projects: a calculator, a number guessing game, a simple menu app. Small things with a clear result.
- Debugging is learning. When something breaks, don't immediately search for the answer — read the error message, think about what line it points to, and try to fix it yourself first. That process is where the skill is built.
How to study math modules (MCI)
MCI is logic-heavy — Boolean algebra, sets, combinatorics, number systems. The only way to get good at it is volume of practice.
- Daily drills. Even 15–20 minutes a day of short problem sets keeps your brain sharp on the patterns.
- Use mixed question sets — don't just practice the one topic you already understand.
- Face the hard topics early. If Boolean simplification or K-maps are confusing, do more of them — not less. Avoidance compounds into test panic.
- Write out your working even for questions you think are easy. Exam markers want to see reasoning, and it helps you catch small errors.
How to study databases (DBF)
- Write SQL queries from scratch — don't just read them or modify existing ones.
- Set up MySQL Workbench and actually run your queries. Seeing real results builds intuition fast.
- Understand why a query works, not just what it does. If you can explain it in plain English, you know it.
- Practice joins and normalization repeatedly — those are where most people lose marks.