The story of cover: the diagram about confidence and competence, drawn by Peter Laurie in the lecture of Code Network

# Start from two stories

Today, I want to start from two story; one is a hot topic on chinese internet, the another one is from the lecture of Code Network. I think both of them are helpful for my week5b.

# The story of learning blogger

Little Red Book is a famous app in China, and you can post your experience and daily life on it. Recently, posting learning experience and showing their notes become popular between teenagers. Since I never post things like that on the internet and might not understand their thought, I won’t guess the motivation of their behaviour.

It’s a representive case of their notes:

If you have learned pythagorean theorem, you will know that the content of the theorem could be described in one sentence, and most of the content on this note is pointless.

If I need to make a note for that, I will do like this:

Using one sentence to describe the content:
In a right triangle, we called the length of two legs are “a” and “b”, the length of hypotenuses is “c”.
Then, a^2 + b^2 = c^2

Drawing a right triangle, and noting “a”, “b”, “c” on the diagram to illustrate what I wrote.

At the end, the blogger failed on the final exam and felt disappointed for that, while she thought she was so hard-working in her opinion.

I also made notes for my courses, so when I know the story, I started to review myself, did I make the same mistake as her?

# Confidence & Competence

It’s a lecture from Code Network (a student club in QUT). At beginning, the lecturer draw the diagram on the screen, and explain how the curves come.

The most impressed part for me is when you look at the horizontal line crossing the curve and generating three cross points, which means three different person with different level of competence have the same level of confidence!

I am used to identify the competence of people from the level of confidence of them. For example, after an exam, I might ask the feeling of others. If they said the test is easy, but I don’t think so, I will feel I’m worse than that guy.

Just like the voice volume in arguing cannot decide who is right, recognizing the competence according to the confidence is also ridiculous, but I did it again and again to destroy my confidence.

# Overview of Week5A

Overall, the performance doesn’t fit my expectation, but is reasonable.

According to my recognization of myself, at beginning, I am always used to set a dreamatic goal that could be achievable in concept. Then I would work hard and get close to that for a while. After that, something might happen which interupt or affect me, while my progress would be behind my plan. Since of that, I will try to do something else to catch up the progress, which might affect my rhythm of life. Finally, my life gets chaos, as well as the progress.

Same for this time, but I’m not complaint for that, because I get used to it.

When I write this post, I’m thinking that it’s my first study abroad experience, so many mistakes I made first time are forgivable, despite some of them might be silly.

# Pressure management

I agree with the idea that I’m not good at pressure mangement. Not only about handling pressure I already have, but also creating pointless pressure from void at the same time. Especially when I am behind my plan, I would get nervous. I might Sacrifice the time for workout or sleep to catch up the progress in my mind. However, I even ignore the possiblity or the meaning of it.

“GPA is important” and “I have to get high distinction” are totally two different things. No one will doubt the importance of GPA, but there are only 2% of students will get high distinction. Some classmates around me has already notice my pressure, they told me that I could perform better without pressure.

That’s why I need to down my expectation, it could also help me to enjoy the process rather than focusing on the result only. Study abroad should be my best memory, don’t break it.

# The more basic, the more crucial

When I trid to catch up the progress, I always ignored basic rules. For example, I stayed up to do my homework, even if I was so tired and the efficiency is pretty low, but I still chose to continue. Next day, I needed to spend a whole morning to recover the status, which is not worth. Sleep matters!

At the beginning, I worked out frequently, since the assessment came, things has changed. Comparing with others, I found I need to spend more time to do my assessments. The most likely reason would be English, but it’s not the topic for now. Since I put the the study as the first priority, I canceled many benifical events, including: exercise, cooking, etc. Most importantly, I was in chaos, and I would use it as the excuse to do things I shouldn’t do, like eating too much junk food.

Have a good relax/sleep, keep high efficiency and respect the schedule, they are all basic rules, as well as they are so crucial.

# Reduce useless workload

OK, I putted study as the first place, so did I do well? The GPA hasn’t released, so I will discuss it according to my feeling. personally speaking, I don’t think it’s good. There were two assessments for each unit, all my assessments were completed close to the deadline of due date. So what’s wrong?

I think my useless workload are too much. Recently, I’m thinking whether my notes are useful, the result is they are useful, but not worth to spend so much time on it. I want my notes to include everything in every unit, which is not an unrealistic idea. There are no best thing for anyone, only fitest thing for individual. In other words, I should make the notes be my own. For example, I can Sacrifice the generality to take notes quicker.

It’s strange: I thought GPA is so important and the assessments composed the GPA, but I put more weight on notes rather than my assessment. What’s even stranger is that I didn’t pay sufficient attention to marking critieria that is related to the GPA directly. What ridiculous it is!

Study plan will vary depends on the content of study, the knowledge I have, related resources I have or I can get. Never try to get everything at once, just focus on the key point.

# Too less communication

According to the study of five weeks, my English has improved a little bit. I could have a longer conversation with others, also I can recognize more accient now.

Making more connection is what QUT recommanded us to do, and it could benifits me. Communicating with others is a kind of relax for me, and I can also practice my English. Additionaly, I could start/stop it at anytime I want. More importantly, I can make friends in the industry, which might help me to get a job here.

There are a lot of means could help me to achieve my goal, I need to think out of box. I might join a volunteer organization to enrich my experience and know more friends.

# Periodical review & feedback

Just like the process of modern software development, I need to split the semester into smaller chunks, which might help me to optimize my plan.

Writting weekly reports might be a good choice.

# Summary

All thoughts need to become actionable measures, so that the thinking is meaningful.

1. Don’t eat too late, which might affect quality of sleep.
2. Don’t stay up, sleep on time (like 11 pm).
3. Down the expectation, no specific GPA requirements anymore.
4. Notes should focus on the knowledge I don’t know, less is more.
5. Make more friends and join more events.
6. Write reports weekly and make adjustment.

I hope I will have a better Week5B.