Check out this site on How to Get First Class Honours at:
http://anythingthatinterestsme.blogspot.sg/2010/05/how-to-get-first-class-honours-in.html
I agree with most of the points in the post. I actually read this post before I even graduated, and it motivated me a lot. Hope that you will find it motivational too.
Most importantly, do not be overly stressed out by your goals. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, university is just a small aspect of your entire life. Enjoy your studies while in university, and it is more useful to develop life long skills like independent learning, teamwork and time management skills.
Meanwhile, you may like to check out the following posts:
The Lesson of Grace in Teaching (Motivational Post about Learning and Teaching)
Singapore Maths Tuition 
Dear Mr Wu,
I really respect your credentials a lot and i would like to seek your advice on a matter relating to study technique.
May I ask how long you think it’s good to persevere on a problem before looking at the solutions? Also, how hard of a problem should one seek to solve ?
I’m a CS major in NUS and it seems that NUS assigns really hard problems for students to do as assignments. I would often spend a week before I could solve a problem for example. I wonder if this technique is effective at all since I only solve one hard problem a week compared to if I were to spend the time practice on my own, I could solve maybe 10 medium questions a day on leetcode which amounts to 70 problems a week.
May I have your views regarding this please Mr Wu?
Yours Sincerely,
Anonymous
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Thanks for visiting our blog! It is a good idea to persevere, the time depends on the schedule and nature of the question. For example, if it is a weekly tutorial, a good timeline to persevere is perhaps a couple of days. If you are studying way in advance, for example one semester in advance, then a couple of weeks may make sense. One should seek to solve a problem that is slightly harder beyond your natural ability, just slightly out of reach.
Solving easy/medium questions is good for time practice as well, for exam purposes. For practical exam purposes, possibly solving medium questions 80% of the time, and hard questions 20% of the time may be a good strategy.
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Thanks for your reply! Normally when I do my own practice problems say past NUS papers, I typically only persevere for 2 hours maximally but now after reading your comment maybe I will persevere much longer.
Regarding the advice on ” One should seek to solve a problem that is slightly harder beyond your natural ability, just slightly out of reach. ” I find that for the CS curriculum, our professors tend to give really hard problems sometimes it may feel like it’s like we just started being able to curl a 5kg dumbbell but they are tasking us to curl a 20kg dumbbell.
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I will take your advice to persevere on practice problems, much longer for about 3 days before checking the solution 😊😊
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Also, when thinking by yourself and researching materials, one would tend to learn extra stuff apart from the question as a side effect. Whereas looking at the solution is straight to the point and does not have the above beneficial effect.
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You are welcome! Benefit of persevering includes better retention in the memory as opposed to looking at the solution. Often, when looking at the solution, it is possible to understand but forget again after a few months.
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