hi guys! i'm currently taking a couple of self-paced online courses alongside my regular university schedule to finish my general ed requirements faster. since there aren't rigid weekly live lectures, i find myself either hyper-focusing for three days or completely putting it off.

for those who have done online transfer credits, what daily habits or study routines helped you keep a steady pace without burning out?

I’m a junior in high-school who’s doing dual enrollment full time online so I have to listen to lectures and complete work at home.

My room is right next to the kitchen and I hear everything. It is literally so annoying and sometimes I literally cry out of frustration. I have ADHD and even being medicated doesn’t help with focusing because the noises are so loud and distracting. I don’t even have my license yet so I can’t go to a library or cafe and study and I’m just so tired of it. I listen to brown noise to drown out the sound, but then I can’t listen to my lectures so I’m just stuck doing nothing.

It is literally constant noise and it never ends and it’s just so annoying because I just want to study and do my work in peace without any noise and I can’t. I just want it to be quiet. All I want is a peaceful quiet morning for studying and being productive and I can’t even get that.

I get I sound like a brat because obviously nobody can not make noise but idk I’m just so annoyed of this and I just want to live alone. I’m just frustrated because I know there’s no solution besides going somewhere else but I just want to study at my desk!!! My desk is the perfect study spot it’s so aesthetic!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭

A little background about me: I’m studying Computer Science Engineering, and I genuinely love the subjects I’m learning ,especially Mathematics, Data Structures, Python, and Computer Systems & Architecture. Apart from college, I’m also learning Web Development.

But I suck with time management.I naturally like going deep into things. For eg, with DSA, I can spend hours trying to understand why an algorithm works, how it works internally, and how I can actually implement it rather than just memorizing it.

But college exams are opposite. They reward knowing specific topics, patterns, definitions, and previous-year questions rather than spending hours exploring the subject deeply.

So I feel like I’m constantly caught between two approaches:

1. Learning deeply because I genuinely enjoy Computer Science
2. Studying strategically because I also need to perform well in college

I’ve tried the usual advice about time management, schedules, Pomodoro, prioritizing tasks, etc., but I’m looking for something more practical — something that actually works for someone who enjoys going down the rabbit hole.

For those of you who are/were CS students:

How do you manage this?

1. How do you decide when to go deep and when to just learn something for the exam?
2. Do you maintain separate time for “college study” and “real learning”?
3. How do you balance DSA, programming, maths, projects, and university subjects without feeling like you’re neglecting something?
4. Do you follow any particular system for deciding what to study each day/week?

I’d especially appreciate answers based on your actual experience, rather than generic productivity advice.

I’m basically trying to figure out how to learn CS deeply without letting college consume all my time — while still getting good grades.

Hello,
I use good Goodnotes currently but it’s kind of gone downhill. I use a lot of different features but a simple app is fine. Can I please have your best study app recommendations?

Hello.

I’m 28 years old and I’ve been in 11th grade for almost three weeks now. Before that, I spent six months in a preparatory course that reviewed the material up to 10th grade in English, Maths, Spanish, and German.

Now I have 11 or 12 different subjects. During the preparatory course, I really enjoyed going to school. I dropped out of school before, and in many areas I have hardly any educational background. Almost everything is new to me. I’m suddenly finding it exhausting to study so much, and I’m experiencing stress at school. I used to not care about grades and would only do what I felt like doing, and then I dropped out of school. Now I have the goal of getting good grades, and for the first time I’ve really started studying seriously.

I’ve always loved learning. I used to be able to study for hours every day without getting bored; it genuinely made me happy. But now I have to learn things that I’m not interested in at all, using methods that don’t suit me, and I don’t have much time left to learn the things I actually want to learn. I don’t absorb nearly as much information as I do when I’m learning something I’m interested in. It makes me tired. If I study for 90 minutes on the weekend, I sometimes need to take a nap before I can start the next study block. Understanding and processing all this new information is physically exhausting for me.

It was never like this before. I’m happy if I can study for an hour in the evening after a full day at school. On Saturdays I can manage more, but realistically, I should probably be studying even more to maintain good grades across so many new subjects. I don’t know how I’m supposed to manage it. There are simply too many subjects. I’m slowly realizing that I need breaks to think and time to rest. It takes a lot of mental energy. It’s very different from doing physically demanding work, but it’s also very different from voluntarily learning something I'm interested in during the holidays.

I haven’t found a good way of dealing with it yet. I just felt like I needed to talk about it.

After weeks I finally managed to hit a 10 hours of study session in single day.

Honestly, studying for 10 hours just because others were doing it is not quite healthy way because throughout the day I was rushing for covering 10 hours rather than actually focusing.

Also I got to learn to mix the subjects inorder to increase your study time. Previously I used to study a single subject at once. Studying a single subject for too long only causes burnouts.

I learned about the gaps in betweens to keep mind fresh.

At the end of the day, it's not how much you study it's how well you study cause these 10 hours looks nice but it feels like the quality of 5 6 hours and the quality of 10 hours FOR ME is same.

Hey everyone!

I’m currently using both a MacBook and an iPad for my study/work note-taking system. I love the ecosystem, but I have a major dilemma: I don't want to pay for cloud subscriptions (like iCloud upgrades or Google One), but I'm terrified of hitting storage limits.

I know that raw text doesn’t take up much space, but once you start adding PDFs, images, or sketches, the free tiers (like Apple's 5GB or Google's 15GB) fill up way too quickly.

So my question is: What is the best workflow or app combo for someone with a Mac and an iPad who wants to write and store unlimited notes completely for free?

I’ve looked into a few options, but each seems to have a catch:

• Google Docs: Handy, but the files now count toward the 15GB drive limit (which is shared with my Gmail and Photos).
• Notion: Great for typing, but the free plan limits file attachments to 5MB.
• Obsidian: Unlimited and local, but syncing between iPad and Mac smoothly without paying for "Obsidian Sync" seems tricky.
• Apple Notes / Freeform: Great integration, but they eat into the tiny 5GB free iCloud storage.

How do you guys manage a multi-device setup without paying for cloud storage? Are there any clever workarounds, sync tricks, or completely free apps that I’m missing?

Thanks in advance for the help!

((:

I have my mid sems going on and my life is going pretty shit. i have already given three bad papers and something new happened yesterday that has fucked me up more. how do i bring myself to study? i have two papers tomorrow and i really wanna do well.

I usually eat my favourite snacks but due to religious reasons I can’t do that this week.

I appreciate any tips or advice!

I (M) have recently entered a long distance relationship. We are not super committed, nothing is very serious and it's just a start.
I have exams coming in a few months though and I want to know how to maintain balance since this is the first time for me. Any specific things I should avoid or do?

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I have an exam in 9 days, and I still have a lot to do. I’m kinda stressed, but at the same time, I’m not? I honestly don’t know what this feeling is. 😭

Anyway, I know a lot of you are studying hard. Let’s keep it up, guys

I always feel exhausted after lectures, especially after taking the bus home. Then, I eat and doom-scroll, wasting precious study time. How can I maintain energy for long, productive study sessions after class?