How to Ace Math classes?
PhD student in Math at Clemson University, Antonio Pierrottet gives his study tips
Antonio Pierrottet is a PhD candidate at Clemson University. In this interview, he shares about his learning tips for students.
Antsa: Antonio, Would you please let us know who you are?
Antonio: Yeah, I’m a 6-year graduate student at Clemson University. I study mathematics.
Antsa: So the series of questions that we would have you answer is from one of my students, and they said
I would define someone doing really well in college, or someone who is getting mostly A’s and is pressing all the exams with A’s and B’s. It will send techniques they have found the most helpful, and how they do not get burned out. I would also ask them what resources they would recommend whenever they may be struggling, and how they stay positive during adversity. Lastly, I would ask them how to keep calm down perfectionism, since I struggled a lot with that.
So, Antonio. let us answer the first question, what study techniques did you you find the most helpful?
Antonio: So the site technique that I found the most helpful has been to take notes in class and take pictures of the chalkboard. As the teacher’s been writing. So the teacher will write on one chalkboard, and then I’ll take a picture of that, and then they’ll start writing on the next board, and I’ll take a picture of that as I’m writing down all my notes. Then after class, I would go through my notes and figure out. This section of my notebook is from for this picture, and this next section is for this next picture, and I’ll store those pictures separately. And what’ll happen is that when I’m going through the homework first off, I’ll have already gone through my notes, and so I’ll be much more. Everything will be much more salient as I’m going through it. And second, when I go through my notes, I find something that you know doesn’t make sense. What I was writing there. I can refer to the picture, and I can say, this is what the teacher was writing. And I can kind of start to make a little bit more sense out of it. So that’s what helps a lot.
Antsa: Thank you so much. So the second question is, what do you do to not get burned out?
Antonio: So I tend to get myself with little things that I can do throughout the day. So I may watch some videos at night or go for a run in the afternoon, or something like that something that’s gonna take more than just 5 or 10 minutes scrolling through social media is not something I would consider for that, but something more like on the scale of maybe half an hour, where I can just like, take a little half hour, break, go and do something, and then study for a couple more hours.
Antsa: Thank you so much. The third question is, what resources you would recommend whenever you may be struggling?
Antonio: so the best resources that I’ve ever seen have been using your teacher. So your teacher is teaching the class because they know all of the topics, and so to ask them the question, they should have the answers or a next step as to where to go. You could look on the Internet or through the library to find you know where what you should be doing. But your teachers are already gonna have to create the homework and the test. And so they’re going to know how to do these things already. You just need to ask them.
Antsa: Thank you so much. The fourth question is how you stayed positive during adversity.
Antonio: So I haven’t had a lot of adversity, I would say, let me think about that one. Well, when it comes to going under pressure, I tend to put my head down and just focus on work. That’s just my natural response to things. So generally, when I’m going through adversity, I find something. And then I focus on that one thing and then block everything else out. Not necessarily a “staying positive during adversity”, but helps me redirect my attention away and toward something useful.
Antsa: Our last question for today is how to keep calmed down perfectionism.
Antonio: Well, I also have this too. I struggle to not do things perfectly all the time because I want to make sure that everything is just right. But that tends to take up a lot of time. So what do I tend to do if I need to cut that back? If I’m finding that I’m spending too much time working on things. What I’ll tend to do is, I’ll say, like this is, this is my amount of time. This is when I’m going to bed. If I cannot let myself go any later than that, I’ll set up alarms and things like that, especially the night before a test. I’ll I may tend to study too late, and I need to have like a deadline. I cannot study past this because studying more or doing more is no longer helpful. It’ll hurt me more than it will help.
Antsa: Thank you so much, Antonio, for joining me today, and also thank you to the reader who stayed with us during this blog post. If you like what we shared with you today. Please consider hitting the clap button and following me so that you will see everything that is coming up.
