Integrating Zettelkasten with University

Mauro

Hi, I am currently pursuing an undergraduate in computer engineering. I have mixed experiences applying the Zettelkasten method to my study, and I wanted to get some suggestions.

I noticed that I punctually gain a deeper understanding of any topic when I process it in my Zettelkasten, but I tend to get drifted away by details. This would not be a problem if I didn’t have a time constraint.

My current method for studying technical subjects (physics in this case) is to solve countless exercises until solving them becomes automatic.
Given that, I am wondering if it makes sense, and whether or not is time effective, to add some hard exercises with an explanation in my Zettelkasten.

andang76

Hi Mauro (are you italian?),

I don't have experience of using Zettelkasten at university (discovered too late, unfortunately), so please consider my opinions with great caution.
This is an important premise. I don't want to lead you down the wrong path with advices that I can think of today but I have never actually applied on my own.

1) yes, time can be an issue than need to be managed for me. If you use Zettelkasten, you need to find the way to contain the work into your available hours, in the end.

2) I prepared physics exams thirty years ago. Almost certainly I had my own reference of selected solved exercises, it was one of the tools of my study (together theory book, lecture notes and daily exercise practice). My catalog wasn't curated like a zettelkasten, probably, but in the end it was a very similar method to yours.
Two things to say, about:
a) the very important thing is that you make this catalog on your own. If you take this catalog of exercises done by someone else, it's not as effective as one you build yourself. It's the same general lesson taken from my Zettelkasten experience: if I build my Zettelkasten I have much more benefits than simply reading the Zettelkasten of another guy about the same things. My zettelkasten/catalog is the result of my hard thinking, reading zettelkasten/catalog of another is a very different process with very different results.
b) if making this catalog into a real Zettelkasten form takes too time, consider a lighter and faster representation, having to remain in the previous point of time issue. A simple notebook on its own.
I don't personally see a catalog of physics exercises a lifelong resource for a software engineer, so making a full fledged zettelkasten on it could be a little overkill. Invest your time on it, in the form of a zettelkasten, only if you feel it is useful, otherwise you can still use the idea but consider simplify the representation.

3) maybe you could consider to develop into your Zettelkasten a more abstract/conceptual form of your exercise practice. Developing something like "patterns" or "models" or "templates" for problem solving (I don't know if you are already confident with these concepts).
I studied physics thirty years ago, so I can't give you practical examples (I've forgotten all...). What I would write into my Zettelkasten could be, probably, the conceptual elements of how to solve physics exercises that I've discovered over time during my practices, rather than countless instances of solved exercises.
Taken a solved exercise, extract the concepts that bring me to solve it and I can reuse for solving others, more or less similar. Trasforming exercises into patterns and exercise principles and techniques.
This is how I would work today inspired by the zettelkasten principles (and I apply something similar in my work, now), but I repeat, again, I haven't adopted for preparing my physics exam, so I can't guarantee it will work for me either, let alone recommend it to you.

4) You can try your original idea, my idea, both ideas, something in the middle, other suggestions, but once you use one or more of this stuff, check if the chosen method works.
After few sessions of the method, assess if you have learned physics a little more than before, and if you have improved your exercise solving skill. Your final goal is this.

Do I already wrote "please consider my opinions with great caution"? :-)

Mauro

@andang76 said:
Hi Mauro (are you italian?),

I don't have experience of using Zettelkasten at university (discovered too late, unfortunately), so please consider my opinions with great caution.
This is an important premise. I don't want to lead you down the wrong path with advices that I can think of today but I have never actually applied on my own.

1) yes, time can be an issue than need to be managed for me. If you use Zettelkasten, you need to find the way to contain the work into your available hours, in the end.

2) I prepared physics exams thirty years ago. Almost certainly I had my own reference of selected solved exercises, it was one of the tools of my study (together theory book, lecture notes and daily exercise practice). My catalog wasn't curated like a zettelkasten, probably, but in the end it was a very similar method to yours.
Two things to say, about:
a) the very important thing is that you make this catalog on your own. If you take this catalog of exercises done by someone else, it's not as effective as one you build yourself. It's the same general lesson taken from my Zettelkasten experience: if I build my Zettelkasten I have much more benefits than simply reading the Zettelkasten of another guy about the same things. My zettelkasten/catalog is the result of my hard thinking, reading zettelkasten/catalog of another is a very different process with very different results.
b) if making this catalog into a real Zettelkasten form takes too time, consider a lighter and faster representation, having to remain in the previous point of time issue. A simple notebook on its own.
I don't personally see a catalog of physics exercises a lifelong resource for a software engineer, so making a full fledged zettelkasten on it could be a little overkill. Invest your time on it, in the form of a zettelkasten, only if you feel it is useful, otherwise you can still use the idea but consider simplify the representation.

3) maybe you could consider to develop into your Zettelkasten a more abstract/conceptual form of your exercise practice. Developing something like "patterns" or "models" or "templates" for problem solving (I don't know if you are already confident with these concepts).
I studied physics thirty years ago, so I can't give you practical examples (I've forgotten all...). What I would write into my Zettelkasten could be, probably, the conceptual elements of how to solve physics exercises that I've discovered over time during my practices, rather than countless instances of solved exercises.
Taken a solved exercise, extract the concepts that bring me to solve it and I can reuse for solving others, more or less similar. Trasforming exercises into patterns and exercise principles and techniques.
This is how I would work today inspired by the zettelkasten principles (and I apply something similar in my work, now), but I repeat, again, I haven't adopted for preparing my physics exam, so I can't guarantee it will work for me either, let alone recommend it to you.

4) You can try your original idea, my idea, both ideas, something in the middle, other suggestions, but once you use one or more of this stuff, check if the chosen method works.
After few sessions of the method, assess if you have learned physics a little more than before, and if you have improved your exercise solving skill. Your final goal is this.

Do I already wrote "please consider my opinions with great caution"? :-)

Thank you very much! This was actually very insightful, especially the part about extracting patterns. I'm going try this method and report back.

P.S Yes, I'm Italian, although in the US my name gets always mistaken for a Brazilian one ahah