Useful tips for LAO

📚 How to study

Below, I summarize my way of studying for this course. It is based on my previous learning of what worked or not. I assume you have your own style therefore consider this as more of an inspiration.

📝 During semester

  • Ideally, do the reading before the lecture - no need to understand everything. Take a few notes, but do not worry too much about it now.

  • Attend lecture, again take some notes if neccessary.

  • Start solving the exercises. This is the most important part of your learning. If you get stuck, try to formulate what you do not understand. Then write it down so you can then ask either in Study lab or your TA. Of course you can spend several hours googling, and might find the solution, however, it is way more efficient to use the help which is available to you. I should not forget that of course you can ask your classmates.

  • Attend TA session. Use the opportunity to present the solved problem if possible. It will not only help you understand the given concept even in more depth, but it is also a nice practice for oral exams which you have for example already in 2nd semester.

  • wrap up the weekly learning by:
    • Writing down your common mistakes
    • Things that you are still not so sure of and might want to practice more
    • Finish your notes - at this point you know what is important and what not, therefore I usually take the notes at the very end after I have the experience of solving the problems
  • If time, try to dedicate each week some amount of hours to revisit the previous lectures. The course is structured in such a way that you usually use the concepts learnt in the previous lecture in the following lecture.
✏️ For the exam

  • Start with knowing when and where you are going to take the exam and what aids are allowed, you can find it within the course description.

  • At the end of the semester, you will be given an exam set with solutions. To do each exam, you will need roughly between 3 - 5 hours:
    • 3 - 4 hours to finish it (Maybe more in the beginning when you start practicing)
    • 1 hour to evaluate your result

  • I would personally put one exam aside, this one I would do the morning before the actual exam. The rest, I would split into doing over several days (one exam each day for instance).

  • After you have gone through all exams (except from the one which you put aside), I would try to practice the problems which you identified as difficult - use mandatory assignment problems, problems given in each lecture and if that is not enough, find some problems in the book. (in this order) At this phase, I think it is also beneficial to connect with your friend/study group so you can help each other.

  • Finally, the day before exam, do the last exam from the exam set. After you are done, take time to relax, at this point you have done your best and there is nothing else you can do :) Good luck!

🔦 Helpful resources

  • 3blue1brown - excellent videos, especially in order to get the visual intuition behind the concepts introduced in this course
  • wumbo.net - Wumbo is a math reference site for students and teachers. Its mission is to provide free, high-quality content that explains mathematics.

🤔 Why is this course important?

Both Linear algebra and Optimization are essential tools for your journey to become a well-grounded data scientist. You will use many (if not all) of the tools that you learn in this course, during subjects such as Applied statistics or Machine learning. (Speaking from my own experience as a DS student)

📪 Q / A

If you find any problems or have some additional questions, you can contact me at luci@itu.dk.