No… this is not a filesystem discussion. I’m just talking about me being a DFS-type rather than a BFS-type. Well, here DFS is depth-first-search and BFS is breadth-first-search. From the past three exams, I found one of my biggest flaw… at least in terms of taking exams. When studying, I always try to understand *every single thing*. By that, i mean every single details.. and all the proofs. In the past 6 weeks, I think I have already spent more time studying than when I were doing the bachelor degree. I understand things much better than I used to. I understand the *why’s* and *how’s*. However, I found that the way I have been studying is not the way to study for the exam. Given a short amount of time, professors tend to give exams that requires you to know basic knowledge in a variety of topics. In other words, exams tend to cover bredth instead of depth. Sixty percent of the things I studied for then become useless. With time constraint, I also left out a good amount that I should have studied but did not have a chance to. Combining that with Murphy’s law, I faced with exams with problems that I cannot do…

It seems clear that I have to adjust my tactics. However, I would rather know one thing in depth before going to another rather than knowing lots of things superficially… This is why I am going to grad school… Things are quite different from what I imagined… Honestly, I wouldn’t mind all-day exams even if that means the problems will be more difficult…

I will try to study the way I think they want me to study instead… and see what comes next…