Asklemmy

I went for Comp Sci. (B.Sc, two M.Sc. and a PhD). The most important part ist finding your own personal learning type. Theres a distinction between those who learn best listening to lectures, reading textbooks, explaining a topic to others, etc. Start by finding what suits you best.

Here are the things that helped me most (after years of trial and error):

• Going to all appointed lectures and exercises (treating Uni like a job, basically)
• Actually doing the assignments of my Prof gave me
• Avoiding my Laptop/Tablet/Smartphone at Uni. I uses a thin notebook for each lecture and wrote my notes with a pen (more focus on class)
• Using flashcards (I wrote them by hand, but there are software alternatives) for topics, that require a lot of fact memorization
• Making friends with fellow students to help explaining topics to each other and share notes

• Find people on your course that can help you and that you can help. Teaching something you know to classmates helps you learn. There is a saying "one teach, two learn" and it is true.
• Try to review the content of a lecture before attending the lecture. Even if it is a fast 5 minute skim of the material it will help you
• Try to get an overview of the course at the start, again a quick skim might take an hour or so, but the content will be more familiar when you get around to it.
• For maths and science Khan academy is really useful.
• There is a short course on Coursera called 'Learning how to learn' that includes some of the above points, it is worth checking out.

The techniques in Cal Newport's book on college, also the ones in A Mind for Numbers, the ones from Project Zero's Visible Thinking Routine Toolbox (and the book that explains them), and The Happiness Trap to handle anxiety and shit like that.

I learned about the last two books (Visible Thibking and The Happiness Trap) way too late. Before reading them, my grades were meh. After, straight As.

I know this doesn't answer the question. But in India, at least in my state, the best way to learn something authentically is by not going to college and wasting your time there. Its all a sham for anyone who can't get into the top two institutions, which is most Indians. Everything trickles down from there on. Your health and your academic integrity, all of it gets compromised in a college environment in here.

I went to UCSB for five years and learned almost everything on Khanacademy.org =\

Having a trusted system for managing your knowledge base. I took LOTS of great notes over the 15 or so years I spent in college and grad school, but those notes are all "stuck" in hundreds of notebooks, files, margin notes, etc. They are very inaccessible! I now keep a zettelkasten, and wish I had started long ago so I could benefit more from everything I've studied.

Don't have a fav learning technique, but it's a big advantage if you have connections to older semesters, so they can share advice & notes with you