- What is a technical course

and what can you expect when you take a technical course?
A technical course is a course like chemistry,
physics, biology, calculus,
ordinary differential equations, or an engineering course.
But there are some key characteristics
that make all of these courses similar,
and that make them technical courses.
A technical course is simply this:
It's a course that tests your knowledge
of concepts and ideas by requiring you to solve problems
that put those concepts and ideas into action.
You learn a concept and then you have to apply
that concept in order to solve a problem.
There are some basic features of a technical course.
One is that a professor is generally going to deliver
concepts or ideas in a lecture format.
Sometimes it's just one complex concept
or it can be as many as 10 or 12 in a single lecture.
Your understanding of those concepts is then tested
through problems that ask you to make use of those concepts,
to put them into action to solve a problem.
That's why problem sets are the bread
and butter of technical courses.
Problems are what help identify and help assess your true
understanding of what the concept means and how it works.
Related to this idea are some other topics,
such as how to approach technical courses,
how to think about them when you start taking them,
the myth of the "math and science person,"
effective and efficient strategies
for studying for technical courses,
how to make the most of your problem sets,
something we call the Distributed Study Model,
your first exam in any given technical course
and what to do with that exam to succeed moving forward,
and finally, how best to study in groups.