When I was younger I used to struggle learning a new or difficult subject, and through the years and about a decade of university and grad school have helped me put together a strategy for how to study and understand complex topics. Typically I apply this learning system to subjects such as algorithms and software engineering, however it can be applied to any topic.

While there are a near infinite set of study straggles out there, I like this approach because it utilizes a divide and conquer strategy, focusing on breaking a complex topic into easy to understand components, and putting the pieces back together at the end to see how they all work together.

System for How to Study

Let’s take a case study example: Understanding how logarithms work. Logarithms are used throughout the fields of mathematics and computer science, however unless you use them regularly it’s easy to get rusty on them.

Step 1

The first task that I will do is take a piece of paper and write Logarithm in the center and circle it.

Step 2

Next I’ll go to a comprehensive post on the topic, such as one on Wikipedia. In reading the first sentence I come across a few terms that are a bit fuzzy:

Inverse operation and Exponentiation

I will stop reading the logarithm article and go and read those two articles until I feel comfortable with what they represent. After I feel good about those two items I write them as their own circles that connect to the Logarithm circle. I will also add any examples that will help me understand what the terms mean if necessary.

Step 3

Next I’ll go back to the original Logarithm post and keep going through the article repeating this process until the entire page is filled with a mind map that explains each component that makes up logarithms and how they work together. This may include base case examples, such as:

64 = 2^6 is the same as log 2 (64) = 6

If this seems like a dead simple approach to study… it is. The goal of studying is to learn a topic, and one of the easiest ways to understand a complex subject is to break it into easy to comprehend components.

For example, if you’re trying to understand an advanced algorithm in computer science from scratch you may feel a little intimidated. However if you break the algorithm down into small enough components you’ll see that it’s essentially a process of steps made up of connecting simple modules such as loops, manipulating variables, and using conditionals.

A problem is only hard when you try to think of it as a whole, however any concept can be understood if you simplify it down to easy to comprehend pieces. Obviously the more complex the topic, the longer it will take to deconstruct, however I am a firm believer that anyone can understand any topic assuming they dedicate themselves and put the work in.

I hope that you can leverage this mind mapping process to understand complex topics and that it will help you learn how to study properly and truly learn.