Chapter 4. How to Study and Understand Complex Topics?

When I was younger I used to struggle learning a new or difficult subject, and over 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 is a near infinite set of study strategies 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.