How Do I Study in 2025

    I remember when I was in high school, my math teacher told us to memorize all the math formulas.

    One day, the teacher gave us a math assignment to work on. I finished it quickly but didn’t use the given formula. It was infuriating because she told me I was wrong and that we needed to literally write the fricking long step-by-step formula.

    Why the hell do we need to reproduce the step-by-step when we can solve it more efficiently?

    It wasn’t the teacher who was wrong, it’s the education system that sucks.

    At that point, I realized that the internet is a better teacher.

    You can learn anything with your phone. The only thing that matters now is how you study.

    How to study in 2025

    Let’s say we’re going to learn a new topic: Artificial Intelligence. More specifically, Large Language Models (LLMs), the “chatbot” AIs that you use daily.

    First things first, you need to identify the motivation behind your desire to learn the topic. This will boost your motivation and encourage you to get back on track when you feel inconsistent (ikr, everyone’s felt this before at least once in their life).

    Identifying the motivations

    My motivations to learn LLM are:

    • To fulfill my curiosity about how LLMs work
    • I don’t want to be left behind in the future AI world
    • To have better career prospects (I’ll be honest, to earn more money)
    • To share what I learn
    • To write my undergraduate thesis

    I think curiosity is one of my strongest reasons to study, but it sometimes dies because it depends on my mood and environment (inconsistent). On the other hand, “earning more money” and “writing my thesis” can be stronger motivators because they provide external pressure to learn.

    Next, I ask myself: What do I want to achieve? What’s the biggest achievement I can get when I master this? What can I produce by learning this? I need to have a clear destination in mind.

    I really want to make a basic LLM chatbot trained with Indonesian language, so everyone in Indonesia can use it.

    Finding out the knowledge prerequisites

    You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites

    For every topic you want to learn, there are knowledge prerequisites to help you grasp the new concepts easier. You can’t learn calculus if you don’t know algebra. It’s like trying to defeat an Elden Ring boss… at level 1.

    I broke down the knowledge prerequisites I needed before diving into LLMs:

    • Python
    • Neural Networks
    • Calculus
    • Basic Statistics
    • Data Structures

    Thankfully, I learned these back in university.

    If I didn’t know these topics, I wouldn’t try to learn all of them first. Instead, I’d learn them later when facing difficulties understanding something that requires them. This makes learning progress faster because you learn concurrently instead of one topic at a time.

    In my experience, I forgot most of the calculus. When learning about LLMs, I encountered tensor multiplication, or matrix dot product. I forgot how matrix multiplication worked, so I took a few minutes to refresh that knowledge, then got back on track.

    My steps to study

    First, gather learning materials. These could be books, articles, YouTube videos, or anything else. The internet is vast, and typing any keyword in your favorite search engine will give you thousands of resources.

    If it’s hard to find learning materials, I usually go to communities focused on the topic I want to learn and search for recommendations. For LLMs, I typically go to a subreddit like r/LocalLlama, type in the keyword “learn LLM” and poof! There are many threads asking the same question, and I get many new learning sources.

    reddit llm

    Second, read the material. I can’t move to the next step if I haven’t even read it.

    Breaking down the learning path

    Sometimes, even if you know your destination, you don’t know the path to reach it. Suppose you’re going from Indonesia to Singapore by boat. You need to ask:

    • What path are we taking?
    • When should we expect to arrive?
    • What should we bring to reach there safely?

    It’s certainly easier if you’re accompanied by an experienced person (mentor) who’s set the path for you. Since I don’t have mentors to learn from, I usually ask AI to break down the learning path. Here’s the prompt I use:

    Create a learning path for learning Large Language Models (LLMs).

My background: Basic understanding of neural networks, calculus, statistics, and linear algebra. I have intermediate python skills. 
Time commitment: 2 hours per day. 
Goal: Understand how LLMs work and be able to pretrain a small LLM.
Preferred learning method: textbook, blogs, and project exercises.

    Change the details in the prompt based on what you want to learn.

    You can use any AI model, like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Claude, etc. As of writing this article, Gemini 2.5 Pro is the best model available (benchmark tested). Here’s my result:

    It provides you with comprehensive and detailed answers on how to reach your goals. Topics to learn, resources, and a timeline are all provided by the AI.

    Plan and schedule my study

    As a full-time software engineer, I have little time to learn outside work. I only have around 2 hours at night to study. To maximize my learning progress, I schedule my study using spaced repetition and interleaved learning, which I’ll explain later.

    Because there are many things to learn, I space out my study sessions, but not too far apart. Initially, I study almost every day, then space the sessions out more after reaching certain milestones.

    My main learning source for LLMs is a book called Build a Large Language Model From Scratch by Sebastian Raschka. I study every day at first to get a strong grasp of the fundamentals. As I progress through the book, reaching chapters 3 and 4, I space out my study to once every two days.

    Use the right learning methods

    Different types of knowledge require different learning methods.

    One thing I can tell you is that rereading text is the least productive method, yet it’s what most people do. What your intuition (and probably your teachers) tells you to do is reread, underline, and highlight text like you expect it to stick in your mind quickly.

    It’s not terrible, but it’s the least effective way to study. Rereading text only gives you the “illusion of knowing.” People believe learning is better when it’s easier, but research shows the opposite. We need to make our brains work harder to make learning stick better. Here’s what I do to get a better grasp and make knowledge last longer:

    Quizzing myself

    After each study session, I create quiz questions for myself. These questions are derived from key points that I think I should remember.

    I quiz myself as a warm-up before I “actually” study. This helps me identify areas that need more attention. Retrieval practice also strengthens memory.

    To make quizzing easier, I use a software called Anki, which is highly popular and recommended. It allows you to create flashcards - small note cards to test your memory with retrieval practice. Each flashcard has a front part (the question) and back part (the answer you need to recall).

    video

    You can also generate cards easily with AI and import the results to Anki. Here’s my prompt:

    Generate 100 anki flashcards based on provided book. 
The front card should be the question and the back should be the answer. The answer must be short and concise.

    Attach the book with your prompt. For a free and easy-to-use AI model, I recommend Gemini 2.0 Flash or Gemini 2.5 Pro in Google AI Studio.

    Yapping

    I’m usually alone in my room, talking about what I’ve just studied. I try to explain the theories as if I’m teaching a 5-year-old kid. If I can explain it clearly and in detail, I know I understand it well enough.

    Spaced Repetition

    Our intuition tells us to practice intensively (like when our parents said “practice-practice-practice”). Although this makes us feel “more productive,” it leads to a higher rate of forgetting.

    I space out my study sessions to allow time for forgetting and retrieval. Instead of cramming all my LLM learning into consecutive days, I gradually increase the intervals between sessions. For example, after learning a concept, I might review it 1 day later, then 3 days later, then a week later. This spacing effect strengthens neural connections and improves long-term retention compared to cramming.

    Conclusion

    So that’s pretty much it! Learning effectively isn’t about grinding harder—it’s about being smart with how you study. Once you understand how your brain actually processes information, you can totally hack your learning process.

    The strategies I’ve been using—getting AI to map out my learning journey, spacing out study sessions, quizzing myself, explaining concepts aloud, and mixing up different topics—have made a huge difference in how much I can learn even with just a couple hours each night.

    Here’s the thing: good learning usually feels a bit challenging. When you’re struggling to recall something, that’s actually your brain building stronger connections. So don’t sweat it when studying feels difficult—that’s actually a good sign!

    Whether you’re trying to understand LLMs like me or learning something completely different, give these techniques a shot. Play around with them, see what clicks for you, and you’ll probably find yourself making way more progress without burning out.

    Happy learning, and good luck with whatever you’re trying to figure out!