F1 How to Ask Smart Questions
Information Box Description
There will be some information boxes in the handouts, and you can know the category of the information based on its color and the icon in the upper left corner. For example, this information box is about some prompt-related content. Information box categories mainly include:
Progress-related Tips
Further Reading
Optional Reflective Questions
Optional Programming Exercises
Required Tasks
Required Reading for Lab Progress
Principles and Methods Beyond the Scope of the Lab
Before starting the first task in the pre-study phase, please carefully read the Signup and FAQ sections on the official website, and complete the "One Student One Chip" General Knowledge Questionnaire. Note: You may retake the questionnaire as many times as needed. You must score 100 points before you can apply for the admission defense.
Create and Maintain Your Learning Log
You need to update your learning log based on your daily study progress. Throughout the rest of the learning process, it will be one of the aspects considered by the Teaching Assistants (TAs) when evaluating your progress.
Follow these steps:
- Sign up for "One Student One Chip". After successfully signing up, you will receive an email. Follow the instructions in the email to create your own learning log spreadsheet.
- After creating the spreadsheet, read the "One Student One Chip" Learning Log Spreadsheet User Manual to learn how to properly fill in and update your learning log.
Read the Guide to Asking Questions
Your first task in the pre-study phase is to carefully read "One Student One Chip" Pre-study Guide to Asking Questions: From Speaking Up to Seeking Help Effectively.
We assigned this task neither to deliberately waste your time nor to discourage you from asking questions. Rather, it is intended to help you understand how to ask questions properly. When you are willing to put effort into following these proper practices and try to ask questions in a professional manner, you have already taken the first step toward becoming a professional.
*The Guru Triple Combo*: STFW, RTFM, RTFSC
Find these three acronyms in the article above and make sure you understand what they mean.
You may find the letter F in these acronyms offensive, but its literal meaning has never been the point. It simply adds to the legendary aura surrounding these acronyms and makes them easier to remember. For example, RTFSC originated from the opening words of a reply posted by Linux creator Linus Torvalds on April 1, 1991. The original mailing-list post can still be found online.
Interestingly, in Lessons Learned from 30 Years of MINIX, Andrew S. Tanenbaum cites this message as an example of how easy the MINIX operating system was to learn: Linus Torvalds, who was still a student at the time, had learned MINIX quite thoroughly in just 10 days.
Learning Not to Ask Rather Than Learning How to Ask
Many students, to varying degrees, tend to hold the following view:
I ask an expert for help, the expert gives me the answer, and therefore I have learned something.
But have you ever considered this? In the future, when you join a company, your manager may ask you to explore a technical solution; or when you join a research group at a university, your supervisor may ask you to investigate a new topic. You may think that there will surely be capable colleagues or senior students around to guide you. In reality, however, your colleagues have their own KPIs to meet, and senior students have their own research to work on. No one wants to be followed around and questioned all day. Sooner or later, there will be no expert available to give you the answer. How will you complete your task then?
If you feel that you cannot handle it on your own, you are probably lacking the ability to solve problems independently.
Fortunately, this ability can be developed through training. The experts around you became experts because they developed their independent problem-solving skills earlier than you did. While you are still asking them a rather naive question, they may already have solved countless unusual and difficult problems. In fact, your ability is proportional to the effort you invest in solving problems independently. When an expert gives you the answer, what is demonstrated is the expert's ability, not yours. Therefore, to develop the ability to solve problems independently, it is even more important to adopt the right mindset: When you come here to learn, you should make every effort to solve every problem you encounter independently (except, of course, for problems caused by defects in the framework code).
I’m an Expert Who Really Enjoys Helping Others
Take Nanjing University’s notoriously demanding PA lab as an example. We have seen this happen far too many times: at the beginning of every semester, there are always a few enthusiastic senior students from the previous cohort who patiently answer all kinds of questions from newcomers in the group chat. These newcomers do indeed feel the warmth of having those seniors shield them from the wind and rain during the grueling PA training. Yet after a month or two, those helpful seniors invariably disappear without warning, leaving the newcomers waiting helplessly in the bitter winds of PA. Meanwhile, another group of students has already developed the right mindset and skills through a month or two of struggle, grown into professionals capable of working independently, and continued moving forward under PA’s relentless pressure. We do not know why those helpful seniors suddenly disappear. Perhaps they feel the pressure of their own coursework; perhaps they grow tired of answering an endless stream of questions; perhaps they suddenly realize that the help they have been giving the newcomers is not actually helping them. Whatever the reason, those newcomers are no longer able to complete the PA training independently, even though they are about to face problems more difficult than those at the beginning of the semester.
Therefore, we do not deny the sense of accomplishment you gain from helping your fellow students, but we believe there are many more serious questions to consider:
A student comes to you with a question. If that question is only a surface symptom, can you uncover the deeper problem?
When a student cannot solve a problem without coming to you, were you truly helping them before?
More importantly, can you take responsibility for those students’ future?
If we ask, “What do you hope this student will grow into?”, I believe we all share the same goal: we hope that they will become professionals capable of working independently. At the same time, however, you must recognize a fundamental principle of learning: this requires long-term professional training. If merely telling them the answer to a problem were enough to make them a professional, how could that be fair to the countless senior engineers who have spent years sweating on the front lines?
Therefore, every time you directly tell them the answer or solve the problem for them, you are depriving them of an opportunity to receive professional training. Conversely, if you truly want to help them, try to point out the concepts and skills they lack without interfering with their training. If they need to search for information/read manuals/read code, let them search for information/read manuals/read code. Guide them to develop their own thoughts about the problem, then try possible solutions and summarize what they have learned. This is not easy for either of you, but learning itself requires effort. If you make it too easy for them to obtain the answer, they will miss the training they should have gained from the process of solving the problem.
Learning in the Age of AI
In recent years, AI tools have advanced rapidly, especially in their ability to generate code. With the help of AI tools, students can now complete many relatively simple programming assignments almost instantly. You may therefore feel confused about the purpose of completing these programming assignments—or even about the meaning of learning itself.
Please read A Letter to "One Student One Chip" Beginners in the Age of AI and reflect on the meaning of learning in the age of AI.
Channels for Asking Questions
- Communicate in the group chat (recommended). Active students may have the opportunity to become TAs.
- Contact a TA privately (TAs also have other responsibilities and may not be able to reply promptly).
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