A problem which I've complained about mightily is the gap between my desired level of course material integration and what professors actually provide. Indeed, I still believe that this has been among my greatest hurdles in learning mathematics. It would seem, however, my preference for structure is at the rightmost end of the bell curve. Unfortunate.
As such, it would seem that divining the conceptual structure of a given subject is perhaps the utmost task for increasing my academic achievement. The problem with this, of course, is that I won't know where everything goes until the semester is almost over. By that time my grade will have suffered needlessly and I may even have lost all interest in trying to decipher the inchoate mess of equations and trivia that all too many classes top-out at.
The only strategy may, perhaps, be to stay ahead of the syllabus. This is hard. Very hard. When I don't understand the material, doubly so.
I maintain that engineering has not yet been hard. Badly presented, yes. Botched, even. But not hard.
What mystifies me is that no one else thinks this way. In other fields the value of good form for communication is patently obvious. Nothing about STEM screams any difference. So why the resistance to clarity I deal with day-in and day-out?
A mystery, but probably a stupid one.
