Thank you for your answer.
I’m used to learn production on KameSame alongside my progression on Wanikani but I’m starting to have trouble to manage IRL with 7days/Level on Wanikani with KameSame and I’m still almost 3 months away from my first burn so I’m thinking about ditching the production part.
You don’t seem to be bothered by not learning production for Wanikani vocab and that helps me in my decision taking.
Thanks again and congratulations for your achievement !
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Congratulations on that downright wicked time. I’m currently working on my burns and don’t worry, they start to drop off pretty quickly. I only do like 20 reviews per day now, so it’s pretty chill.
Unrelated, but what kind of CS theory are you working on for your PhD? I’m currently in my last semester of CS for my undergrad. I’ve hit the crossroads of “should I just go the software dev route or do actually cool things and further my CS career.” Got any sage advice for an almost fresh CS grad?
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I do research primarily with algorithms/complexity of combinatorial games. I also do some pure mathematical research with combinatorial games and some CS Education research though.
What you should do should depend on what you want to do in the long term! Do you want to be a college professor (if so, research or teaching focused)? Do you want to become an industry researcher? Not research but more technical end of software development (ie: using ML)? Or do you just want to get a job you are comfortable with?
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Not sure if I’d ever want to teach, but industry research definitely does interest me. Once you get your doctorate, will your day to day stay the same or do you plan on entering the industry in some way?
Also, thanks for the advice!
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I plan on being a teaching focused professor. I love teaching, and regularly am involved with teaching stuff with middle schoolers/high schoolers in the summer.
The only reason you should go for a doctorate is if you plan on teaching in higher ed or to research, and it takes quite a bit of time, so you are going to want to feel at least somewhat strongly before you do it.
Since you would plan on going into industry, academic reputation/prestige shouldn’t matter to you, so largely you just want to go to a university where industry recruiters target CS PhD people (whether or not it is prestigious). Beyond that, you are mainly just looking for a professor you get along with (make sure to check in with their current PhD students to confirm they aren’t assholes, there is a reason 50% of grad students suffer from depression).
As for getting in, the best way is to have decent to good undergraduate research experience, and professors you are close with to write good recommendation letters. If they know people at the university, it can often get you in even with an otherwise bad application.
If you have neither research experience or good recommendations (ie: much more than a “did well in class” one), you will likely need to find a way to get research experience, which would most likely require a research focused masters program, which are almost always expensive.
The only way around that would be to find some way to connect with the professor of interest (ie: meeting them at a research conference) and convincing them you would be a good person to let in.
So yeah, ideally you have a good background for application so you can avoid all of that. If you don’t, make sure you really want to go through a long 5-7 year commitment of low pay for the purpose of going into research. Well, do that anyways, but doubly so if you will also have to pay for a masters program.
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Congrats 
Hope I can get there too… I’ve been here since '15!
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I ditched it too, after levels 8-9… It was just too much. KaniWani was driving me crazy with its inability to let me know which translation it wanted if there were multiples, i.e. “girl” The KameSame was having way too many reviews, way more than WK, and without the possibility to adjust it for my liking, it became useless. Sure, I could set it to review only Master and above items but still… I made the choice to use only one SRS system and focus on reading where I can reinforce my WK learning more effectively.
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Wow, that’s incredibly helpful advice. Thanks a lot, I appreciate it. Definitely a lot to mull over for sure.
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Definitely a bot
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This is crazy, definitely an amazing accomplishment. How many reviews a day were you going through at most?
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About 700-800 twice a week, 200-300 2/3 times a week, and 50-150 2/3 times a week.
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Wow, that’s a lot, gotta imagine it feels good when you wrap up a session. I’ve been grinding out a level in about 8ish days which hasn’t been too stressful (yet).
I think I’m good for now but I’ll likely slow the pace around level 12 so I don’t burn out and can stay on top of the reviews and get some grammar in on top of regular life, terms are finally starting to reach enlightened though so that’s been nice.
Appreciate the post and reply, great motivation to keep going
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I will try this as well. I don’t have trouble with the sleep, but it will be harder to fit with the job 
I wil try to maximize, nontheless. Cheers buddy!
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How do you get the total number of hours/days? WKstats only shows number of hours/days per level, but not the total…
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By using the WaniKani timeline extension and looking at the hour I started, and the hour I got the final level up, and then calculating from there.
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How many lessons did you do per day? How did you organise the lessons in case the number of lessons per day varied by type or level?
I did every lesson upon level up. This took me around 1 hour for the slow levels, and 2 hours for the fast ones
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As someone with basically no sleep schedule anyway, I was thinking of doing that, but then I googled records and now I see that of course it’s too late :(. Congrats on achievement.
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There a few hours to gain, go for it.
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