Stop Overthinking, Start Learning: DF Labs Shows Students How to Level Up Their Study Game With AI

Toko Roema, DF Labs and the UNY Graduate School Host a Free Workshop on Using AI as a Study Partner

16 August 2025 – Toko Roema Roti dan Kopi hosted "Stop Overthinking, Start Learning: Level Up Your Study Game with AI," a free workshop held with DF Labs, an Applied AI R&D collective, and the Graduate School of Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (Pascasarjana UNY), on August 15, 2025. Led by Almer Akbar and Raihan Ahimsa of DF Labs, the workshop invited students to stop drowning in plans that never start, take one step today, and let AI sit beside them as a study partner.

For many students, AI is either a shortcut for finishing assignments or a search engine that sometimes makes things up. The workshop set out to show a better way: using AI to organize ideas, tidy up tasks and learn more effectively, ethically and productively, while keeping the student's own thinking at the center.

The session opened with the mindset behind good prompting. Most people use AI as an answer machine, a shortcut or a search engine; the speakers proposed using it as a sparring partner for thinking, a tutor and a planning assistant instead. That shift means treating AI as a collaborator rather than a worker, giving it clear instructions and full context, and iterating, because good results rarely come in one shot. From there, participants learned techniques they could use the same day: prompt frameworks, giving the AI examples, and letting the AI ask questions back instead of only answering them.

The workshop then focused on what students can do with free tools. ChatGPT offered Deep Research for gathering sources and Study Mode for learning a topic step by step. NotebookLM showed how to digest long material from one's own sources, switch it into another language, and turn it into an audio podcast to listen to on the go.

The session closed with a full learning pipeline the speakers called "Zero to Clarity": define the problem, idea or learning topic; find sources with a deep research tool such as ChatGPT or Perplexity; digest them with NotebookLM or Gemini AI Studio; learn; and, to go deeper, continue with ChatGPT's Study Mode, followed by a set of best practices.

DF Labs reaffirmed its commitment to helping students across Yogyakarta use AI to learn more and overthink less, without handing over their own judgment.

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About DF Labs

DF Labs is an Applied AI R&D studio committed to experimental exploration and analysis of artificial intelligence and its implications in our future. Through workshops, community gatherings, and collaborative research, DF Labs bridges visionaries, creative thinkers, and technical innovators to co-design an AI future that enriches society.

About Toko Roema

Toko Roema is a bread and coffee destination in Yogyakarta with an Indonesian "tempo doeloe" (old times) theme, part of the Sender Corporation ecosystem, with several outlets across the city.

About the UNY Graduate School

The Graduate School (Sekolah Pascasarjana) of Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta is a faculty-level unit responsible for the university's master's and doctoral study programs.