What you're describing is exactly in line with what I've experienced anecdotally and what we've seen in our studies and retrospective analysis of tens of millions of questions answered.

I think the problem with Anki can be distilled down to root assumptions it makes about how people should ideally learn and how to model what is forgotten over time. In studying for a course there are basically three strategies: (1) cram at the end (2) study reasonably throughout the whole course (3) try to keep re-learning the course indefinitely.

We've thought long and hard about how we can cater to these different styles and think we've done a good job with a hybrid of #1 and 2. What would make more sense is something coming early next year as an option feature, which is inputting the date of the final exam of your course and then periodically adding in flashcards to a growing playlist that optimizes retention for the day of your exam. After you finish, you don't necessarily have to continue, but you could set a longer-retention date. An example of this would be that you have weekly quizzes and a final exam, and the algorithm could adjust the date for each quiz while balancing the overall arc towards the final.

That's interesting... my original comment wasn't actually meant as a criticism against Anki itself, more a criticism against college schedules. And that's because I was taking as gospel that the Anki/SuperMemo style of algorithm is basically what you need for long-term retention.

It sounds like you're not so much challenging that as you are offering more flexibility and control over what and when you'd like to retain?

(I wonder what college degree programs would look like if they actually were structured in a way to better reinforce long-term retention.)

It probably depends on what you study, but I feel most professors realize this. It's why open book exams and take home exams exist, and why you're graded not just on exams but also on assignments.

Nothing wrong with just using Anki for things that you, personally, feel you'd like to remember.

This was never my experience using Anki. I wrote a markup language that compiled to Anki cards in college because manually making cards was too tedious, and it was never "overwhelming." The exponential backoff means you rarely see cards after you first learn them.

You also learn to be smarter about what you actually Ankify -- this isn't something you think about, because the best way to succeed in a cram model is to spend a few extra minutes that one time on something that might not be on the test, but it might be. With Anki, you can focus on actually learning the core material and cultivating a deep understanding.

Another thing I would do is just delete cards that weren't interesting to me after the course was over. There are some things I want to remember forever, and there are some things that aren't worth it.

It also helps to use the mobile app to review a few cards whenever you get the chance throughout the day rather than batching them all up. This is better for remembering them as well. This also fits very nicely with pomodoro-style working.