How to use office hours without feeling lost

I avoided office hours for half the semester because I felt like my questions were too basic. Big mistake. What made them useful: - Bring a specific example: "my remove fails when the node has two children" beats "remove doesn't work." - Write down what you already tried. TAs can help much faster when they know where you are. - Go early in the week. The day before something is due, the line is long and everyone is stressed. - Ask about concepts too, not only code. Some of my best sessions were just "can you explain why this is O(log n)?" Nobody judged me for basic questions. They had seen them all before.