u/BrutalHormone

I am a first-year physics student, and I've been struggling a bit with my DiffEq course. After watching some YouTube tutorials, I think I finally got the main idea: there are standard forms for different types of differential equations. It seems like all you have to do is recognize which type of equation you're dealing with, make the right substitutions or algebraic transformations to bring it to its basic form, and then apply the known algorithm to solve it.

Did I understand this correctly? And if so, does anyone have tips or cheat sheets for getting better at recognizing which substitutions to use right away?