Conventions with Objects

[shadowayex]

I am working on a project that has a tree of objects. I just took a beginner's C course and my professor mentioned something about using pointers with structures to increase performance if you're going to make lists or trees. I'm semi-familiar with pointers, but I have not used them readily.

I'm wondering if I should make the fields in my objects pointers to the sub-objects rather than the objects themselves.

If so, I might need some help there, but I don't know yet.