August 24, 2022
It's sad but true: most of us never learned how to learn, even though we're expected to do it all the time. This is especially true for college students, who fall prey to ineffective study habits, like reading their notes over and over, or worse, cramming for an exam the night before.
The education system at every level does tend to suffer from problems that prevent people from learning effectively: students are shepherded through too many subjects at a time and learn the material in a linear and rote manner. As a result, I think it’s not uncommon for people to promptly forget much of what they “learned” in school, including at colleges and universities, as soon as they pass their exams.
What's worse, in today's hustle culture, you are always reminded that you can do more. You can study another course, read 365 books a year, study for 10 hours at a stretch.
With that being said, I'd like to share 7 ways on how (not) to learn:
With almost any technical subject, it’s easy to get involved in all of the complicated details. Doing so prematurely can be a bad idea though. If we don’t understand the broader context, those technical details can quickly overwhelm us.
When you’re first reading about a given topic, try to grasp the big picture. Why is this important or useful? How does it fit with other topics or technologies? What’s the problem that it’s trying to solve? Is there another way to look at this?
Answering questions like these will give you a perspective that will help motivate a deeper understanding as you dig into the more technical details.
It's very tempting to dive into the current trends, the buzzwords, buy into the hype. But, without a solid foundation, and understanding of the domain, you will never truly learn that subject. Often clues can be found sprinkled through a given book or other source of information. Keep an eye out for the clues and use them to build up a picture in your mind of the high level principles and connections. Always keep asking yourself: “What’s the big idea here?”
If we’re faced with something we don’t understand, often the temptation is to move ahead anyway, hoping it won’t bite us later. In fact, sometimes that’s okay. Maybe an in-depth understanding isn’t necessary—we just need to get a specific thing done. Or maybe going further into the material will elucidate the point we’re stuck on right now.
Both of these things can be true at times, but it’s not a good approach to leave behind such gaps as a matter of course. It will cause the foundations of our knowledge to get more and more shaky. Eventually, that’s precisely what will stall progress completely.
For instance, a lot of people think math is “too hard.” I believe the reason is that they kept being pushed along in school to more advanced topics, but all the while they were leaving more and more loose ends behind.
Any technical subject, including math, computer science, and programming, requires effort (at least for us mortals), but if you take it one step at a time, and you make sure to master the individual steps along the way, you can go a lot further than you might think.
You can’t read your textbook the same way you check your Facebook page, at a quick, superficial level. Many students assume that the mind is a bin or a sponge; you just pour information into it, and it stays there. Sorry. For the information to stay there, you have to process it until you get it.
When you put in the effort to understand something, you are signaling to your brain that the “something” is worth remembering. An excellent way to do this, as you read, is to try to connect the new information to information you already know.
Whenever you’re learning something, challenge the material and look for mistakes. Don’t just take everything as gospel. Even when there aren’t mistakes, this kind of active learning will ensure that you really do get it. When you challenge the material, it makes you explore edge cases and counter-intuitive possibilities. Doing so will make your understanding robust. You’ll know how something works, and you’ll also know in a hands-on, concrete way, the limitations and exceptions that go along with it.
Reading a single textbook or article is often a bad idea. Any source of information will be written in a particular context. It will skip some steps and also make assumptions about what you know. If you’re confused (and even if you’re not!), it’s good to look for additional sources.
If the material you’re reading seems too advanced, look for more beginner-friendly treatments. If you’re reading about something in a particular programming language and it is not making sense, try to find the same topic addressed in a language you’re more familiar with. Maybe what you’re currently reading is too technical. In that case, look for high-level descriptions to build intuition about the subject.
In that regard, I really like the idea of ExplainLikeImFive, a subreddit for articles that explain complex topics very simply.
A study session with friends can be an excellent way to learn. If you make it a regular event (e.g., weekly) a study session can help you to grasp difficult material, prepare for exams, and ultimately earn strong grades. If you’re not careful, however, a study session can turn into just a regular hangout where you don’t get any studying done. By making careful choices when you are forming the group, establishing some kind of structure, and experimenting with different studying techniques, you can be sure your study session with friends will be successful.
It is a really good idea to select one group leader or facilitator. This could be one specific person, or group members can take turns. This person is in charge of keeping everyone on track so that you don’t waste valuable time. Additionally, this person could send out an email or text reminding everyone about the approaching session.
The best way to make your study sessions productive is to determine what you’d like to get out of the experience. Determining the overarching goal of your group will keep everyone on the same page, and help you set smaller goals to meet during your session.
Project tutorials are a very popular way to start building your first few projects. But unfortunately, most people go about it in the wrong way and don't end up learning very much in the process.
You might sign up for your first course on Udemy, and build your first website. You will love the experience, be proud of your work, and sign up for another course. Here, perhaps you will build another website with a few additional features.
Guess what will you do next? That’s right, sign up for another course!
You will enter a shopping spree, and buy multiple courses.
Finally, you will decide to work on something of your own. You will open up your code editor, and…freeze. You have no clue how to get started or how to research.
Tutorials can be a good learning tool, but you have to go about it in the right way, or else you can become dependent on them and not learn how to code on your own.
Stop and think about what you are going to build. It would help to write down the basic components of the project.
Try building some of it on your own first. It is totally fine to make mistakes because it is part of the learning process.
Watch the video and pause periodically to process the information and ask questions. Remember that Google is your friend.
Take the finished project and break it. You can learn a lot from error messages.
Rebuild the project from the beginning but in your own way. This will test if you really understood the concepts in the tutorial.
A great resource for students who are looking for a place to receive free learning tips, academic advice and overall motivation to be more successful is StudyTube. This refers to a community on YouTube where YouTubers produce content all about studying, school and productivity. The content on StudyTube includes a wide range of topics, from “Study With Me” videos to constructive morning routines.
While StudyTube videos can be a great source of motivation, watching too many videos about studying and achieving one’s goals has the potential to be more harmful than helpful. It is quite interesting to me to see some of these Study Tubers, now at university, opening up about their own struggles with productivity and the environments that they may have had a role in creating. These creators often now focus on vlogs and wellness videos for their channels.
What once was a fun place to poke into someone’s folder organization for inspiration quickly became anxiety-inducing and implemented a lot of unnecessary pressure on me.
