

Ask HN: Succeeding in a boring subject, or Making learning fun - newsisan

Economics is dead to me, turned into a meaningless exercise of assigned textbook summarization by my teacher (the subject itself is awesome, but as often happens, the way it is being taught is... horrible).&#60;p&#62;That doesn't change the fact that I want to do well in the class, so what techniques can I apply to get motivated on this? I just don't bother with it, and the stress over work that should have been done is building up..
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michael_dorfman
A few thoughts--

First, the best piece of advice regard college I have to give: next time
around, choose your courses based on the professor, not the subject. An
engaging professor can make a dull subject come alive; a dull professor can
suck the life out of even the most interesting subject. Find out who the best
professors are, and take whatever they're teaching.

That doesn't help you this time round, of course.

Let's look more closely at your predicament. You say: _I want to do well in
the class, so what techniques can I apply to get motivated on this?_

In other words, the techniques we are looking for are not about Economics, or
your relationship to the subject matter, but more practical-- how can you get
motivated to do well in class?

You give the answer your self, a few sentences earlier, when you say that the
subject has been _turned into a meaningless exercise of assigned textbook
summarization by my teacher._

In other words, if you want to do well in the class, you need to summarize the
textbook. Note that by your own testimony, this is far from "meaningless"; you
want to do well in the class, and this is what you need to do to do well.
That's pretty damn meaningful.

My advice then, is: forget about "Making learning fun" in this instance.
You're not here to have fun. Treat this course as a job. Show up and do the
work. If it were fun, they wouldn't be paying you (in the form of credits
toward a degree.)

I took about five years off in the middle of my undergraduate education, and
worked in a series of factory jobs. The shift in perspective upon returning to
college was amazing. I vividly remember the first day of class, when a
professor held up a book and said that our homework for the next week was to
read it. The other students were horrified: "You mean we have to read a _whole
book_?" I, on the other hand, was a bit puzzled. "You mean, all I have to do
is read a book? I don't have to put 144 copies of the book into a box, and
load the boxes onto a pallet, and then move the pallets onto the back of a
truck? I just have to sit down and _read_ it? And I have a whole week to do
it?"

Seriously: just read the damn textbook, and understand it well enough to be
able to summarize it back. Have a roommate quiz you, if you don't trust
yourself. An hour a day of focused attention, and you're home free.

And next time, choose your courses based on the professor.

Thus endeth the sermon.

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ecaradec
\- Ask your teacher if he use some book and get this book. It's better to get
the original than the copy

\- If you don't like that book, get another one

Quantic mechanic was a really boring subject to me, until I got a book that
was more interesting than my teacher. It really worked for me, but I'm a book
person.

