
Tips for Successful Self-Learning - fogus
http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2010/4/19/7-tips-for-successful-self-learning.html
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MikeCapone
Another tip: Do it when you're motivated, don't wait, because motivation might
fade and not come back for a while.

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j_baker
More importantly, learn what you're motivated _to_ learn. Don't try to learn
the things you "should" learn, because you probably won't be able to do it
until you want to learn them.

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rufugee
Bah...there are many things you "should" learn while not being necessarily
motivated to do so. By persevering and mastering them, you'll often reap great
rewards.

We shy away from challenging, intimidating tasks on a psychological level by
nature. Fighting through this is one of the few things that keeps us moving
forward. If you're unmotivated to learn something but you really "should", I
suggest you find a way to become motivated.

~~~
Radix
You know, though I agree, I think this is a POV issue. Some people believe one
side and merely understand the other.

Consider a person who both wants to be a doctor, because they admire the
direct nature of a doctors work, but they don't enjoy people themselves. And,
also wants to be an engineer because they find it all more interesting and
valuable, but they never particularly liked math. Depending on the person one
choice will be more desirable and will be easier to learn motivation for.

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briancooley
I have found the hardest part of self-learning to be finding peers and
mentors, but I live in a technological wasteland.

The internet has made it easier, but it's not the same. When I socialize with
friends, they don't care to talk about programming. In fact, they make fun of
me.

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japherwocky
IRC can be a great way to connect with other programmers who are in similar
wastelands. Programming is kind of boring to most people. :)

~~~
ngpestelos
Which channels would you recommend?

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olliesaunders
#haskell. I go there to ask math and compsci questions as well as stuff on
Haskell itself. Sorry for not being the actual person you addressed the
question to but #haskell is a really great channel, I didn't want you to miss
out.

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justlearning
"The longest path is the shortest and the shortest path is the longest"

back when i was in school and onwards in the academic world, it was always
said aloud that the quicker you grasp, the intelligent you were. A lot of
students(i perceive - even now) were in rush to prove that they understood -
many a times getting to the end of the book before understanding the basics.
The momentary appalaud of "well said" and "hurray!" turned out to be a disease
- a disease of skimming thru and finding the answers. This got into an habbit
and now well embedded in my approach to even outside books. 20 years (outside
school) and still counting on the skimming the book[most recently, I picked up
a Math book (Intro to Analysis- as suggested Brad's earlier post)]. Struggling
thru is a small part of the battle; mind plays the depression game while I try
to search for a notation (the greek for complement of a set), while I don't
give in as I used to, nowadays it plays the second game of age-"35 years and
you don't know 'xyz'!". So yes, my the shortest path has been so long that I
have not been able to put an end to it. </end-self-humiliation>

"avoid isolation"

would anyone suggest how to get by this? I work in the enterprise world, where
the likes are 9-5/fix-the-bug-save-my-arse. I haven't met anyone whom I could
ask about a notation or even discuss about this. I am shy to meet people
(read- fearful).few people I did try to ask usually have the repulsive smirky
grin. I looked for user groups in the local area (seattle-at present), but
didn't find any. It would be awesome if someone tells me this proof of
A-intersection-B-intersection-C is going to help in XYZ.

~~~
Estragon

      would anyone suggest how to get by this?
    

<http://mathoverflow.net/>

~~~
bwebster
What does "get by" mean in this context?

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greenlblue
_Tip for building eigencourses_ : I have found, through lots of trial and
error, that nothing beats a math book with worked solutions to the exercises
at the back of the book. The kind of immediate feedback that you get from
comparing two solutions is really helpful and cuts down the time you need to
internalize concepts.

~~~
Estragon
It's true, but as you go on, it gets much harder to find books with worked
solutions. Sometimes, authors inline examples in the text which almost
suffice.

~~~
cgs
I've forgotten where I read this, but read the questions/problems AND attempt
to solve them before even reading the chapter. You will learn the material
better.

~~~
greenlblue
This is true. Part of the reason I think is that it puts the main ideas to the
forefront so when you read the chapter you actually know what to look for.

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mattrepl
Instant community: audit a course at your local college or university.

Even if uninterested in a degree, attending a class helps keep motivation and
meet peers.

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kalid
Good article, I especially liked the quote: "Avoid the dualistic mistakes of
technical execution without intuition, and intuition without technical
execution.".

Personally, I feel that if you don't have an intuition for something you don't
quite understand it -- it's still a a jumble of memorized knowledge.

Separately, I've started to realize the term "self-learning" is a pet peeve of
mine. You can't teach someone; you can present, and they can learn. It's like
having a word like "self-exercise" -- a coach/teacher can only show you what
to do, not do it for you. In this case, "self-learning" means learning in the
absence of a structured environment/coach, and the goal is to find or create
your own.

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chegra84
Points to add. 1\. What your learning should be of interest to you. 2\.
Learning material for technical stuff should have ton of examples[I think most
people have strong inductive reasoning]. Always, remember when it comes to
learning that you have proven that you can learn but the material/ resource
you are trying to learn from hasnt proven it can teach.

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evanrmurphy
_Avoid isolation_

This is an increasingly murky notion to me re: the web.

At any other time in history [1] sitting alone in your room reading something
would have been a solitary task without question. There was a social component
insofar as you were interacting with an author, but since that's one-way
communication (read-only medium) it was still clearly distinct from social
activities.

Fast forward to now when the thing your reading and writing is near-
instantaneous updates to/from other reader-writers like you and this
phenomenon is looking sufficiently different from traditional at-home reading
as to defy most meaningful distinctions between introverted and extroverted
activity. "But that's only text, you're not talking to people and seeing them
like in real life." C'mon, I'm in an ambient Skype call with my girlfriend
right now. We leave the thing on for hours at a time - yes, it's a way to cope
with long-distance but also interesting because of how similar it really is to
hanging out in the same room. "But you still can't feel or taste each other."
No rebuttal... (and I'm _still_ waiting on that Linux driver for my smell-o-
vision).

[1] Although it's so easy to think that your moment in history is unique.
There are at least definite parallels between what's happening now with the
web and past revolutions in publishing and communications, including the
printing press, telephone, radio and television.

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ryancox
Interesting read. I would add that, when it comes to learning, one size does
not fit all.

See some research done by Richard Felder at NC State on different styles:

[http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILS...](http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm)

Find out what your style is:

<http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html>

Effects of learning style in the context of engineering education:

[http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Pap...](http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/LS-1988.pdf)

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d0m
I don't agree with all points, however, the first one is so true.

By understanding the basics, it gives you the ability to understand the rest
so much easier.

You can also easily seek help from others because they know you've taken the
time to understand the basic and aren't searching for a quick-and-dirty answer
to your problem.

It also help to motivate yourself since you know that even thought you haven't
mastered everything, you've mastered __something __and that's really
important. It's a bit like building a small system incrementally.. even if it
sucks, the first version gives a huge momentum to the overall project.

