
Learn Voraciously (2015) - arbingsam
http://www.arbing.co.uk/learn-voraciously/
======
jasode
_> So why do so many people who have chosen to take that extra step, just stop
educating themselves when they graduate?_

Because most people _don 't_ go to college to "get an education." They just go
there as a hoop-jumping prerequisite to hopefully get "a job" and with that, a
middle-class lifestyle. It's not that they want to know Shakespeare (running
_towards_ an academic milestone), but rather, they simply want to avoid _"
flipping burgers"_ (running _away_ from a miserable economic existence).

The author appears to be from Spain. I don't know how the culture there
perceives higher education but in the USA, the vast majority of students go to
college to _" get a piece of paper"_ as a signaling mechanism.[1] As another
comparison, Germany doesn't seem to have as much of a social stigma for young
adults pursuing the apprenticeship track instead college. In America, the
"trades" of plumbers/electricians/welders are lower social rank than office
workers with a degree.

For most (especially those not pursuing STEM), any education received -- is a
side effect and not the primary purpose of school. This is not a negative
judgement about those students. They _do want to learn_ ... they'd just rather
not learn about Shakespeare at college just so they can copy paste numbers
from one Excel spreadsheet to another in their post-graduation professional
job. Those people _do continue learning_ but the topics they pursue on their
own don't match the typical university curriculum. (e.g. they learn more about
cooking, travel destinations, or other hobbies that interest their minds.)

The university was originally for well-off children of aristocracy or those
training for religious studies. Perhaps _those_ students pursued "education"
purely for education's sake... along with the "grand tour" of Europe, etc.
Those young adults didn't have to get a job so the "purpose" of university
schooling wasn't intermingled with impure motives of economics. (E.g. I get my
rich dad's inheritance regardless of how well I learn Greek/Latin). However,
over the last few decades, higher education became a sorting mechanism for
employers (e.g. this job application with no college degree gets rejected) so
it's perfectly logical that students these days just go to college to check
off that box for potential employment.

[1][http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/04/educational_sig_...](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/04/educational_sig_1.html)

~~~
50CNT
American Universities do seem like they are playing dress up in the clothes of
the older aristocratic systems whilst having dropped the key features that
made these systems desirable.

As an example, take analytical reading, writing, and discourse. They used to
be a key component (the trivium of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric) of higher
education, and they are still valuable skills. Being able to dissect, evaluate
and challenge an argument is the basis for making informed choices. The
clashing of dogma that stretches from politics to tech discussions might just
be down to us not knowing how to argue. So we lob things past each others
heads like that makes sense.

As of now, it's been relegated to being touched gingerly at the end of
highschool, and taught hush-hush on a need-to-know basis during graduate
studies.

It's a pity because we could fit that in and a dozen other things. Cut the
fat. We go through 12 to 20 years of education at tremendous costs. I
sincerely believe that we could get an order of magnitude better value. We
retained the means of higher education but lost sight of its ends.

~~~
sotojuan
American college students are plagued by mediocre and high-school level
courses universities like to call "the core". It's a huge waste of time and
money not because of the stuff taught but because of it's level. Rarely anyone
takes the core seriously and most try to get out of it.

~~~
fu9ar
And legions of STEM graduates with poor critical thinking skills believe that
is the norm for the liberal arts and post ceaselessly with poor grammar and
qualitative reasoning about the superiority of their academic discipline. It
is like an underwater basketweaving major taking one requires remedial course
and declaring that all of Mathematics is blow off easy stuff.

------
blowski
It's a bit aphoristic for my liking - up there with 'work smarter, not harder'
and 'never give up'.

How do I prioritise learning against using what I've already learned? Is it
better to learn things I already know in more detail, or completely new things
but only to a shallow level? Is it OK to learn from YouTube videos or should I
register with a proper education establishment? And how do I balance learning
against other demands on my time like networking and spending time with my
family?

I doubt anybody wakes up one day and says "OK, I've learned enough now, I'm
not going to bother learning anything new." so advising against that seems a
bit pointless.

~~~
k__
Well, I had the experience that only some of the new stuff I learned required
to forget about old stuff I already knew.

~~~
Declanomous
That is a salient point. Learning requires a lot of humility. You need to
admit you don't know something, you will probably do poorly when you first
start out, and, as you've pointed out, you might need to admit what you
already know is wrong.

I realized a while back that I tended to get defensive when someone presented
information that I was wrong. Initially I felt that this was because people
tend to disagree with other people in a way that can be considered, at best, a
little dickish. However, I also felt attacked even when the information was
presented in a fairly neutral manner. This was a bit of a shock to me, because
I like to think of myself as open-minded.

After some self-reflection, I found the reason I felt attacked was because I
felt that any time someone presented me with information that conflicted with
my worldview, it attacked my self-identity as a reasonable and observant
person. When someone told me something that didn't seem possible based on my
worldview, I almost took it as if they were attacking my worldview itself.

This defensive behavior would present itself in how I told my stories to other
people as well. So, while I felt attacked when other people presented
information that conflicted with my worldview, I'm sure they felt equally
attacked when I shared my worldview with them, even if I didn't outright say
they were wrong at any point.

It took me a while to figure out how to avoid this behavior, since I was
effectively putting up emotional barriers against what felt deep down like an
attack. (Perhaps this step is easier for people who are in tune with their
emotional side, rather than their analytical side.) I just started thinking
about everyone as having their own world (myself included), and their stories
being true in their world. In a sense, sharing knowledge was a bit like they
were taking me inside a bit of their world.

It freed me from having to immediately evaluate whether what they said was
true or false. I could keep their ideas in their world and evaluate them
there, and compare them to how things worked in my world. Sometime other
people's ideas explain what is going on in my world better than my own ideas.
At that point, I ditch my old ideas and accept their ideas as the new truth in
my world.

It sounds kind of weird, and it probably is a bit. I've kind of created a
analytical system for empathy, which allows me to evaluate world views in a
scientific manner. Regardless, I've learned so much more since I stopped
worrying about whether I was right in any given situation, and instead worried
about listening instead. There's always time to evaluate later.

------
epalmer
My challenge is I want to learn everything. I have learned to focus what I
spend time learning about. that has paid off in a number of career ways and in
my ability to innovate at work.

This applies to my learning "Slow down to speed up".

~~~
sotojuan
Learning to choose what to learn and what to spend time on is a very very hard
skill to gain but one of the best. It'll save you so much time but also make
you happier because you will actually master what you really want to learn
rather than know a bit of everything and feel stretched out.

~~~
SpruceSlope
Any resources you can recommend on learning to choose what to learn?

~~~
sotojuan
Not specific to learning but the book "Essentialism" is good.

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licsiousness
The old saying that "hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard"
applies here.

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dfan
> _Apparently after graduating from university 42% of people never read
> another book. Ever! Now I have no idea how accurate that statistic is, but
> if it is anywhere near remotely close to the truth, that’s amazing._

is not really the best way to try to convince me with statistics.

I spent 5 minutes poking around the internet and nobody seems to have the
actual study, just summaries of it. The closest I could find to a real
discussion was at [1]. One survey with data there said that 12% of college
graduates had not read a book in the last 12 months, which is very different
from 42% not reading a book ever.

[1] [http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9446/do-33-of-
hi...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9446/do-33-of-high-school-
graduates-never-read-another-book-for-the-rest-of-their-li)

------
ajarmst
"Apparently after graduating from university 42% of people never read another
book. Ever!" [Citation Needed]

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fatninja
Very true.

I have always felt this. When I joined my new workplace, I spent quite a lot
of out of office hours on learning more in my field. To be honest, it really
paid off. Studying after uni really matters.

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shas3
She may also be learning! You're discounting experiential learning aka
learning on the job. Also, she may be reading books relevant to work,
including domain-specific books, management books, pop-sci management books,
etc. I think the spirit of the article is great, but the definition of
learning is rather narrow.

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choosername
Maybe she's just flatterin. Or she thinks that working less and being
comfortable with it is clever and she has to admire the skill this takes,
which she struggles with to adjust right.

Maybe the author is right, though.

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klue07
This is why when we hire entry level techies, we mainly look to see if they
have a drive and passion to learn the work they do.

------
Hydraulix989
This content doesn't belong on this site -- why are you giving us unwanted
personal advice peppered with trite anecdotes on a forum for hackers?

~~~
dmalvarado
There's also an article about flossing on the front page.

Crazy times.

~~~
blowski
From the guidelines:

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
> for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking
> on its 'flag' link.

Personally, I found the discussion about flossing quite interesting.

~~~
curiousgal
>Personally, I found the discussion about flossing quite interesting.

You should check out the latest episode of the Surprisingly Awesome podcast.

~~~
blowski
Thanks! I listened, and it was great.

