RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) 11-06-2013, 05:22 AM
#6
@DaPaus: Well I think knowledge itself is overrated, since knowledge isn't really important - skills, understanding and ability to work with information are, but I understand what you mean - they underrate these as well and care more about diplomas and your school certificates.
I think (and I talked about this in another article of mine) that projects and your work are great way of showing off your skills and understanding of the topics required to make these projects. People can even cheat on exam to get a certificate or diploma, but cheating on your portfolio is much more difficult (unless somebody will do your projects for you or you steal them from somewhere).
Although many companies, at least in the computer science area are changing this and they actually want to see examples of someone's work in order to hire them and school/certificates aren't that (or at all) important. I know one guy who just ignores what school the person went to when hiring and only wants to see their work.
Regarding your questions:
1) I am being asked this a lot. My answer is: Natural curiosity (and I wrote about that in the article). I want to understand things, I want to know how they work, how they're made, how they came to be, how they interact with each other and how they can be used to build new things.
Just being curious is enough motivator for me to keep learning about the world and drilling deeper and deeper into its details.
Secondary motivations would be usefulness off some information to build some idea I have and having a better overview of the world, which can be useful in debates - the more I learn, the more I see how some people are wrong or ignorant (which isn't bad by itself - they can always learn or I can help them learn!) or how they use various tricks based on ignorance to manipulate people (which is bad)
And I see how easy it is for many people to fall for these tricks and be convinced, because they lack the understanding and the big picture to see that - like in creationist debates with biologists for example or some other people, who constantly try to reduce "facts" to "opinions" (e.g.: "Evolution is just your opinion", despite it being based on many facts) or just throw them away.
For example, since I'm studying psychology textbook now, I already know of various cognitive biases and ways of how mind can be tricked into believing something - if you're interested, look for confirmation bias, hindsight bias or selective attention (and dual processing - illusionists really like to use this one to trick you).
Knowing more about how the mind works and what defects it has I can better work around that and make more clear picture of the world and things around me, notice and connect things better and avoid being manipulated.
2) It's natural to forget things you don't use much, but there are also variations in memory retention in different people. You should try to find time to devote to certain task and just keep trying and experimenting with it.
I don't know how exactly are you learning - if you're just reading about how to do it - don't. You remember the most by experience, so keep trying out the examples and various challenges. Don't be afraid to use the learning resources as reference though when training. If you keep your persistence you'll eventually remember and understand how to do these things - you'll get the hang of it.
Best way to learn is by experience and experimenting - just keep trying and challenging yourself.
Of course, if you don't use it in a long time, you'll forget bits of it as the memory deteriorates, but refreshing them is much easier than learning it anew.
@blackeagle: Thank you!
Yeah, internet is transforming the way we can learn and the way we access resources and I think it'll keep changing the education in the future - but of course, you should also be careful and verify the sources, since there's also a lot of nonsense on the net.
Yes... regarding that part. Generally the education system is made for average people and people who are below the average won't keep up and above average will be often bored. If you want to get most out of each person and the education system, you have to tailor it for needs and specific properties of some person - people learn differently, process information differently and excel in different tasks. Using the same meter on everyone isn't exactly the best thing you could do.
Another part that I encountered myself is that teachers often teach from certain bias - they understand the topic very well already and they can't easily put themselves into shoes of someone who's new to it. So they might consider something to be obvious (because they find it obvious) and skip over it, when in fact students would benefit from it being explained, rather than having difficulties to figure it our themselves from the sparse information provided about it, or just not understanding it at all, which has also severe negative impact on understanding of other related things.
I think (and I talked about this in another article of mine) that projects and your work are great way of showing off your skills and understanding of the topics required to make these projects. People can even cheat on exam to get a certificate or diploma, but cheating on your portfolio is much more difficult (unless somebody will do your projects for you or you steal them from somewhere).
Although many companies, at least in the computer science area are changing this and they actually want to see examples of someone's work in order to hire them and school/certificates aren't that (or at all) important. I know one guy who just ignores what school the person went to when hiring and only wants to see their work.
Regarding your questions:
1) I am being asked this a lot. My answer is: Natural curiosity (and I wrote about that in the article). I want to understand things, I want to know how they work, how they're made, how they came to be, how they interact with each other and how they can be used to build new things.
Just being curious is enough motivator for me to keep learning about the world and drilling deeper and deeper into its details.
Secondary motivations would be usefulness off some information to build some idea I have and having a better overview of the world, which can be useful in debates - the more I learn, the more I see how some people are wrong or ignorant (which isn't bad by itself - they can always learn or I can help them learn!) or how they use various tricks based on ignorance to manipulate people (which is bad)
And I see how easy it is for many people to fall for these tricks and be convinced, because they lack the understanding and the big picture to see that - like in creationist debates with biologists for example or some other people, who constantly try to reduce "facts" to "opinions" (e.g.: "Evolution is just your opinion", despite it being based on many facts) or just throw them away.
For example, since I'm studying psychology textbook now, I already know of various cognitive biases and ways of how mind can be tricked into believing something - if you're interested, look for confirmation bias, hindsight bias or selective attention (and dual processing - illusionists really like to use this one to trick you).
Knowing more about how the mind works and what defects it has I can better work around that and make more clear picture of the world and things around me, notice and connect things better and avoid being manipulated.
2) It's natural to forget things you don't use much, but there are also variations in memory retention in different people. You should try to find time to devote to certain task and just keep trying and experimenting with it.
I don't know how exactly are you learning - if you're just reading about how to do it - don't. You remember the most by experience, so keep trying out the examples and various challenges. Don't be afraid to use the learning resources as reference though when training. If you keep your persistence you'll eventually remember and understand how to do these things - you'll get the hang of it.
Best way to learn is by experience and experimenting - just keep trying and challenging yourself.
Of course, if you don't use it in a long time, you'll forget bits of it as the memory deteriorates, but refreshing them is much easier than learning it anew.
@blackeagle: Thank you!
Yeah, internet is transforming the way we can learn and the way we access resources and I think it'll keep changing the education in the future - but of course, you should also be careful and verify the sources, since there's also a lot of nonsense on the net.
Yes... regarding that part. Generally the education system is made for average people and people who are below the average won't keep up and above average will be often bored. If you want to get most out of each person and the education system, you have to tailor it for needs and specific properties of some person - people learn differently, process information differently and excel in different tasks. Using the same meter on everyone isn't exactly the best thing you could do.
Another part that I encountered myself is that teachers often teach from certain bias - they understand the topic very well already and they can't easily put themselves into shoes of someone who's new to it. So they might consider something to be obvious (because they find it obvious) and skip over it, when in fact students would benefit from it being explained, rather than having difficulties to figure it our themselves from the sparse information provided about it, or just not understanding it at all, which has also severe negative impact on understanding of other related things.
I love creativity and creating, I love science and rational thought, I am an open atheist and avid self-learner.
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