I have an exam tomorrow. Cognitive Psychology. It’s a lot to study in a relatively short time, especially considering I attended classes for this subject over four months ago – before the pandemic. I don’t remember anything – and that’s an understatement.
Nevertheless, I’m trying to stuff my brain with the course plan as much as I possibly can. I had to take a short break though because I got to wondering whether I’m actually learning something right now.
I mean sure, I’m recalling theories and am able to write citations verbatim. It’s all very surface level, I feel. And that’s not learning. I’m going to write that exam tomorrow and forget all the intricacies of these theories and citations.
That’s not learning.
To me, learning is going back to the original source. For instance, there’s a ton of mentions of Daniel Kahneman, the author of ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ in my textbook and I know quite a few experiments he conducted. The issue, however, is that this is all second-hand information. I want to learn from Kahneman himself- which involves buying his book and actually reading what he had to say. Or reading his research papers. Or watching a few lectures if they’re available.
I don’t want to do it for the purpose of an exam so that I can forget all of this by next week. Instead, I want to really learn.
Maybe this particular post is pointless because everyone gives exams and we do learn some stuff at University, but I don’t know, I’ve sort of been a freestyle learner for most part.
I don’t do well with studying from textbooks. I’d much rather learn from books, articles and videos. First hand.
Memoirs of a Muse 