DVN

1. Preliminary Note Before We Get On With It
2. What is Self-Study?
3. Pros and Cons of Self-Study
   1. Pros
   2. Cons
4. Davian’s Highly Curated, Ultra Special Collection of Tips on Self-Study
   1. Tip #1 (Most Important): Have Fun*
   2. Tip #2: Use Multiple Sources/Study Multiple Things
   3. Tip #3: Don’t Be a Try-Hard
5. Wrap-Up

Preliminary Note Before We Get On With It

What is Self-Study?

The literal meaning of self-study is quite clear; you have a subject that you want to learn, and so you attempt to learn about said subject independently of a formal school curriculum and professors. However, I believe the more interesting answer is found when viewing the question from the perspective of self-study as a concept rather than as merely a word with a literal definition.

Someone who chooses to embark on a journey of self-study has, by the very nature of self-study, tacitly stated that they embrace education as a lifestyle choice, not as a 12-year legal requirement they’re obligated to endure from the age of ~5 (at least in the U.S.). From that observation, it can be inferred that this person has a desire to improve in some way. They want to know more, do more, or be more than they were yesterday. That is something to be proud of, in my opinion. There are many people in the world who coast on through life trying to complete a checkbox of milestones that they think they need to fulfill without stopping to think about what they can do differently, and I don’t mean differently with respect to the world. I’m referring to a difference that is instead defined by how they challenge the box they’ve been put in by some inherit mechanism of their existence in society, such as class, sex, race, culture or some other pillar of identity.

Another way I like to think of it is this: When someone is born, they are raised in a certain neighborhood that holds some common beliefs, by parents who hold some common beliefs, and they eventually make friends who hold some more common beliefs. The existence of these beliefs and standards has nothing to do with this person; they existed before them and will likely persist after them. The intentional pursuit of education must, in one way or another, challenge this box formed around the person in a way that can only benefit them; if not tangibly, then at least because they can approach the world from a new perspective.

Pros and Cons of Self-Study

Pros

I believe the most basic benefit of self-study is the result of new knowledge getting jumbled up there in your brain, being allowed to mingle about with your thoughts and memories. The beauty of learning for learning’s sake is certainly understated and it can yield very powerful, yet subtle, benefits in your daily life. As I mentioned above, it allows a person to gain new perspectives and become better than they were the day before. You can approach situations in life with much more wisdom and analytical prowess. Not only that, but the level of accomplishment once you complete a daily, or especially yearly, learning goal is unmatched. The high will make you feel like you have ascended a bit closer to full enlightenment, and who doesn’t want that?

Cons

First and foremost, let’s get this straight. There is no sufficient enough downside to self-study that can ever make one pick NOT doing it over doing it. The negatives of self-study are only really notable when compared to traditional study, not the absence of study altogether. Also, I’m slightly biased towards self-study right now, as that’s the phase of life I’m in, so I’m probably going to try to debunk every negative thing I write immediately after. Sorry, not sorry. With that out of the way, the downsides can actually be summarized pretty succinctly: no teachers, no graded assignments, and no quizzes/tests to reinforce knowledge. Granted, no one says these assignments and tests are perfect, but they are typically reviewed by at least one proficient person in the field that likely knows the answers and understands the reasoning of those answers. However (I warned you didn’t I?), if you’re on this journey of education as a hobby, you really shouldn’t put too much stock in the rigor of your learning plan. I’ve overestimated the importance of a well-defined curriculum before and I’ve come to find that it seriously doesn’t matter as much as people think it does. Curricula, tests, and homework are all quite important when having to manage a class of 15+ students, but when you’re on your own, it’s really not as impactful as just getting something done. Whether that be doing the problems in a textbook, or testing yourself with flashcards using spaced repetition, doing what suits your learning style is all that matters.

There is an additional con that’s a little more harsh and it’s one that has subconsciously bothered me for a while. That is the apparent lack of peers. Self-study can feel really lonely, and as someone who enjoys the thrill of intellectually stimulating conversation, the feeling of not having anyone who’s on the same adventure as you can really suck. Honestly, this is one negative I don’t know how to put a positive spin on; if you do, please feel free to comment on this post with your attempt. The only thing I can say is that there are two major reasons I booted up this entire site; building a community of like-minded people with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge was one of them. I’ll mention the other one later. If I gave debunking this con a shot, I would say that there are always people out there with the same interests as you, and if it’s a big deal in your eyes, then there needs to be a concerted effort put into finding that community. How does that old saying go? “There are plenty of fish in the sea.” You can start fishing here by subscribing to this blog! I have some ideas for how the community aspect can be taken to the next level, but I want to make sure there are interested people to build the community for.

Davian’s Highly Curated, Ultra Special Collection of Tips on Self-Study

As the heading says, below I’m going to attempt to give some tips from my journey as a serial self-studier.

Tip #1 (Most Important): Have Fun*

Despite how cliché this sounds, it’s honestly the most important tip that I could give you, but there is a caveat. You can only have as much fun as your situation allows. Obviously, if you’re self-studying Mandarin to improve your standing to your superiors when they’re choosing who, from your department, they’re going to send on a six-month temporary duty assignment to China, you need to be a bit more regimented in your study than a hobbyist. However, I would venture to guess that a greater proportion of people reading this are concerned with self-study as a hobby more-so than as an urgent professional necessity, which means most of you can probably venture to have a lot more fun than you think.

Now, in an effort to be genuine, I will admit that I struggle with this everyday. When I gain an interest in something, I tend to place a heavy brick on the gas pedal, burning through my fuel and draining all excitement and wonder from the field. Whether it be considering how to monetize this newfound hobby, or over-optimizing a plan to learn every single thing about said hobby, some internal reaction happens in my brain that alters my outlook of it from childish amazement to hyper-productive, cold robot. For example, I spent hours upon hours learning Japanese last year; I got hiragana and katakana down, started learning basic kanji and vocabulary, but burned myself out because I was in the middle of a stressful school year and I overestimated how much gas was in my fuel tank. I revisited Japanese after I graduated, but the same thing happened again; why? Because I had just started a new job and I had so much to learn, yet here I was, forcing myself to watch hours of Japanese grammar videos, do kanji/vocab flashcards, and ingest Japanese media every day. This attitude also tends to cause acute damage to relationships, and luckily, in this case, burnout exists, because had I just kept running myself into the ground, I bet that damage would be much more permanent.

So clearly, I, at the very least, have a problem. Like I mentioned above, there were two huge reasons I started this blog. One was to build a community I would want for myself, and the other major reason was because I believe that it will help me stay on track with my learning while forcing me to figure out a healthier way to approach it since I know that at the end of the week, I’m going to have to talk about something I found interesting. However, maybe this isn’t you; maybe you don’t have this same problem. If that’s the case, good for you! Keep doing what you’re doing! But, if you at all related to the above soliloquy, then I urge you to reexamine your current methodology, and see how you can inject a bit of whimsy into it.

For me, this will express itself as a “go with the flow” style attitude to what I choose to read, while still maintaining boundaries. I know I want to learn advanced physics and math. Is it necessary for an urgent professional opportunity? No. Therefore, there is no time limit. I do not need to set up a class schedule, curricula, find the perfect textbook, and the perfect supplementary materials (trust me, I’ve done it). I just need to know what subjects are learned in a typical advanced degree and in what order, get a book, and read it at my own pace. Then, repeat those last two steps until all subjects are covered and I can move on to some new subject. Do I want to learn both advanced linear algebra and modelling systems with differential equations? Let me find two books that I can read when I feel up for learning one or the other. Maybe Young and Freedman’s University Physics with Modern Physics isn’t the absolute pinnacle of the field when it comes to fundamental physics education, but I’ve heard people enjoy it and I won’t know if I like it until I try! Try to have that attitude with whatever you choose to self-study because over-optimization and analysis paralysis are very prevalent in this realm.

Tip #2: Use Multiple Sources/Study Multiple Things

There are two ways to approach this tip (hence the slash), but they’re largely related so there’s no need to split it up. If you, my dear reader, are anything like me, you want to dive headfirst into a bunch of subjects. This can be moderately detrimental if not controlled, but remember tip #1? Don’t be such a stick in the mud by trying to drown out that curiosity in favor of robotic focus. Let your interest dictate what you’re going to tackle.

The general framework I (try to) follow is I either:

a.) Have 2-3 subjects that I’m interested in and some form of learning content for each subject, or

b.) Have one subject with different types of learning media (e.g. video course, book, etc.).

This way, when I’ve exhausted one source, I go to the other one and boom, things feel fresh again. To use myself as an example again, I want to become much more capable in mathematics and physics, so I have the textbook by Young and Freedman that I’ve mentioned numerous times already, How to Prove It by Daniel Velleman, and Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler. Okay, okay… I also have one more semi-related book, but it’s for general reading pleasure which is important as well! It’s Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene.

Clearly, books are my choice of media because I personally find it easier to absorb information that way, and it’s very accessible and portable. The most important takeaway here is that I read what I want as it comes to me. If you don’t keep watching a show or movie after it starts to bore you, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to jump to another book once you’ve lost a little spark; you can keep your learning rate up and make much more progress that way. Keep it fun! It always comes back to that.

“But Davian,” you’re thinking to yourself. “How do I ensure I stay disciplined?” Did I say you could avoid reading entirely? No, I most certainly did not. Here are the ground rules I’ve discovered so far that need to be in place before you go down this path of “loosey-goosey” exploration:

Firstly, you cannot avoid your learning goals. If you said you want to read 30 minutes every day, you are going to read 30 minutes every day. It doesn’t matter which book specifically, as long as you’re interested and can immerse yourself in the content.

Secondly, always give your choice of media a chance. Don’t waste too much time, but don’t throw it away after the first five minutes of looking at it.

Lastly, if you said you want to complete problems at the end of every chapter you read or lecture you watch, do it. I tend to avoid hard numbers with this “rule” because the difficulty of problems varies widely across different subjects. I’m sure those who have studied math can attest that five problems in real analysis and five problems in linear algebra will generally take an average learner very different amounts of time to complete. Instead, I like to tell myself to complete problems until I feel like I’ve nailed down the chapter/lecture’s material.

With that, let’s move onto the third and final tip of the post!

Tip #3: Don’t Be a Try-Hard

Upon Googling, there are apparently a few definitions of “try-hard,” so I’m going to define it my way. A try-hard is someone who, usually to their detriment and to the detriment of those around them, ruin the experience of some activity by — you guessed it — trying too hard.

What I am about to say is hopefully not a shocking revelation to any of you, especially since I already said this in the Pros and Cons section of this post, but when you’re self-studying as a hobby, you aren’t graded or quizzed! While this can be a minor negative to self-study since it can be argued that quizzes allow for you to solidify information in your head, it’s not that big of a deal in my experience and it certainly should not push you to overcompensate. Don’t be your own teacher’s pet. Let me say that again just in case you’re skimming this part:

Don’t be your own teacher’s pet.

Brown-nosing isn’t becoming of you, especially when you have to contort yourself like you’re possessed to do it. In fact, I’d say the thought of it is downright terrifying. The beauty of self-study is that you have the freedom to learn the way you want to learn. If you want to highlight your books or stuff them full of sticky notes, go for it, but if you don’t find any value in doing that, then don’t. It’s amazing what we convince ourselves is necessary to our education just because we were forced to do it a certain way in school. You can concept map; you can freely read; you can even doodle out comic strips of the content you’re learning if you want to! If you do that often enough, think about starting your own blog because everyone loves xkcd and I’d certainly be interested in seeing what you got.

Wrap-Up

If it isn’t glaringly obvious from the majority of the content in this post, burnout is real and it’s something I’ve dealt with a lot unfortunately. That’s why I think it’s so important to try to keep your hobbies fun and why I wrote so extensively about exactly that. I’m learning this lesson pretty damn slowly, but each time, I take another nugget of info with me to help in the future. Ignoring the fun aspect of your passions and going way too far is a one-way ticket to Burnout Island, and trust me, it’s not one of those fun islands with beautiful beaches and people; I’m talking Tom Hanks and Wilson in Castaway vibe. Not pretty. Don’t do that to yourself. If not for you, then at the very least do it for Tom Hanks.