"Learning", not "memorizing"

So, I saw this blog on posted to digg, and all the comments about how that blog is full of shit, or how it's right, or whatever.

After 37 credits, my GPA is 4.0 out of a possible 4.0. Perhaps my experience would be meaningful.


I think that blog is pretty much on the ball. Most people grow up memorizing and studying and memorizing some more. They forget it all as soon as it's no longer necessary, and tests are stressful and difficult because they're depending on knowledge stored in temporary memory -- and it's stored exactly the way it was given to them, and that's the only way they know it. When they have to restructure it or apply it, they don't understand...because they never understood, they only memorized.


My grades weren't always very good. I barely made it out of high school at all. I hated most of the material; and so much of it was either too difficult or too easy/slow. I never, ever did any of my homework, and I never studied for anything. I didn't study for the SATs, even, and I scored a reasonable 1400. Normal tests, I didn't usually do so well.

When I started going to college, I chose courses I was really interested in. I paid attention in class, took detailed notes, and I never wrote what the teacher said/wrote verbatim; instead, I processed it and wrote notes in my own shorthand. I never needed to look at the notes again. Processing the information immediately and writing it down forced me to learn it. Once it's learned, it's not going away.

After awhile of just taking interesting courses, I focused on computer programming courses. I took the unenforced prerequisite "Programming Concepts" and learned a lot of the conceptual stuff I used to be unable to understand about programming. Then I jumped straight into C++ and Java, doing the courses in the opposite of the recommended order. They recommend something like VB -> QB -> other languages -> C++ -> Java.

When I started taking C++, I devised a color coding system for my notes, which forced me to further analyze the stuff I was writing down. As a result of all that thought, the only time I need to spend on learning is time in the classroom, and time spent on homework assignments, which I generally complete very quickly because I've already learned the stuff intended to be taught by the assignment.

Stop memorizing, and start learning.