Studying

General
1

What are you studying? Are you in school? How do you like to study?

Now that I’m out of school I’m spending a lot of time studying math (I kinda wish I majored in that instead of EE). Right now I’m focusing on abstract algebra, and once I get a better foundation I’ll start working on game theory and coding theory. I have some philosophy books for when I get bored of that.

I pretty much just read whatever textbooks the internet tells me are best (the /sci/ wiki is my go-to), and get them from abebooks or lib-gen.

2

How do you define studying? Is it just reading academic texts or is it a more intensive form of reading? I know I don’t study for school but I might be in a constant state of studying for personal gain.

3

I was thinking about that as I made the thread, and the best I could come up with on the spot is “learning material at a deep enough level that it could be used as a foundation for learning more advanced material”. so a pop-sci book about QM wouldn’t count because you’d need to relearn everything from scratch to actually work with it, but Khan Academy definitely counts, as could an audio book or even a particularly rigorous podcast.

4

Ok I’ll toss my hat in.

I’m in the process of reading 2 books right now. One could constitute studying, the other definitely does.

Re-reading Richard Garfield’s Characteristics of Games. I read it first when I found out about it like 3 years ago when I found geeknights but I feel it’s worth a second go.

I’m also reading for the first time David Goldberg’s Genetic Algorithms because those seem to be all the rage these days and I’d like to be able to implement them and they didn’t teach me how to when I got my degree.

5

I didn’t study even when I was in school.

6

You read 0 books at RIT?

7

I sometimes read the assigned books for literature classes. I also read books for pleasure.

8

Animals on the cover books.

9

I only referenced them while working. I’ve never read one.

10

にほんごおべんきょしますよ。でもそれでわりです。

11

Fair enough. I sometimes like to pick one up on a concept I’ve never even dabbled with but wanna have the ability to implement, and then read it cover to cover.

12

It is. I have some good next-step books I can recommend. I’ll probably make that a separate thread, possibly tied to a GN episode.

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13

In the sense of studying as voluntarily reviewing material in order to remember it better (as opposed to learning something the first time or doing assigned work), I have studied maybe three times ever.

14

I never “studied” in school (high school, college, whatever).

When I “study something” however, that mean I have a goal. There is an output at the end. It could be a panel, a decision, a video, or whatever.

If I’m just learning about something, I’m learning about it. If I’m studying it, there’s some higher goal.

15

My “studying” these days takes the form of in-depth investigation and hands-on learning.

My cycle of learning is generally: read up on a thing, try the thing, fail at the thing, read up on why I failed, try the thing again, repeat until I’ve learned.

I always thought there was too great an emphasis on “studying” as rote memorization versus “studying” as learning how to accomplish things using complex techniques and fundamental principles.

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16

Is there a difference between studying and researching? I often find myself researching a subject because it confuses but fascinates me, or for the hell of it.

17

Oh, I forgot, I’m also re-reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman because I’ve read that book every like 4 years since I first read it in HCI1 at RIT. I almost did a masters in HCI, I love that book, everyone should just read it.

18

Is there good online material? I picked up Artin’s book—the first edition price plummeted when second edition came out.

19

I research if I just want to learn the details of a thing in order to do something.

I study if I expect to generate information expanding upon the existing body of research.

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20

I don’t know about online resources. I know Artin’s recommended, as is Herstein’s Topics in Algebra. Personally I’m using Herstein and Jacobson. Whatever you use, though, get ready for P R O O F S.

btw Artin second edition is like $13 on abebooks if you don’t mind used.