12/27/11

Dear Kayla,

I needed to learn how to learn. I personally could not restore my capacity to learn -- I never had much to begin with. In school, I could memorize information but not apply it. I could not concentrate enough to think through abstract concepts. I did well through high school, but had a great deal of trouble in college where simply memorizing information was not enough.

I am still working on that one now myself. But I know enough to give you some advice.

There are multiple pieces which I will need multiple letters to describe. One easy piece was some of the educational video and audio materials. I can personally recommend the Great Courses series. They are available but expensive at http://www.thegreatcourses.com/greatcourses.aspx; many of the courses are also available in libraries. The Great Courses series has university professors lecturing on a large variety of topics. Admittedly, there are other competing companies doing the same thing which might be worth looking into. But the Great Courses is the only one I can personally recommend.

There are no tests. All you need to do is watch television or listen to your ipod and absorb what you can. When you are just starting out, that is a good thing. Your brain can take in as much or as little as it can handle without pressure. Eventually, it will become more used to learning and processing more and more.

I would suggest you start with a topic you already know something about, i.e. a topic you studied in school or had a personal interest in in the past. You can recover some of your knowledge and skills from before and add to it. If you start with a totally new topic, it would probably be an overwhelming amount of information. Later on I found these courses a great way to learn about new subjects. But in the beginning I would have found it overwhelming.

As I mentioned, there were many strategies I used to improve my learning over time. But this was good for me when I was still starting out because it required no testing or follow-up. Later on these courses helped me expand my education as well as my learning skills.