A list of some of observations and resources on learning how to learn:

  • For learning math, I have found that it really helps to do problems or exercises. It is not enough to just read a textbook like a novel. You need to practice actively using the concepts you learn. How to Solve It is a classic book on learning to reason about math problems.
  • For learning to program, see this classic blog post on how to Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years, from Peter Norvig, an important AI researcher. The post argues (correctly!) that truly learning to program takes time. I think the same is true for math and quantitative reasoning.
  • Awesome blog post from Michael Nielsen on how to use (digital) flashcards to follow machine learning research, learn JavaScript APIs and remember the details of cooking techniques. This post inspired me to start using Anki every day to both build and reinforce my own conceptual understanding of many new ideas from ML, NLP, statistics and linguistics. I also use Anki to remember Vim commands. I really love it. Check out the discussion of the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve.
  • A really nice video from a math professor who liked math and so became a math professor, despite thinking she was not great at math. If you like your quantitative and computational classes within INFO but are wondering if you are really a “quant/comp person”, I really recommend watching this video.
  • Dendron is my favorite tool for note taking. Another tool I use daily and love.
  • Slightly cheesy yet fantastic Khan Academy video on growth mindset.
  • Google tech talk on learning how to learn. I got the title for this post from the talk. The talk is definitely pop science (I just trust Oakley to accurately describe the underlying research), but it is a lot of fun. Apparently exercising helps you learn things, etc. etc.