Learn Things in a Hard Way

Most of the things in the world are packaged and laid out to us in an extremely user-friendly way. In order to augment the good part and revolutionize the part that doesn’t work as well, we have to be extremely CREATIVE, which requires us to learn things is a hard way — to start redesign from a fundamental level.

I have made a decision to learn most things I am interested in from scratch —this time in a hard way. For instance, if I bypass a part by remembering facts, this time I would like to understand it fundamentally. Essentially every knowledge we have nowadays is a construction that simulating something in reality. From social science, linguistics, economics, psychology to computer science, these subjects closely examine and redesign human experience. Now that their boundaries become blurred, but unfortunately not many of us are prepared enough to integrate them. Indeed many knowledge has lost the essential message it is supposed to carry along the translation.

What are some of the things I am so curious about? I am very curious about how human live in general, especially on how food and agricultural system works. Besides that, I am curious about the world of numbers and computations — a very simple algorithm is often elegant enough to push the fundamental ways we approach problems. The kind of design problem related to computation often reveal its pros and cons in a extremely large scale. Elegantly, even though we don’t usually have a best solution, there’s often a relatively best solution given the environment and the expected outcomes.

Another three topics I want to discover more this year is post-modern art theory, artificial intelligence and data mining. As an art history and computer science major, I often feel ashamed of how little I actually know in both areas. But thinking of all the exciting topics I am about to learn, I am full of PASSION now.

To learn these things in a hard way, I will do a combination of online resources, classes online and in school, and my wonderful peers and professors. I am lucky to be in Carleton College, one of the best liberal arts college for undergraduate teaching. In Carleton all the professors are very accessible and are willing to be friends with students. I didn’t actually bother to connect with my professors too much before, but I guess it’s never too late to start, especially because now I am now so eager to share and learn thing from them (and hopefully share perspectives that they can benefit from as well).

I will document these learnings and share it with everyone who lives on the internet. I just love the idea of sharing and open source. I believe that human beings would march into the era of open source in a light speed manner. At the same time, I will document how I learn to code/program from scratch. I think this will encourage many people who think they can never build things by coding to actually try and have fun — loads of fun awaiting!

I will use my favorite entrepreneur Elon Musk’s quotes on mental framework for problem solving to as the closing remark:

I think physics gives you a mental framework for problem solving. It also teaches you to be willing to admit you’re wrong.

Getting ready to share all the things I will be wrong at!