How to start enjoying a subject you find boring

How to start enjoying a subject you find boring

Barbara Oakley teaches engineering at McMaster University, Canada, but there was a time when she hated math. She gave it up after high school. “Math not only didn’t make sense but was also worthless and painfully frustrating.”

How did she come back to it? A decade later, while serving at the lowest enlisted rank in the army, she realised she would need it to achieve her civilian life goals. “That’s how, at age 26, I found myself restudying remedial high school mathematics in an implausible attempt to become an engineer.” Here’s her four-step guide to get excited about topics that bore you:

First, identify a reason to learn. “One of the best motivators is wishing to make an improvement in your life.” In her case, it was the wish to be something more than an ordinary soldier.

Study the subject in short sessions, with frequent rewards. For example, study for 25 minutes and spend the next five minutes making coffee. It’s called the Pomodoro technique, and it helps overcome the physical discomfort of studying a boring subject.

Third, be aware that just because you don’t understand something the first time, you are not stupid. It is normal not to understand.

And last, let your brain amass chunks of learning with practice and sleep. “The bigger your collection of neural chunks related to solving different problems, the greater your expertise. And the greater your expertise, the more you will like what you’re learning.”.   

Source | Times of India | 9 July 2017

Regards!

Librarian

Rizvi Institute of Management