r/selfeducation

not sure how to explain this but sometimes i just want to stumble on stuff i didn't even know i wanted to know, if that makes sense. like not "learn python" or whatever, more the random stuff you didn't know existed.

scrolling random subreddits or random apps doesn't really do it, it just keeps feeding me the same kind of stuff. anyone else get this urge? what do you actually do about it

Is Reddit a good platform for educational purposes, such as learning new concepts, seeking academic guidance, or getting help with studies?

Hey Guys, I have recently started to learn about Machine Learning, I am gonna treat this account as a journal for my study sessions each day, I really want to learn new skills, I have been so lazy and procrastinated so much, so now I just want to start without thinking about anything, and figure out things on the wayy, I am gonna update what i study daily here, I am trying to learn my best in the field of data science<3

Just finished Ultralearning by Scott Young. The idea that stuck with me is that almost nobody is ever taught how to learn. You pick up whatever habits school gave you and then use them for the rest of your life. That's me, and I'd like to fix it before I take on anything else.

I'll be upfront about the weak point in this plan: I don't have a particular skill I'm burning to learn. No exam coming, no language I need for a move. I just keep running into things I want to be decent at and I'd rather sort out the process once than fumble through each time. I know the obvious reply is "just pick something and learn the meta stuff along the way," and if that's your answer I'll genuinely take it. I'd just like to hear why it worked for you.

Things I'm curious about:

What actually moved the needle. Not the list everyone recites, but the thing that changed how you sit down and study.

What didn't. I have a strong suspicion this is where people disappear into productivity tools and elaborate note systems and never come out.

How you practiced it. This is the part I can't picture. Learning is a skill you can only practice by learning something else. Did you run a low-stakes side project as a testbed, or just apply it to whatever was in front of you?

Whether it stuck. Six months later, were you still doing it, or did you drift back to highlighting things and hoping?

No timeline yet. Evenings and weekends, roughly. If people are interested I'll post the plan I land on and how it goes.

I am a student in Class 7 and I honestly kind of liked school, although it does have its faults. For example, school starts at 7:20 AM and ends at 12:30 PM for Class 1-5, and ends at 1:30 PM for Class 6-10, like that. It kind of prevents me from maintaining a healthy lifestyle as I have to get up early and cannot sleep early cuz since I return at 2:30 PM (accounting for transit time) It takes quite some time for me to finish lunch and I of course need to keep a gap between lunch and dinner. Also I notice that the almost 6 hours I spend at school aren't nearly as productive as when I study at home. This schedule also left me tired and unable to study properly even after I returned home. And then I came to know about the NIOS board (the Indian home schooling board), and I basically felt like this was the best thing in the world. However the home schooling thing requires quite a lot of self-discipline and I wanted to stay in school for a while to build that self-discipline before I risked transitioning. However, I am unsure as to whether I should leave after the Half-Yearly exam or the Annual. I am basically tired of school now and the earlier I leave, the quicker I will (finally) be relieved. When I searched on Google, Generative AI recommended leaving after the Annual, however I described the sort of pressure I face, and I really wanted to hear human opinion. As for my parents, well, they said they will decide after they see my exam marks, but even they are unsure whether leaving after the Half-Yearly or Annual is a better decision. If you all could just clarify which is better for my situation, it would really help a lot. Thanks!

Not a productivity guru post, just a thing that actually changed my finals weeks so I figured I'd share it here.

For years my actual problem wasn't studying, it was starting. I'd sit down with every intention of grinding through material and then spend 45 minutes rearranging notes, rewriting the same to-do list, or just staring at four textbooks trying to figure out which one to open first. By the time I "started," I'd already burned the best hour of my night on nothing.

Turns out that's not a discipline problem, it's a decision-paralysis problem. "Study for finals" isn't one task, it's like 500 tiny ones with no obvious order, and your brain just kind of freezes when there's no clear entry point. The fix that actually worked for me wasn't a new technique, it was separating the deciding from the doing: make the decision once, ahead of time, so sitting down doesn't require willpower anymore, it's just showing up to something already laid out.

I ended up building that as a single Notion page, exam countdown so I'm not holding dates in my head, a daily checklist so "study for finals" becomes "do these 3 things today," and a grade calculator so I know the actual score I need instead of vague dread. Free to duplicate if anyone wants it, I'll drop the link in a comment below rather than clutter the post.

Good luck to everyone in exam season right now, hope this saves someone the hour I used to lose every night.

Okay so, as someone who has AuDHD, I struggle with asking questions. NOT conversational ones, but asking questions when I am being taught something.

I don’t have transitions between emotions, and I don’t really explore thoughts either?

I am very artistically creative and I can think and follow a thread, but not more than what I’ve already been given. For example, birds. If someone brings up a bird species I’ve never heard before, I can use what base facts I know about birds to ask questions about them, such as “What do they eat? How did they evolve to have xyz?”.

But I’m kind of hopeless when I have zero reference for what the topic is, or if I’m just learning about it now. I don’t cross and connect things enough to generate questions most of the time, so I just memorize general ones and apply them to the situation if I feel they can work?
So when I have situations where none of my prepared questions are applicable, I don’t have any questions at all.

This is why conversations/small talk are easy to me! I have a good set of questions I can use and match to the situation!….but it’s a pain in the ass when I am genuinely trying to learn something new and NOT building upon something I already know about.

Uh if this makes sense, please help? I keep researching how to ask better questions and it’s ALL about casual or professional conversations. I need help in an academic sense :c

Thank you 🫶

First time posting in this community — I've been lurking for a while. Figured sharing something I've been learning about, and hearing how others think about it, would be a good way to actually join the conversation instead of just reading.

So lately I've been kind of obsessed with the question of what makes learning (and educational games/apps) actually fun, instead of something you have to force yourself to do. I work on a reading/learning product, and I kept running into the same wall: people say they want to learn something, but so few actually stick with it. Doesn't matter how "frictionless" you make the experience — if there's no real motivation, people just don't come back.

While digging into this I found a surprisingly old paper — What Makes Things Fun to Learn?, written back in the 1980s. Wasn't expecting a 40+ year old paper to feel this relevant, but a lot of it maps directly onto why modern learning apps (Duolingo, Zelda-style progression systems, etc.) work the way they do.

The author breaks it down into three elements: challenge, fantasy, and curiosity.

I want to start with challenge, since that's the one I've spent the most time thinking about:

• Goals need to feel personal, not abstract. School often fails here — you learn something "because it's on the test," not because it connects to anything you actually care about. The more practical/personal the goal, the more motivated you are.
• Difficulty has to be just right. Too hard and people quit immediately. Too easy and it feels pointless. A lot of long-form content fails here too — wall of text, unfamiliar jargon, and people bounce before they even start.
• Feedback matters — you need to feel your progress. Think of a Duolingo path, or even an open world game like Zelda where you can still sense "I've crossed the desert, I've got the glacier left." Without that sense of progress, effort feels directionless.
• It has to protect your self-esteem. This one I underestimated at first. If a quiz or challenge makes you feel dumb, you disengage — even if the content itself was fine. That's part of why a lot of these apps lean on simple multiple choice / ordering questions instead of open-ended ones — fast, low-friction positive feedback keeps people going.

Wondering how you all think about the ideas mentioned above around challenge — goal-setting, difficulty calibration, feedback, protecting self-esteem. Does that match how you experience motivation, or is something missing from that picture?