Teaching Self, Part I.
June 10th, 2005 | by john |I’ve always enjoyed self-learning.
As geeky as this may sound, ever since back in the days when I was finally able to get onto the Internet with ease, it seemed like a whole new world had opened up for me. I had access to so many resources that I could use to learn about what interested me. For example, I remember when I first found Geocities. I spent an entire day learning HTML by example and even trial and error (upload and see). The work-in-progress product definitely looked like a child scribbling some gibberish on the monitor but I found it amazing and absolutely awesome.
That was when it all started. I started to seek out resources I could use to learn what I thought was awesome at that time like Visual Basic programming. My first textbox, command button, and form that did absolutely nothing other than displaying “test” in the textbox when you clicked on the button was spectacular in my mind. All the programs I’ve made during those days were all so trivial but they were still fun and it probably kept me from doing foolish things with my time.
I’m so glad that I learned the ability to self-teach. As a matter of fact, I know for a fact that I am more productive learning things on my own than having to go to class and listen and take notes during a lecture. It’s a bit weird when I say it like that but I’m confident that it is true. (But of course, having a professor to go to when you can’t figure something out is something outside of this context.)
… to be continued.
