Self-Learning Is Rewarding
August 25, 2009 @ 11:17 pm (Permalink)
Now that it’s been over a month since I started to teach myself Japanese, I realised something. I like teaching myself new things at my own pace and method. As long as there are no grading involved or other annoyances, I enjoy it. Oh and as long as it doesn’t involve money. I think that’s why I don’t really bother to go find a Japanese class at the moment. Then again, those classes would be taught in Korean, and I’d struggle with both Korean and Japanese instead of just the latter!
Moving on, along with my current Japanese adventure, I think of the other stuff I self-taught myself over the years and here’s a short list:
- HTML/CSS/PHP — Sometimes I would need somebody to explain something, but a lot of it was self-taught, and even though I did take basic HTML class, it was mostly stuff I already knew. Never mind that I couldn’t tackle Javascript.
- Touch Typing — I never took a typing class. Instead, I spent an entire summer learning to type fast by having ten chat windows opened before my sophomore year. I think that’s the best way to improve your typing skills, haha!
- Microsoft Office Programmes — Granted I did take a class or two that taught me certain skills, but a lot of it came from experimentation. I’d sit for hours and play with them.
- Graphics Programmes — Like the previous, I experimented a lot on those or read tutorials that showed me how to do stuff on Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
While I am glad I self-taught a lot of these skills for myself, I think being a self-learner has some disadvantages. The main one being that I am very impatient when someone asks me a question on doing some of these stuff. Like for an example, “How do I make a column in Microsoft Word?” I want to bang my head on the wall at times when I am asked these questions because a lot of these are stuff I discovered by experimenting, so in my mind I think the following: If I can figure this out on my own, so can you.
I know, I know. That’s not very nice of me, but still. Several weeks ago, I had an acquaintance asking me what this new message appearing in their email meant, and it was only one of those new user agreement thing where you check the box to agree the thing. That person, without even reading the darn thing immediately asked me what this was. Blarrrrrrgh. I don’t care if you’re Korean and blame your poor English skills, but if it’s something where you don’t even bother to try, then please don’t ask me! And that same person had enough nerve to accuse me of not trying to fix a broken printer a few days later — a printer I fought with for twenty minutes. So yeah, I didn’t try, huh?
. . . Anyway, readers, what are some stuff you self-taught yourself to do? Tell me of your adventures! Maybe it will influence me to try something different on my own in the future! :D