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Learning to Learn

(kevin.the.li)
320 points jklm | 4 comments | 22 Oct 24 00:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.93s | source
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keeptrying ◴[22 Oct 24 04:26 UTC] No.41911188[source]▶
A big hole in this article is that you need to find the very best learning resource there is. This is a must.

Eg: For RL it would be Barto&Sutton book.

Sometimes the best source is not intuitive. Eg: The best way to become a safe driver is to go to performance drivign school - its a bit expensive but they tell you how to sit and stay alert in a car which I have never seen outside of these schools.

One of my most common things nowadays is to ask ChatGPT is to ask to build a curriculum. Creating and understanding what a great curriculum looks like is 20% of the work of understanding a field.

You can LEARN ANYTHING now if you have the time and inclination and elbow grease. Truly nothing is beyond your grasp - NOTHING. Its a magical time.

I'm actually building a tool that will do all this for you and get you started down the learning path faster than what we have now.

And for the curious - the best way to learn medicine is not a textbook. There are solutions out there like Skethcy which work much better for anatomy.

My own learning project - learn Medicine "on the side". It seems ludcirous that we give up the keys to our health to doctors just so we don't have to learn 2 years of courses. Am going to fix that!

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1. cbracketdash ◴[22 Oct 24 04:32 UTC] No.41911226[source]▶
Would love to hear more about your thoughts on learning medicine! Why would you recommend an online program over textbooks?
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2. server_man3000 ◴[22 Oct 24 05:23 UTC] No.41911442[source]▶
When I’ve gotten deep into a topic I’ve actually almost ALWAYS learned that textbooks are the best way to learn things.

The internet is full of information. Sometimes it’s too much, unstructured or tangential to the goal at hand. Textbooks, in my experience, are truly written by the experts. It’s been vetted, rigorously reviewed and fact checked. It’s not inspired by influencers or clickbait.

Obviously YMMV, but when you find a top recommended textbook, it’s usually miles beyond a YouTube video or medium blog for deeper level content. It usually flows better and makes more sense as you study consistently.

3. keeptrying ◴[22 Oct 24 17:34 UTC] No.41916625[source]▶
U=I bought more or less every book on this.

https://meded.ucsf.edu/sites/meded.ucsf.edu/files/inline-fil...

Start with Anatomy.

Start with a problem you HAve personally. And understand the anatomy and physiology. Use that to learn every abstraction you bump into. Example you'll definitely need to learn about the skin for example

Also go to uptodate.com for your condition. Thats basically what a doc uses anyways.

For inspiration go to r/medicalschool .

Constantly use

4. keeptrying ◴[22 Oct 24 17:51 UTC] No.41916815[source]▶
Realize I didn't answer your qeustion.

Online courses aren't really holistic enough and not fundamental enough. They are usually dertivatives which are a translation of sorts from source documents.

For medicine you want the source documents which you can really trust.

Meidicine isn't static - it'll keep changing but its important to know source mateiral and tracking how outlooks and fixes for diseases change from there.

UptoDate.com has the best deciison science -newest knowlege. Thye are about 18 months old from cutting edge research. (Which is a good thing).