New blog category: Meta-learning
Since the start of my post-high-school learning journey, I've been interested in metalearning. That is, learning about learning. It's such an important topic because it is used throughout the whole learning journey and serves as a foundation. I started back in 2015 by reading the books A Mind for Numbers and Growth Mindset. A mind for numbers is a general learning how to learn book while growth mindset is a book about the best mindset for learning hard things. These were pillars that drove my learning experience at UC Merced.
It worked out for me. I was able to graduate on time with a 3.5 GPA and secured a full time software engineering position for after graduation. You can read about my after-graduation career history in my "Where am I now career-wise?" blog post. I'm at a point right now where I have lots of free time due to unemployment. My career was a little rocky and now I decided to re-build my career from the ground up.
This means re-investing my resources into my own knowledge. This includes interview prep and CS/Programming/Software fundamentals via an online Computer Science curriculum. You can read more about why I'm doing this and my learning plan here. Since I am back to being a student, I figured I might as well review meta-learning concepts. I haven't forgotten what I learned from A Mind for Numbers, but it doesn't hurt to review from the author's online course Learning How to Learn on coursera.
So that's what I'm doing now. Along with taking courses from the OSSU Curriculum, I'm reviewing metalearning concepts. I have the book Ultralearning now but haven't started reading it yet. I might blog about my learnings from there and how I'm applying them.
More recently though, I came across spamegg1's github account, where I found their README about Elements of Abstract Thinking, where they discuss meta-thinking, meta-cognition, meta-knowledge, as it relates to learning and the ability to think abstractly, especially when it comes to math.
Spamegg1 seems to be a reputable source. They contributed a good amount to the designing of the OSSU Curriculum, and it appears that they have extensive experience with online courses based on their course reviews page. However, they state that the abstract thinking article is experimental, so I think it's okay to approach with some healthy skepticism.
They seem to put a big emphasis on math, proofs, and logic. I agree that these are very important.
Over the next several weeks, I will be reading Ultralearning and reading spamegg1's content.