This world is full of ambitious people who are lifelong learners. They pursue knowledge even while managing careers or businesses, whether to satisfy their curiosity or to enhance their skills.
I am a lifelong learner, though perhaps not among the highly ambitious. Learning is my passion - I’m drawn to newer technologies and understanding more about the world. I am a full-time machine learning engineer. If you follow AI news, you know a lot is happening in this field. Even keeping up with a single sub-field is challenging. Yet, I consistently try to learn about new methods and technologies that could create value in my work. To do so I need to find a dedicated time to self-study. In this post, I will share my experience with self-learning.
But first things, first
What do I mean by self-learning? Does reading articles count as self-learning? When I say self-learning, I emphasize learning a full-length course. For example, if someone wants to learn machine learning, which was not part of their curriculum, they spend hundreds of hours on it. They need to study fundamental subjects, like underlying mathematics. They need to understand and work through the ML algorithms. This requires focus and prioritization.
My experience with self-study
Why I wanted to learn new things when I already had a job?
I started working as a software engineer right after engineering college. There, I was mostly responsible for writing Perl scripts for data validation. Even though I like coding a lot, I did not enjoy working on plain scripting without knowing what was going on and what the big picture was. I wanted to solve some interesting problems. Thankfully, I came across the term machine learning and found it very interesting. I read one article where people called data science the sexiest job of the 21st century. I thought this could be something I was looking for. This could be a good career option for me. So, I decided to learn this new subject.
How I started it?
I searched for the required skillset to become a data scientist. At that time, only a few resources were available to know how to begin with machine learning. However, whatever blog posts and newsletters I read, they all pointed out that first, I needed to learn a solid mathematical foundation, such as linear algebra, multivariable calculus, probability, and statistics. Then, I should learn machine learning. This required serious upskilling.
I started gathering the required material, such as mathematics and programming books. I surmised I could learn programming, math, and machine learning simultaneously. I was excited in the beginning, as I was learning something new.
In the first few weeks, I followed a schedule that I created. But soon I started skipping some of my subjects. Or, reading what I had already covered in the past. I was doing some activities like looking for other material to learn or skipping ahead in the book to see what else was coming my way. I realized I wasn’t making much progress. And I started wondering why.
My failures
When I look back, one thing is clear I tried to do too many things at once, making it hard to maintain focus and make real progress. I often jumped between different subjects without mastering any one topic. Switched between multiple learning resources rather than following one comprehensive source. I failed to establish a consistent schedule I could stick to. And, I got overwhelmed by different learning formats (videos, books, tutorials) instead of finding what works best for me.
When a person has too many things to do they worry more about the things to do than actually doing them. Without spending quality time on each thing leads to poor results and slow progress.
Another realization was that with so many tasks at hand, there was limited time for rest, which resulted in physical exhaustion.
Other difficulties with self-study
There are other difficulties as well such as you have family obligations to fulfill. You have a full-time job which requires your attention. Sometimes you have to travel. You need to give time to your family. You have to do laundry, groceries and other chores. You need to look over repairs and other household stuff. And after doing all this you become exhausted. You have limited physical and mental energy left to do anything.
My learnings about self-learning
There are a few basic problems:
- I tried to do too many things at once. I have to accept that I can not do all things at once. I have to take things slowly so that I can make steady progress. I should focus on quality rather than quantity.
- Jumping from one learning resource to another without making much progress.
- Lack of habit of studying regularly.
What worked for me?
Once I realized these problems, I addressed them one by one.
- The first problem was studying multiple subjects in parallel. A full time does not allow much free time. I had to prioritize this time for studying, entertainment, family and rest. Given the constraints, I found that I could only focus on one subject per week.
- Next in the line was to fix the problem of hopping from one resource to another. Since I learn best from books. I decided to stick to one book. To make it even more sticky, I decided to set small goals. I read somewhere that setting specific goals can help achieve them. It was the time to test that. I started setting one or two topics for a week time and focused on completing just that. With this strategy, soon I realized that I made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. This step was a particular game-changer for me.
- The next important bit was to build a learning habit. With my experiments with self-study, one thing I can say for sure is that if anyone wants to make steady progress, they have to show up consistently. For this I tried the following golden rule of habit building - Never miss your learning schedule twice in a row. By the way, this came from James Clears in Atomic Habits, not my idea.
By addressing these elements systematically, I transformed my learning journey from scattered efforts to steady progress. The key was not just knowing what to change, but implementing these changes gradually and consistently.
Remember, effective self-learning isn’t about speed - it’s about sustainable progress and genuine understanding. Start small, stay consistent, and adjust your approach as needed. Your learning journey is unique, and finding what works best for your situation is part of the process.
Happy learning!
Get the latest articles on AI delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe here!