While I am very grateful and privileged to have had the education I did growing up, occasionally I’ll learn something new in my adult life that I wish I would’ve been taught back in my formative years in school. Credit scores, applying for a job, filing your taxes, renting an apartment, essentially basic life skills that are important as you’re entering your young adult life. It would’ve been helpful to have been introduced or even just acquainted with these topics before entering college, so I wouldn’t be completely unfamiliar when the moment arrived. Now, I am by no means saying the education I received was inadequate or bad, it just didn’t fully prepare us for certain aspects of growing up. I figured they obviously couldn’t teach us everything in school to succeed, but I do have a solid memory of having to ask my parents for help opening my first bank account and remember thinking this kind of thing would’ve been very useful to learn in school.
One of the most useful things I learned after high school was something I’d never even contemplated before, a professor explained “everyone has a different style of learning”. I’d somewhat heard of this before, but funnily enough only in a martial arts context. My instructor would say that some people learn by watching, others learn by feel. Therefore, she would determine which type each student was and teach a skill by either demonstrating next to you or demonstrating the technique on you. I never really considered that there were different types of learning in an academic setting as well, but it makes total sense. Some people learn by reading, some by lecture and taking notes, some thrive by themselves, others in a group setting, etc. Everyone learns differently, and my professor suggested you find the one that works best for you and utilize it to the most of your ability. I previously assumed everyone was better at grasping certain material than I was; if we’d be assigned a chapter to read and take notes on, I’d come to class the next day with the completed assignment in hand but not in my mind. My brain wanders too much if I have to just sit and read, and I just thought this was something I needed to fix instead of finding a way to work with it. It was refreshing and impactful to find out that I just learn in a different way!
I was able to succeed in class so much easier in finding out the specific way I absorb material the best and letting go of the idea that there’s only one way to learn. This was a game changer not only in college but into my adult life as well! Next time you are frustrated with something, try approaching it from a different perspective or strategy. There’s often never only one way to get something done, with countless ways to think and learn from it.
