Just give up

Last semester, I was taking some difficult & verbose courses - linear algebra, computer organization, discrete maths. I refused to move on until I absolutely understood everything mentioned in the lecture. The result? I was stuck on chapter 2 for linear algebra until the finals, and ended up with a 2.6/5 GPA that semester. Funny story - I went to the exam and wrote only C for all my MCQs, left my written portion empty, and walked out an hour early with a B grade somehow. God knows why I didn’t fail.

My thought process was - Surely I’m missing something. I’m probably just one reading away, maybe if I rewatch this lecture I’ll get it for sure… it’ll click any time now, right? Well, sometimes it never does.

While there is some honour in being persistent, and I probably have some masochistic tendencies, unfortunately I found out the hard way that learning is not really a linear process. To be an effective learner, you can’t just lock-in, you must give yourself a time box to figure something out, and if you can’t - move on to something else - be it the next chapter, another course, or just take a nap. There may be something mentioned in future readings that will unblock you.

During finals week, this video titled Stop Trying To Understand came across my YouTube feed. It resonated with me so deeply and I wished I chanced across it earlier. Give it a watch.

Next semester I’m going to give up more.