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Learning is my favorite hobby.

Over the years, I have realized that effective learning (or learning how to learn) is not magic. It is science. As a student from Latin America, I have designed a system that allows me to learn anything I want.

And for free.

This is my step-by-step system.

1. Learning How To Learn A Topic

In other words, meta-learning.

My first reflex when thinking about learning a new topic is to ask:

  • What I want to learn?
  • Why I want to learn that?
  • How I can learn that?

Answering these helps me visualize how knowledge is structured.

Plus, I can determine whether I am really motivated to learn that. For example, I learned programming and machine learning because I would need them in the future as a researcher.

However, learning Japanese only to understand Anime has a big chance of failing (this was a real scenario).

Once you understand your needs and motivations, go to the next step.

2. How To Learn? Finding the Right Resources

This is the most crucial step if you want to learn for free.

Many will pay for a course and watch. I want you to reconsider. We often believe that paying is equal to better quality. This is not necessarily true. There are great free resources available.

These are my favorite platforms to find top-quality and free resources to learn:

Example

Let's say you want to learn machine learning.

For this, you need:

  1. Python.
  2. Math.
  3. Machine Learning.

Then, your next step is to find free resources.

I encourage you to google your topic of interest on Coursera or YouTube (links above). For example, you can type "Math machine learning" on Coursera or "Math machine learning MIT" on YouTube.

Almost all the resources you will find will be free.

Pro tip: read books and articles

Books are one of the best resources to learn.

There are many free and digital books on programming, for example. Personally, I google "topic of interest + free book," and most of the time, I get some recommendations.

Another prop tip is to read Medium articles or blogs from professionals.

This improved my programming skills a lot.

For example, if I wanted to understand how a specific algorithm works, I would read a Medium article explaining it in detail.

The same applies to YouTube videos.

3. Studying

Rereading and highlighting are ineffective.

My favorite method of studying is learning by doing. For example, instead of repeatedly rewatching Python tutorials, why not sit down and code an interesting project?

Another method is retrieval.

Use flashcards. Close your notes and apply free recall. Don't cheat. Do your best when retrieving information. The more you effortlessly retrieve, the better you will learn.

In the end, learning is about linking data to your long-term memory.

Case examples:

  • If learning data analysis, find and analyze an interesting dataset (Kaggle is a good place to start) based on your needs.
  • If learning a new language, practice retrieval to learn vocabulary and verbs faster.

This is how I made learning my superpower.

I hope you found this helpful :)

Ways I can help you:

  • Subscribe to my newsletter The Super Learning Lab.
  • And get my free eBook "Rocket Learning: 7 Hacks To Survive University, Ace Exams, And Learn Anything."
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The Super Learning Lab. Image created by the author with Canva.

Thanks for reading!

See you,

Axel