How can I develop a genuine interest in a subject for effective studying?

[Jee763]

How can I make progress in studies?
What happens to me is that if my friend gets very good marks then I work very hard to achieve marks but problem is that i can't stay consistent,like today i have given test and i called my friend to know his scores and he told me that he has got scores comparable to me and after listening to this i got tension free but after sometime he told me that he has got very good marks and then fire of doing something ignited inside me but i know this fire is not going to stay for too long.
I am doing this thing from past 1 year and i want to get out of this cycle and want to progress on my own without any external motivation,
In nutshell I want to know "how to stay consistent?".
It was very hard for me to accept that I am jealous of my freind.

 

[jedishrfu]

You must have realized by now that competing with a friend can be good and bad at the same time. Of course, the competition makes you want to study harder but the desire to win makes you nervous and sick.

On the flip side, you're giving your friend the chance to mess with your emotional state by not being honest with their answer. They could say the problem was a piece of cake and took two minutes to solve where it took you an hour and now you feel stupid. They might say they couldn't solve it and you relax and discover later that they did and got extra credit for it.

I had a friend in high-school who was competing with me. He'd compare geometry test grades. He got an 88 I got an 89. Next test he'd study harder getting a 93 and then saw I got a 94. He got so frustrated but never gave up and I got tired of sharing my test grade with him.

I had another friend who did well in social studies by taking voluminous notes. I was a poor notetaker but learned to listen in class and to read the book. This worked better in math than it did in social studies where the teacher would add in stuff missing from the book.

My friend did poorly in math. He tried to write down every step the math teacher said or wrote on the board. Often the teacher would erase a portion of a problem creating havoc in my friend's notebook. He was so determined to write down everything that he didn't catch the logical flow well and couldn't recreate it on the test.

I never approached my studies that way. I listened mostly and I tended not to discuss problems with other students unless they were truly confusing me.

In one instance after a test, my friend wanted to know the answer I got and he told me he had gotten x and y equations as the result. I had to break it to him that it was a 3 dimension problem and his heart sank. I think it involved cylindrical coordinates and he had forgotten about the z-axis in his solution. Oops.

You should study more like a musician where you listen to your music and try to improve your technique. Basically, you compete with yourself and try not to be too hard on yourself for failing. This is how great musician advance their art as there is no one else to compete with and other musicians have their own inimitable style that works for them.

As an example, your teacher might assign a few problems at the end of a chapter. Why not do other problems before or after them to get a deeper understanding and remember you can talk about your difficulties with your teacher or other students. Your teacher will like it because you are going that extra mile as a self-starter.

The reality of education is that you must learn to teach yourself. You must learn to check your work in different ways to find where you might have gone astray.

For many problems, there is one optimal way to solve it and many suboptimal ways to get it wrong. The probability of wrong reduces as you do more problems and get better at solving them.

 

[Jee763]

You must have realized by now that competing with a friend can be good and bad at the same time. Of course, the competition makes you want to study harder but the desire to win makes you nervous and sick.

On the flip side, you're giving your friend the chance to mess with your emotional state by not being honest with their answer. They could say the problem was a piece of cake and took two minutes to solve where it took you an hour and now you feel stupid. They might say they couldn't solve it and you relax and discover later that they did and got extra credit for it.

I had a friend in high-school who was competing with me. He'd compare geometry test grades. He got an 88 I got an 89. Next test he'd study harder getting a 93 and then saw I got a 94. He got so frustrated but never gave up and I got tired of sharing my test grade with him.

I had another friend who did well in social studies by taking voluminous notes. I was a poor notetaker but learned to listen in class and to read the book. This worked better in math than it did in social studies where the teacher would add in stuff missing from the book.

My friend did poorly in math. He tried to write down every step the math teacher said or wrote on the board. Often the teacher would erase a portion of a problem creating havoc in my friend's notebook. He was so determined to write down everything that he didn't catch the logical flow well and couldn't recreate it on the test.

I never approached my studies that way. I listened mostly and I tended not to discuss problems with other students unless they were truly confusing me.

In one instance after a test, my friend wanted to know the answer I got and he told me he had gotten x and y equations as the result. I had to break it to him that it was a 3 dimension problem and his heart sank. I think it involved cylindrical coordinates and he had forgotten about the z-axis in his solution. Oops.

You should study more like a musician where you listen to your music and try to improve your technique. Basically, you compete with yourself and try not to be too hard on yourself for failing. This is how great musician advance their art as there is no one else to compete with and other musicians have their own inimitable style that works for them.

As an example, your teacher might assign a few problems at the end of a chapter. Why not do other problems before or after them to get a deeper understanding and remember you can talk about your difficulties with your teacher or other students. Your teacher will like it because you are going that extra mile as a self-starter.

The reality of education is that you must learn to teach yourself. You must learn to check your work in different ways to find where you might have gone astray.

For many problems, there is one optimal way to solve it and many suboptimal ways to get it wrong. The probability of wrong reduces as you do more problems and get better at solving them.

Thanks for writing this long post for me,even I would have not written this long post for myself.
It feels to me that I can do very well and even get 1st rank in my class but it feels to me that I am lacking zeal,my classmates just die when only one doubt of theirs is left and here is me who sometimes is not able to complete assignments.
Now few minutes ago my same friend called me and was asking if answer key of test is uploaded or not and i think if i would have got marks like him then i would not have cared about the remaining questions!
Now I really wants to beat him like this

I want to build zeal like them in myself,can you please give me some tips to gain that zeal.

 

[jedishrfu]

The best scholars simply don't think this way, it can lead to impatience, anger, and violence. The best scholars study because they have a love of learning and want to discover new things. Zeal can blind you to the truth.

Use the measuring stick of teaching, ask yourself can I teach this newly learned knowledge to someone then walk through the steps, write them down, or use a blackboard and go through the steps, anticipate questions and answer them.

As an end note, the image you chose is disturbing in and of itself. One opponent is attacking another on the ground whose only defense is to raise his hands while being struck repeatedly. This is not zeal it is rage.

 

[Mondayman]

Let go of the competitive side. The only person you should be competing with is yourself. You'll enjoy studying much more. Comparing yourself with others is a poor habit, one that will inevitably lead to disappointment, as you'll surely find plenty of people who seemingly have much more talent than you. This is inevitable when you get to university or go into graduate studies.

I always say, being wrong is part of the learning process. They are lessons you learn and improve from. If you don't score as well as your friend, so be it. Doesn't matter at all. Just look at what you did right and did wrong, and try to improve from that. You don't have to be the best.

 

[symbolipoint]

I always say, being wrong is part of the learning process. They are lessons you learn and improve from. If you don't score as well as your friend, so be it. Doesn't matter at all. Just look at what you did right and did wrong, and try to improve from that. You don't have to be the best.

I believe you there. So what do you tell people who do and expect to score 97%, 98%, 99%, 100%, ALL THE TIME? Was that/them/those part of the learning process?

 

[jedishrfu]

They made their wrongs before they got to the quiz or test and they checked their homework thoroughly. Perhaps even learning from the mistakes of siblings too.

I knew a student who was that good in high school. He seldom talked to people and when he did it was very short no idle talk. His grades were literally 100%. He was also excellent in athletics most notably Basketball and Track. He went on to do Biomedical Research, and later retired to teach high school Chemistry.

The most interesting thing was how he would point out mistakes to his teachers by asking simple key questions. Our Latin teacher told us how he came up after class to ask about a translation and after a few questions the teacher realized he'd made a mistake. It was more like mutual respect between teacher and student as he never bragged about it or made a fuss in class. He was very matter of fact and very focused to do the best that he could without wavering from the path.

I also remember others saying his older brother was very good too with grades of 97, 98, 99, and 100 who was very gregarious, a three-sport powerhouse who went on the become a distinguished University Prof in Biology.

 

[symbolipoint]

jedishrfu,
You said the very principle that I hid from my opinion: "They made their wrongs before they got to the quiz or test and they checked their homework thoroughly. "

 

[Jee763]

I think I was doing something wrong,
From last month I was just studying for getting marks and was not putting much work in studies(I was using different shortcuts),I was just reading articles like "how to overcome procrastination".
It feels to me that I am not enjoying studying too much,it feels burden.
From now I will try to go along with class and will try to complete assignments daily so that I understand material and start having interest.
Thanks to all.

 

[Mondayman]

I believe you there. So what do you tell people who do and expect to score 97%, 98%, 99%, 100%, ALL THE TIME? Was that/them/those part of the learning process?

I would say that life is much simpler and more enjoyable when you aren't chasing accolades or comparing yourself to others. But that's something that usually comes with time and maturity.

Not all competitiveness is bad, but I think it is very unhealthy in academics. Some people I know seem to get very depressed because they aren't the all-star students that their heroes were. Or in the case of the OP, they don't outdo their classmates. Its counter-productive.

To me, it's kinda like running a race, and you turn and look to see how your competitors are doing. That's going to slow you up drastically. Best to just focus on your own lane and do the best you can.

 

[Lnewqban]

I think I was doing something wrong,
From last month I was just studying for getting marks and was not putting much work in studies(I was using different shortcuts),I was just reading articles like "how to overcome procrastination".
It feels to me that I am not enjoying studying too much,it feels burden.
From now I will try to go along with class and will try to complete assignments daily so that I understand material and start having interest.
Thanks to all.

Later on in life, the grades you and your classmates get today will not matter at all.
No employer ever asked or cared about my academic grades.
I kept jobs because I had developed the capability to study and learn and apply new knowledge to new practical problems that the employer did not know how to solve.
What I had actually learned at school was the solid base I used, but ahead of me I had a new challenge that required not only accumulated knowledge but creative thinking, which has always been incompatible with fear, anger or any other negative state of mind.

You either know or master a subject, technique or principle or you don't.
Understanding those is the key to be productive and creative.
Learn to learn, on your own terms and time, knowing and embracing your limitations.
Learn much about yourself, what do you really want and can do, what motivates and scares you, what kind of human being you want to be.

In order to deeply and firmly understand things, your mind must be calmed and free from any type of fear.
You may have been conditioned to live in fear of not being competitive or adequate or complying enough.
That path is wrong, it induces violence, anxiety and resentment and will never lead you to full understanding of the things you want or need to learn to live a hapy productive and creative life.

Slow down, everything is going to be alright.

 

[symbolipoint]

Lnewqban, you said so much wonderful information; but this one part here is the only part which is wrong:

Slow down, everything is going to be alright.

Not everyone will be creative.

 

[Jee763]

I am calm now and i am trying to be better and i may need help of wise people which I think I will get here.
how can i generate interest in subject?i want to know it because i procrastinate and i think i procrastinate because i am not having interest.
How should i approach study so that i find it interesting like reading jokes,surfing youtube,watching movies e.t.c.
Thanks.
I hope that no one gets irritated by me and if I am irritating then sorry.

 

[jedishrfu]

There are a few ways to gain interest:
- learn it to teach to someone else
- try writing it down as succinctly as you can (like a cheatsheet 2 pg format)
- do the problems with the goal of making clear understandable, teachable presentations
- try to figure out how to use it in your life
- try to answer why someone even developed this subject, there has to be a reason beyond boring students

This is a lot like exercise: No pain, no gain where the pain here is the boredom of learning it.

You could talk with your prof about it too. You ask them how they got interested in this subject that they are now teaching. Their answer may surprise you.

You still need to divest yourself of competing with your friend.

There was a study done in the US on SAT scores where student anxiety played a role in their test scores:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/etc/gap.html

Recent studies have shown that later in life, when those students who make it to college and post-graduate studies are faced with standardized tests such as the SAT and the GRE, new factors come into play which might contribute to the gap. Stanford psychology professor Claude Steele and his colleagues have described what they call "stereotype threat." According to their research, a student who feels he is part of a group that has been negatively stereotyped is likely to perform less well in a situation in which he thinks that people might evaluate him through that stereotype than in a situation in which he feels no such pressure.

Steele has conducted experiments in which he brings in black students and white students to take a standardized test. The first time, he tells the students that they will be taking a test to measure their verbal and reasoning ability. The second time, he tells them the test is an unimportant research tool. Steele has found that the black students do less well when they are told that the test measures their abilities. He also believes that the effects of stereotype threat are strongest for students who are high-achievers and care very much about doing well. They care so much about doing well, Steele says, that they feel that if they don't they will be confirming the negative stereotypes associated with black students. (Read FRONTLINE's interview with Claude Steele and, Steele's article in The Atlantic.)

In another experiment, Steele brought in white and Asian men who were strong in math. He told them the math test they were about to take was one in which Asians do slightly better than whites. The white men performed less well when they were told this, than when they were not. Another experiment showed that stereotype threat also brought down the performance of strong female math students.

 

[symbolipoint]

The parts which I am emphasising from this post quoted here are in bold type.

I am calm now and i am trying to be better and i may need help of wise people which I think I will get here.
how can i generate interest in subject?i want to know it because i procrastinate and i think i procrastinate because i am not having interest.
How should i approach study so that i find it interesting like reading jokes,surfing youtube,watching movies e.t.c.
Thanks.
I hope that no one gets irritated by me and if I am irritating then sorry.

You do not. You are either interested in a subject or you are not; or you are interested to some extent only. If a subject to be learned or skills in it are your goals then a prerequisite subject to it must be studied or acquired or learned - without any regard to your interest in that prerequisite material.(EDIT: minor adjustment made, shown italicized)