How To Enjoying A Boring Subject

    • Harvard Business Review
    • Publish Date: Jul 9 2017 5:16PM
    • |
    • Updated Date: Jul 9 2017 5:16PM
How To Enjoying A Boring Subject

Barbara Oakley teaches engineering at McMaster University, Canada, but there was a time when she hated math.She gave it up after high school.“Math not only didn't make sense but was also worthless and painfully frustrating."

How did she come back to it?

A decade later, while serving at the lowest enlisted rank in the army , she realised she would need it to achieve her civilian life goals.“That's how, at age 26, I found myself restudying remedial high school mathematics in an implausible attempt to become an engineer.“

Here's her four-step guide to get excited about topics that bore you: First, identify a reason to learn. “One of the best motivators is wishing to make an improvement in your life.“

In her case, it was the wish to be something more than an ordinary soldier.

Study the subject in short sessions, with frequent rewards. For example, study for 25 minutes and spend the next five minutes making coffee. It's called the Pomodoro technique, and it helps overcome the physical discomfort of studying a boring subject.

Third, be aware that just because you don't understand something the first time, you are not stupid. It is normal not to understand.

And last, let your brain amass chunks of learning with practice and sleep. “The bigger your collection of neural chunks related to solving different problems, the greater your expertise. And the greater your expertise, the more you will like what you're learning."

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Comments

Hemalatha.G Sethu Bhaskara Matriculation Higher Secondary Scho

Really wonderful tips! This will be useful for each and every student.

Aditi Jadia GOKULDHAM HIGH SCHOOL-GOREGAON(E)

Students will definitely like this article.Hats off.!Let this reach to each and every student.

Himanshi Dhawan Saffron Public School

Thanks a lot for these tips! I find Political Science quite boring but I feel that using the Pomodora technique will help me.

Lubhna Dongre Centre Point School

Thanks, the tips are surely helpful. One thing that helped me overcome my problem of studying Psychology which i found very boring was that I started to equate it with everyday life, also by studying it through a story method, making it much easier and interesting. I finally like the subject now. The thing that makes a subject much easier to study is the reason as to why we are doing it.

CHHAVI RANA RUKMINI DEVI PUB. SCHOOL(PITAMPURA)

GREAT...

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