FEATURED POST: How Failing a Class Made Me Learn More

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It was the end of December.

After struggling to find the motivation to complete monotonous robotic coursework in Comp Sci 153, the Data Structures class, it was time for the teachers to release the grades.

I had a ‘C-’ going into the final and felt great about what I’d done on the final. In fact, I’d used Data Structures the previous summer on my two internship projects (both of which Far Exceeded Expectations) and had helped the majority of the class finish our assignments.

Time for the moment of truth. I press reload on the online gradebook and it shows:
Statistics for Engineers A
Circuits II B
Circuits II Lab A
Physics II B
Data Structures F

That ‘F’ in Data Structures changed my life.


The fun and value of school plummeted for me.

Traditional education didn’t care about my internships. Traditional education didn’t care about me being able to make application in the real world.

Traditional education only cared about producing expected answers in predetermined situations; a recipe for job insecurity if you ever heard one.

From that moment on, the value of non-traditional education (or learning for application) became evident. I learned 3 truths that led to:

• new income sources,
• greater productivity,
• and accelerated learning

Read on to learn 3 non-traditional education truths that will help you perpetually.

Truth #1: Applying What You Learn Is Fun

Remember the feeling you had when you first learned how to ride a bike? Your first pedal is a little shaky but each one after propels you faster and faster with increasing stability. You finally get the hang of it and deep down inside (or maybe not that deep,) you’re proud of yourself. You can’t help but smile. You’re elated!

That elation was learning at its finest and it doesn’t have to end with childhood.

The joy of applying what you learn can help you in your professional and personal life. It’s definitely aided in mine.

In the professional realm, 5 out of the 5 internships I’ve had (3 with Boeing, 2 with Scottrade) forced me to do something I, nor anyone else at the company, had done before.

One summer I was asked to create a “Geospatial Manipulation Tool” in C#, a computer language I’d never heard of, let alone programmed in. My boss gave me a document explaining what the team wanted and told me to “Have fun.”

For a good 2 months, I learned about Mercator projections, C# syntax and file formats for satellite imagery. I went from knowing nearly nothing about mapmaking to using a 500 year old formula to translate latitudes and longitudes to an x-y coordinate plane.

Each day I made it a little farther than the previous day. Each day I made a new demo, showing off what I’d learned. Those demos turned meticulous work into a daily adventure.

Come to think of it, I ended up working on that project alone. Neither my boss nor the rest of the work group looked over my shoulder to give me some “extra motivation.” I was “self-motivated”, which brings us to truth #2.

Truth #2: You Are Your Best (and Only) Motivator

Here’s a little known secret: the best way to get someone to do something you want them to do is to make them want to do it. The secret even applies to you.

A coach, teacher, parent, friend, or mentor can push you further than you think you can go. However, you’re the only one who will push you where you want to go.
Remember that class you hated growing up? The teacher was mean and had terrible breath.
Fact*: All bad teachers have bad breath.

Unless there was something in it for you, there was no way you were going to try your best in that class.

On the contrary, the class you loved was a subject you enjoyed. The teacher was amiable although a tad odd. You left every lecture ready to attack the assignment because you wanted to. You motivated yourself to learn.

The same applies in the realm of non-traditional education. Self-guided education, whether taken online, through a book, or even through an app, depends on you to motivate yourself. When you’re able to will yourself to consistently take action towards your betterment your life can’t help but improve. You’ll end up getting more things done than ever before.

For example, I’m not a trained mixing engineer but I love music. For the past 5 years I’ve read numerous books, watched countless videos, and mixed (or attempted to mix) over a hundred songs. Sometimes I think to myself, I should take a class through some university. Then I speak with people who have taken classes. Not only do they complain about their assignments and teachers, they’ve paid to learn less than I’ve learned on my own, and their music doesn’t sound as good.

In other words, becoming a slave to the curriculum prevented them from advancing, which brings us to truth #3.

Truth #3: You Can Advance as Quickly as You Want

Sometime long ago, probably around the time of the Industrial Revolution, compulsory education was put into place. The powers that be decided your age determines your capacity for learning. Children were to be corralled into “grades” and you could only learn the content of a specific grade level in one year.

It didn’t make sense to limit your ability to learn back then and it doesn’t make sense now.

With non-traditional education, you can gain the depth and breadth of knowledge you want, without artificial limitations.

I wanted to learn how to make websites. Within a few Google searches, I found myself at codecademy.com. Codecademy is filled with lessons (and exercises) on HTML, CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, pretty much everything I need to know to make websites and it’s all free.

I went from knowing how to make things look alright in Microsoft Word to getting paid to develop websites for people.
In summary, learn things you’re going to use. You’ll be more motivated and more happy.

This was a guest post by Mike Wyatt II. In addition to being a music lover/creator, Mike blogs about music (sometimes his own), NBA basketball, and occasionally politics/technology at entelleckt.com. You can find his random thoughts via twitter by following @entelleckt.