What can you force yourself to do? Fear often prevents many human actions, but what about in the realm of learning. If you had to learn something in a short span of time, could you? On Monday night, I had a few hours to finish to my second Java project-a screensaver that displays my favorite quotes and then creates new quotes to display by randomly mixing the lines of the text. Surprisingly, I was feeling confident about understanding Java. The project was due that night. I sat in my room, reading my Heads Up Java book and studying the code my roommate had helped me write for the project. I had been feeling at times over the last few weeks that maybe I just couldn't learn how to program in Java. This type of learning is still product-driven, unlike say learning philosophy or psychology. I can still work towards learning how to do small tasks and build upon those successes.
So, I sat there wondering if my life depended on it or if someone said they would give me a million dollars if I got my program to work could I do it? I tried for several hours, but didn't really expand my Java skill set. My roommate came home and helped me finish it. He gets the million dollars. I think it's an interesting experiment to think of in terms of studying how you learn to consider the if-my-life-depended-on-it scenario. I've been depending on the prof's and TA's instruction. It's clear that that's not going to work for me.
