how to learn and read from technical books?

It seems that in the IT/CS field, you can never stop studying. People have to pick up a book on the latest digital technologies and add more to their technical knowledge base. The only thing that's keeping me alive through my CCNA book is the packet tracer labs included. For those of you who are students and/or employees in the field, what methods do you guys use to learn from technical books? Stickies? Notes? Speed reading? pure memorization?...

WEll, I don't really know what that book does or how hard it is.

But one advice i can give you, is that you read that book when you really feel like you want to learn, and let NOBODY force you into doing it. If you don't enjoy it , then .. you have to be really bored without nothing to do to actually learn something (and there you see, nobody forces you since you do it out of boredom)

If you learn in a forced way, you'll never have it in your memory for long time.

I enjoy learning math at school , and I remember almost all the stuff i learn there , since i enjoy it , and though it is an obligation , i do it because i enjoy it, and i don't feel forced into it.

Can't say that about spanish.. xD I forget everything i learn after like 1-3 days .. because i don't enjoy it. (and i have a lot of spanish here , since it is the native language here in mexico )

What does it for me is read one day, then make notes the next day, then summarise those notes the next day, reduce to bullet points after another couple of days making note of things that don't seem to stick.

I then find the same subject from another source and read it with a view to seeing if my understanding matches what I'm reading and if not research which one is correct and why.

After all that most things will be firmly jammed in your brain. Thereafter get your hands on any test question type material you can and test yourself.

This system got me through my Cisco CCIE so it works for me.

Oh and stick to a rest regime. Do an hour on and 15 mins off or similar. If you attempt to maintain full focus study all day without rest you will screw your head up.

The way I work through this type of thing is to read it, think about it, read it again, and then practice it. If I don't actually do it I find it isn't as easy for me to remember as it would be if I did do it.

Most IT tecchies are "experiential learners" so they fix knowledge in mind by doing, not by reading. If you find yourself enjoying the practicals/labs more than the reading you a likely an experiential learner so go with it and use practical exercises to learn rather than hammering away at reading.

When I learn a new programming language, I learn best by reading some and then writing a program -- starting with "Hello world".

Another way of learning is to lurk on technical forums like LQ and, when a question interests you, decide what solution you would offer, doing background research as necessary. When a solution is found, you can see how it compares with your solution.

Originally Posted by catkin Another way of learning is to lurk on technical forums like LQ and, when a question interests you, decide what solution you would offer, doing background research as necessary. When a solution is found, you can see how it compares with your solution.

Yes, yes, I second this.

Hi,

It is not just to know a subject very well from either experimentation, learned experience or just theoretical but to understand the subject thoroughly thus allowing you to perform the required tasks to show/present your knowledge not your intelligence. So to just read something on a particular technical subject without verification then you are just reading the material and not necessarily for true understanding.

Two beautiful quotes that are applicable;

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We Know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."- Samuel Johnson

"Theory is when you know all and nothing works. Practice is when all works and nobody knows why. In this case we have put together theory and practice: nothing works... and nobody knows why!" - Albert Einstein

Originally Posted by The Divine Architect It seems that in the IT/CS field, you can never stop studying.

Not just in IT/CS, but in all your life. We stop studying, when our brain dies.

Your topic has to do with habits, and practicing.
Without practicing, any idea is very close to nothing. It might spark some other people, maybe another Albert Einstein, but that's him: what about you? It might spark other ideas, but action is really where things are alive.

Examples of good, and bad habits:
good: to take regular breaks while sitting in front of a computer.
bad: reading in your bed. You're body constantly adjusts, and your mind does too.
One night, you're trying to fall asleep, but you can't because you're body thinks it's reading time.

Not so related, but this habit I see every day for hundreds of times: not stopping at the stop sign.
There's no people near you, no cars, just you driving your car, and the stop sign.
What do you do?
At that moment, some drivers think, that they are choosing whether to stop, or not, but in reality, they are working on their habit.
One day, you will not see that child running, or that guy riding a bicycle and trying to cross the street in front of you. Things like that happen the more often, the deeper in this bad routine drivers are falling into.

So habits/routines can be bad, or good, and people are making this choice consciously or unconsciously every second of their lives.