/ag/ - Autodidact General - SORT YOURSELF OUT

Yeah. And needs more by Victor Turner, like The Ritual Process. Just to introduce that kind of thinking. I don't know about Eastern philosophy as a whole though... that seems like a niche that can easily bog somebody down if they're just looking for the basics first.

If you found that unclear that only speaks to your lack of ability to comprehend straightforward emotional responses to your dumb ideas, no googleworthy words in my post

>Abandon academia. Become an autodidact.

I bet you're really fuckin fond of having found both those words. They're like scripture to you now. You can just say "academida" and "autodidact" instead of being a proper human who just says "yeah man learn for yourself" but you need those words in order to feel like you're onto something novel, well you're not, go fuck yourself and stick with something meaningful to yourself

Dickens would go for vigorous walks to revitalize himself. I get what you're saying at the same time though.

Is this a carryover from /fitlit/ ?

Anyway, I might as well share. One thing I did was start keeping a google calander. It helps me visualize my day better than a journal/agenda. A depressing revelation was that I spend 2/3 of each day working and sleeping, but at the same time it makes me want to make the most of the rest of that time. Picked up a lot of things that seemed to have fallen by the wayside after reviewing my goals...I have a bunch of old documents on my computer with my goals in them...It's funny to see what sticks and what doesn't over the years.

I would like to figure out a better method to visualize my day on paper so I'm not sharing my days with google. I already have found a few odd coincidences online since doing it. So if you have any recommendations I'd appreciate it.

>straightforward emotional responses

I don't understand autism sorry.

>I bet you're really fuckin fond of having found both those words.

Yes. I am.

Abandon. Academia. Become. An. Autodidact.

Nah. I was inspired by the frogposter.

I made two charts of all the hobbies I do and the routine responsibilities that I have that I keep posted on my wall. Each chart has categories with blank spaces next to them, enough room for a mini post-it note so I can keep track of what I have to do on a daily basis outside of work. Keeps me from getting distracted too. I've also made checklists from trial and error that help me keep track of what I need to do on a daily basis, since I'm forgetful.

Personally, I use a mini-composition notebook as a tasklist and a journal. I use the back of it as a scratchpad to brainstorm what I have to do for a day, referencing my calendar, charts, and checklists when necessary. I then organize everything by chronological order. Finally, I divide my day into inflexible (time-sensitive) and flexible (time-independent) tasks, so I can get a feel for what I can work on whenever and what has to get done ASAP or what can't be avoided.

Have you considered getting an old-fashioned agenda, planner, or whatever they call it that serves as a portable calendar/notebook?

Well at least you posted a funny image in lieu of substance, amirite?

You're one to talk. At least you're bumping my thread in your fit of autistic rage.

I've been had

>Doing the mere basics
What you listed in the first and second post doesn't look like mere basics to me. "Well-rounded perspective" is useless and people you named didn't have it, they had a real strive for knowledge and big brains and not some pathological hunger for intellectual domination. Lemme tell you something, kid, real deal smartassess go to university and achieve something worthwhile, while "autodidacts" end up running internet blogs and publishing badly written books no one with a brain spends time on.

You are the cancer which makes people fucking carbon copy.

Just fucking find what works for you, I just do extremely unhealthy orgies of work (something around 20 hours) and the rest is slacking.

Also, yeah, skipping the academia after 20th century. Have fun.

And using stoics for self-improvement. That's why I love french enlightenment philosophers cause at least nobody bastardizes them in such ways.

>>AUTODIDACT SOCIAL SKILLS:
>Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler
>No More Mister Nice Guy - Robert Glover
>How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
>How to Speak, How to Listen -- Mortimer J. Adler

any puritan

Why would anybody want to learn about things for themselves? lelelel intelletual domination I've never herad such bullshit in my life

This is good for general studying and being more productivr in general but abandoning academia is bullshit.
You go to uni to get a degree, not to get smart.

Daily reminder that you will never be taken seriously as an intellectual without academic qualifications.

Mission accomplished. Seriously

> made charts and posted them on your wall
> use these concentration apps
> promodoro timer
> "how to read a book"
> tasklists
> journals
> checklists
> organized into chronological order

I'm sure alot of people here are all for expanding themselves, but when you mix in all this neurotic self improvement garbage your message is lost.

>Pre-calc

Is this thread for little babbies?

>Daily reminder to abandon academia
Nah cheers mate I like being employable

I took it to mean graduate studies.

>all these brainlets ITT who don't like to learn things by themselves

Daily reminder to choose your academic affiliation based on library and catalogue access.

If you absolutely need a degree, then get one, but don't pretend that you've learned much except that you're capable of surviving in the Western labor force. I sympathize with everyone who needs to put bread on the table.

That's one way of putting it.

I know right?

My message is fairly simple. Abandon academia and become an autodidact. If you don't have the discipline, then here's the basics of self-care. I don't really see what's "neurotic" about that. If drug use, sleep deprivation, and obesity is your standard of normal, then I want no part of it. Doing all of that is really nothing once you get used to it--you'll wonder how you were ever so lazy in the past.

With regards to self-improvement, I'm only offering suggestions that could be useful. I eat well, exercise, journal, etc., but I don't use "concentration apps", though other people might find it useful. The charts are pretty simple and aesthetic, and they keep my ADHD-PI self focused on one project at a time instead of jumping towards every novelty.

It's harder than whatever garbage textbook you used in high school, and it's a perfect foundation for those wishing to pursue STEM. And I also accompanied it with a survey-level book on proof-based mathematics such as set theory.

Nah let's sacrifice one ideology for another

>You are the cancer which makes people fucking carbon copy.

What the hell does this mean?

>Just fucking find what works for you,

Used to work for me until I realized that I was getting gray hairs way too early. I do a lot more work with less stress now.

>And using stoics for self-improvement. That's why I love french enlightenment philosophers cause at least nobody bastardizes them in such ways.

Notice that I didn't choose Seneca or Meme Aurelius. Epictetus was 100% concerned with the practical applications of stoicism. His profession was improving the lives of other people through the teaching of his philosophy. Prove me wrong.

Don't use earplugs unless you're working in construction or some shit. You'll damage your ears.

What is a good job for an autodidact? Like - what doesn't require college but will still be technically or intellectually stimulating?

Starbucks.

A trade. Tech job w/ certification. Entrepreneurship.

This. A trade degree is much quicker and will generally cost less than 2k or so.

whaaat? don't use earbuds too i take it?

>Also, yeah, skipping the academia after 20th century. Have fun.

what is he saying here?

an artist, of course!

any job, just suck someone's dick, like everyobody does

>how to get shunned by society

So like a carpenter or welder?

stop reading

This is terrible advice.

I didn't abandon academia. They made it clear that there was no desire for my services anymore.

Since then, I try to teach myself what I can. But it all feels rather pointless.

Thanks op.

>so... what makes you feel qualified to work at KFC?
>MUH WILL TO POWER I OWN MORE BOOKS THAN CLOTHES
>thanks, but I think Tyrone's resume looked a bit better. Thank you for your time.

>teach self medicine
>can't find a job as a surgeon because nobody believes me

wow good thread op

not

...

>But it all feels rather pointless.
iktf

Why would you abandon academia and become an autodidact? In academia there is a lot of writing done which is then read by your peers. Writing is hardly done as an autodidact because there are no academic peers to read, let alone an opportunity to publish what you wrote in an academic journal. In academia you can hold conversation with people of similar interest, with autodidactism you mostly have the internet which is trash.

Autodidactism is only attractive if you do not have the money of academia, or if somehow they kicked you out of academia. Other than that I see no reason why reading alone at home is so special.

>In academia there is a lot of writing done which is then read by your peers

Online communities and "tutoring companies" can replace this. If you think about it, the modern academic system is woefully backwards in the technological age.

>Writing is hardly done as an autodidact because there are no academic peers to read, let alone an opportunity to publish what you wrote in an academic journal.

Plenty of people who had things worth publishing were able to get published without graduate degrees, as long as they knew what they were doing and were able to make notable contributions. See Saul Kripke.

>In academia you can hold conversation with people of similar interest, with autodidactism you mostly have the internet which is trash.

Depends on the communities that you encounter. The problem with academia is that it is often also trash on any topic that would lend political controversy, either regarding the status of the field (overturning paradigms) or with regards to national politics. The lack of ideological diversity is starting to hamper the intellectual conversation because the institutions of academia serve as gatekeepers to discourse rather than facilitators of discourse.

I once took a course on Martin Heidegger at a fantastic school (think HYPSM), and my lecturer was forced to spend half a lecture on assuaging the fears that students would turn into Nazis if they read Heidegger. That's the mindset that experienced philosophy students have when they leave undergraduate studies--if I don't agree with one conclusion, I won't even investigate the question.

>Autodidactism is only attractive if you do not have the money of academia, or if somehow they kicked you out of academia. Other than that I see no reason why reading alone at home is so special.

Academia is only useful for getting certifications, employment, and training. STEM is still alright. But I think academia suppresses independent thinking rather than encourages it, especially the more controversial of a topic that you explore.

Spoiled middle/upper class brat detected. Who the fuck asks you for a resume at a fast food joint? All you need is proof of citizenship, some degree of punctuality, and the ability to learn a few simple tasks and they'll let you onboard.

Medical school is basically an academic trade for the scientifically inclined. I have nothing against academia for the purposes of employment. I only take issue with the idea that academia teaches you knowledge for the sake of knowledge. You're better off undergoing your own independent investigations.

Well it pretty much started with the Greeks who first postulated that a man must first order his meals, then his sleep before he can develop a calm mind. You dumbfuck.

>StayFocused app,
anyone used this? what does it do?

If you've ever been involved with academia for any significant amount of time you'd know what a sham it is. I went to university, but I've become full hikki now due to not wanting to put up with all the bullshit. It's all a big show by people who are too afraid to confront reality head on, which is why they make up an endless amount of inconveniences to distract themselves and involve others in it, not even to mention all the bullshit influence that is present in academia due to the almighty market controlling things.

>t. never been involved in academia

I've wasted countless hours on useless projects with bad methodology that only served to make somebody happy. It's all about publishing and getting funds, genuine research is not the priority.

>finish college
>have been fully focused on becoming autodidact for around 8 months now
>parents keep telling me to get a job and are getting worried

What's a good job for an autodidact? I've considered entrepreneur, farmer, or teaching myself code and becoming a web developer.

The last project I was involved with (and the last straw for me) was one that was funded by our local education department. We were supposed to test how young children respond to certain exercises and images and then evaluate what the most efficient way was to teach them. Thing is, these exercises and images were of course developed and provided by the education department (who funded the research in the first place).

When we did the tests the responses of the children were varied. We were to mark them down on a range from positive to negative. Presented with the exercises and images there were some that were clueless, some that described what was seen on the images and some that took what was seen in the images and started asking questions, were critical or formulated their own thoughts. Now guess what, the only reaction that was marked down as positive was the one where the children described what they saw on the picture, because that was viewed as most receptive, when arguably the latter reaction is the one that was most engaging and in my opinion is more likely do reward independent thought. But that wasn't what the education department would like to hear, because it would mean they would have to adjust their program, so it was actually noted down as a negative reaction (and the exercises and images that were provocative subsequently marked as ineffectual). I went up to the professor who handed us down the assignment and he waved away all of my concerns and told me that this is just part of normal university life, some things you have to suck up and I'm not to alter the evaluation or results in any way that make the department unhappy. That was when I ultimately decided that university has nothing to offer me anymore besides a library and access to educational resources.

The latter.
Learn combinatorics/discrete maths. Learn theoretical computer science.
Learn a base language (eg C).

after working in education industry for a while i can tell u one thing, education doctorates aren't worth the paper they are printed on, well maybe if it's that paper with little bits of cloth fiber mixed in to give it a nice texture, but really, those things are garbage, anyone can get one, and most people that have them don't even pay for them, they find a way to put the tax payer on the hook for it, i have nothing but total disdain

theoretical computer science is not that useful for professional developers who actually write code for a living

Algorithms are fundamental for programming.

actually data structures are more important, but again, you just need a working knowledge of the common shit, reading papers on obscure optimizations to natural language processing algos is not useful

Optimization is a high priority to any serious development. Any monkey can use data structures.

>Optimization is a high priority to any serious development. Any monkey can use data structures.

i hope you're trolling because you're actually saying the exact opposite of what is true lol i thought all u wannabe developers on reddit all had a text file of knuth quotes like "premature optimization is the root of all evil" and "u don't need to show me your algorithms because if i see your data structures the algorithms will be obvious" etc.

stop larping u non-techie

t boilerplate monkey

>thinks people in university are afraid to confront reality
>becomes a hikki to avoid them
You, my friend, are disconnected from reality, have illusions of grandeur and probably a salty person to be around. Go back to /r9k/.

No thank you, I have a girlfriend, friends, eat healthy, do sports and an active interest in different fields and hobbies. It's the best decision I ever made. Enjoy the spectacle and putting up with all the bullshit, I cut that out of my life.