As I mentioned a short while ago, I’m in the process of learning about EMC storage. To that end, I managed to get my hands on a copy of Information Storage and Management: Storing, Managing, and Protecting Digital Information (Wiley, 2009; available on Amazon). While general in nature, the book has a fair number of EMC-specific product examples.
The book, though, isn’t the focus of this post. As I’ve started reading this book and trying to expand or solidify my knowledge of the concepts found in it, I’ve come to a disappointing realization: I’m a bad student.
Yes, that’s right. I’m a bad student. Over the past few years, my studying skills have really deteriorated. In the past, the constant flow of certification tests kept my studying skills reasonably sharp. And while we can all debate the value of IT certifications, I think we can also agree that they do, at least, help sharpen the study skills.
Normally, I wouldn’t be too terribly worried about this, but I have to ask myself: is this a symptom of something more? Is my ability to learn, assimilate, process, and relate new information also deteriorating? I pride myself on being a smart guy that can pick up just any new technology—is that still accurate? What can I do to reverse these trends, if indeed they are occurring?
So I need to ask your help. What studying techniques do you guys (and gals!) find useful? If you were in my situation—specifically, let’s say you need to acquaint yourself with an entirely new set of products from a new vendor—what techniques would you use in the process? Additionally, what techniques are readers using now to help with certification exams? I have at least two very important certification exams looming on the horizon (one much closer than the other, but both very close), so any tips readers can provide are welcome. Help me become a better student!
Tags: Personal, Storage, Virtualization
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I really think that, like anything else, you do better with practice. I’m out of practice too, and I know I’d do miserably trying to study for that.
I recently had to commit something to memory by rote, and I hadn’t done it in years. It took three times as long, just because I was out of practice. I don’t think our brains slow down nearly as much as they say, but it does get harder to get back into the habit the longer we go.
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The best way to study for an exam from experience is basically following the exam bluebrint or the Objectives the exam will cover.
Some of the objectives will require a little reading from recommended books or articles from peers or vendor.
Some of the objectives will require as matt mentioned practice.
Actual installation or practicals around the technology will help you align or prep you well for you exam.
Little notes on the exam objectives helps in identifying what you really need to understand around them.
For My last VCP 3 exam i used the same concept and I must credit my 100% to that.
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Scott: I relate exactly to the issue you are describing. For me, here are two ways that I deal with this situation:
-Change up: If it is a book, I turn off my monitor screen on my computer (or lock my laptop’s console). Keep my eyes off the computer, Internet, email, instant messenger, Tweetdeck – you name it. It will be there when I get back.
-A little bit of “Everyday Fung Shui”: Reverse perspective. In my workspace, my desk has the computer, phone, and pile of papers that is my current work queue. When I need to focus, I simply turn around to the surface behind me that is littered with Diet Mountain Dew, and read there (again – away from the computer).
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Smiles. It’s symptom of something much darker, Scott… Old age!
No, seriously I’m with you. I’m 40 next year and sometimes I feel utterly over-whelmed with the volume of information that is out there. I have my good student days and my bad student days. Sometimes I feel like I’m genius who knows everything (delusions of grandeur) and other days I feel like I know absolutely nothing (delusions of being a fraud, the emperor with no clothes). The reality is probably somewhere between these two extremes I feel.
But anyway I digress. When I was flying to Slovenia this week – I decided to take with me that LULU book on Cisco UCS. There’s a chance I might have that kit in RTFM Labs by the new year. So I thought I better bone up on the darn thing before it arrives. It was a tough read – partly because it begins with a Sesame Street overview of the history of hardware – but partly because it goes quite technical. When ever something goes really technical on me, I always ask myself – is there any value in this? Can I pass this level of details on to a customer/reader/student in away that is easy and above useful. If the answer is no, then I go “oh, that’s interesting – NEXT!”.
I think at the end of the day these books that we read (and you and I write) are only useful as reference guides. The writers probably never intended you to fully comprehend everything they have to say – or even retain it for instance recall.
Sometimes the way I value a book – is by reading it very quickly once – what sticks in the mind, is what is valuable – what I instantly forget is either not important or something I can look up at a latter stage. After reading the book once very quickly, I will read it again (usually with highlighter pen) a little bit slowly (guess what I’m doing on my return flight to the UK!). My other thing is to write a couple words of my own at the top of the page every 10-20 pages – this means if I look it at a 3rd time – I can quickly find what I’m looking for.
Finally, if the subject is really important to me – I will start making notes – that’s I got started writing the RTFM guides, converting the VMware course guides/PDFs into much shorter “revision” guides. The reality is if you manage to read any technical book cover-to-cover that’s an achievement, because you will probably never have the will to read it more than once…
Yours drifting into early onset alzheimer’s
Mike….
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My study approach is to read the study book/guide and make notes in my own words as I go. I find that by writing stuff down, the information tends to stick in my head. I typically do this away from my computer in another room to avoid any distractions. If I need to look something up online, I will go to the computer, look up that one thing and then leave the computer alone.
For tricky subjects I will then try and explain it aloud (ideally on a whiteboard) as if I was explaining it to someone else. It can feel a bit silly doing this in an empty room at first, but if you can explain it, it means you understand it.
As for learning new material, I usually take three iterations to get to a lever of “full” understanding. For example, when I was learning about Solaris Zones, I first read a bit of an overview on what it did and how it worked, then sat down at the server with some how-to documents. The first attempt was simply following the notes and seeing what would happen. I would also make my own notes as I went. The second attempt was to do it again using my notes. I now had an idea of what to expect so this was the “debugging the notes” attempt and seeing what I missed. By the third attempt, my notes should be usable and in a condition where I can share it with others.
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One other thing I just thought of:
Try and use multiple sources of information. For my recent Cisco CCNA recert, I used two books. If one book was a bit unclear on a particular subject, the other book filled in the gaps. Cross referencing between them helps a lot.
When I upgrade to the VCP4, I’ll be looking to use the material from the VMware “What’s new” course and some book called “Mastering vSphere”…
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I agree the longer away from taditional learning the harder it is to use that method. I don’t know how well this applies to prepping for exams, but when you are in the trenches I find it is sometimes better to just have at it. Sometimes you need to know the why before you can figure out the how, but I’ve found with new technologies knowing the how often clicks on the lightbulb making the why make a lot more sense all of a sudden. I like to try to A) get my hands on the technology and B) find walkthroughs for accomplishing various tasks. After completing the walkthrough I can go back to the theory reading and it now has something concrete linked to it in my head.
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Lots of good replies here which I can relate to. For me, certification is a personal goal and not one required by my employer. Like yourself, I use it as a tool to help me stay sharp. To some degree, it’s the only formal benchmark that exists to measure knowledge and gauge my own knowloedge and progress with the knowledge and progress of others.
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I’m the eternal note scribbler. If I just try to read anything technical, then it I find myself drifting off into other (less boring) worlds very quickly. The only way I can keep my focus is to make myself concise notes of the important points on each page. The things I never knew before, or things that might be handy to remember in the future, or the things so abstract that learning them verbatim is the only option. Then when I’m finished, I take those notes and make notes on those notes. And so on. Each time I filter out the stuff that I can’t remember from the last run through, or stuff which is just padding. To be honest this is how my ESX reference card came about – after digesting everything, I was just left with the stuff that I had to learn.
It hard to read a lot of this stuff, and sadly for me it doesn’t seem to get any easier.
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I tend to sit there and take a lot of mental notes then go dump them in one note. Then I re-read my notes and confirm back with whatever it is I’m studying. Then once I’ve gone through that a few times, I find a hapless co-worker and explain it to him. When I explain how things work to people (after doing a zillion hours of research); I tend to retain it forever. Then when people ask me questions on it later its pretty easy to answer them.
I also try to change materials a bit. For example, as I study something new, I’ll read whatever book I picked up; then go find blog posts on that topic and read those; and then go find whitepapers and read those. Then go back to the book.
Once I go through that, I go back to my previous method; which is take notes then go find a hapless co-worker to explain it to.
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I try to variate a text learning with video learning and practicing. This mix helps me learn more quickly and more durable. I think that it uses different parts of a brain or different part of memories in the brain, or something like that (I’m not a Specialist in that… ).
Hey guys, I’m getting old too… I turned out 42… -:) But at least I live on a beautiful tropical island….. Reunion
So I try to find useful teaching videos to-do stuff. Like those found on Mike’s Blog: http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=1442
or those professional vSphere 4 courses (paid) once done by David Davis from Trainsignal: http://www.vladan.fr/new-video-from-trainsignal-fault-tolerance-an-ultimate-protection-for-your-vms/
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I’ve never been a good student! And like yourself i often find it hard to take everything in.
I’ll be sitting there reading a book or techincal article and all of a sudden i’ll be at the bottom of the page. I then realise that my eyes had read the words but my brain was thinking about what I should cook for tea or whether I should change my fantasy football team and nothing that I read actually went in. Happens all of the time.
One of the best methods which I was taught at college, was how to remember things by using visualisation. Another method which I taught myself is Association.
Here is a little more info about how they work (Save me typing it all out).
http://www.200words-a-day.com/memory-masters.htmlI found these methods are great for helping you remember even day-to-day stuff.
When i was studying for my VCP4 Beta exam earlier in the year I was having the same problem when trying to revise using the VMware Documentation. So what I did was to litrally perform everything on the system itself. Just so I had a visual image of what it looks like in my head, I could then relate features to the visual images.
If the documentation was talking about Active/Standby vmnics on a portgroup, I would go to that area and just look at every option that is available. Even if i’ve done it a 1000 times in the past.
So now everytime i think of vmnic settings on a port group i can visualise the “Move Up” “Move Down” buttons etc.
Its a time consuming way of doing it, but then I guess reading a book 3 times over becuase your still not remembering it all would take just as long.
I also agree with JR when he talks about writing it on a whiteboard or explaining it to colleagues. A book called “301 Days before your CCNA” uses this method to help you learn.
And another which was recommended to me when i was trying to learn vShpere config max values was to create little cards with question on the front and the answers on the back. That way I could take them anywhere and learn whenever. I added the Visualisation method to this a little, I took screenshots releating to the question and put them on the cards with the answers.
For example, for the maximum amount of Nic’s on a VM i added all 10 nics to a vm and then took a screenshot showing the 10th nic. I then put that on the back of the card with the answe underneath.
I guess everyone is different. You just have to find out what works best for you.
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For me there are three tricks (served me well all through University and now – where I’m forced to constantly learn and drink from a firehose):
1) Change of context – somone mentioned this above – sometimes changing WHERE you are learning allows your brain to open up a bit.
2) White noise – I tend to focus much better with background white noise. This can be music I’m VERY familiar with.
3) Sleep/Learn/Sleep cycle – there’s been some scientific studies that validate that the sleep cycle is very important for learning. When you find that you’re “full” (getting the synapse version of a buffer overflow), STOP. eat. sleep. think of other things. When I wake up after that cycle, I often find that concepts have solidified, things I didn’t grasp seem clear.
My two cents!
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The best ways for me is to pracice doing the work either via labs,fiddling around in my own little lab or even better if you can find them is doing online labs. When i studied for all my icrosft exams, upgrades and recently my vcp on VI3 i just did practice exams(not braindumps before someone comments that) and when i didn;t understand wither the question or the answers i researched it and i tried to find loads of questions about that subject. My best way is defeinately this constant testing idea as i normally over a couple of weeks find around 500 questions that i feel are good at testing my knowledge and make sure that i get them correct three times in a row as i go through them. If i get one wrong i remove one correct answering time a this heps me focus my mind like you would need to in an exam as when you’ve being going through that many questions to lose a correct answer time is devastating. Music/noise wise i study brilliantly to very melow trance music(yes im only 26 so this is my relaxation music) as it calms me but also keep me awake and blocks out outside noises as i have the attention span of a flea. i would recommend buying cafe mambo as this has the scientific waves crashing in bits in the background also so you win both ways.
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All,
Thanks for the great suggestions. I’ve picked up some good ideas that hopefully will help me as I prepare for several upcoming certification exams. Keep the ideas flowing—I’m sure others will find this useful as well!
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I took my EMC NAS certification last week and mentoring last monday and tuesday. To me, was not just knowing things to have a score and pass an exam, I’m not a big fan of that approach. I really like to retain all possible things to use them day by day.
I think, we are not too different when we have to study or learn something. Some just need to read some “sentences” interpret them and “et voilá” they know kung-fu!! Others, like me, have a picture memory brain, and use some pictures or “hands on” to help interpret those same sentences. In IT I am almost like disciple Thomas “I won’t believe unless I see with my own eyes”.
So when i am reading a book, I try to do what I read using labs, simulators (they are a great help when I don’t have hardware) and talk about what I’m learning with people, that already knows, is a good way too test my self and got feedback if I’m learning and understanding things well.
About certifications, one things I love in EMC certifications, is the possibility they gave us to do practice exams so you can check where are your flaws.Regards
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Not so much about swatting for exams but for learning in general.
Find someone smarter. Whatever you are learning someone else has already learn’t a lot more about it, find them and talk to them. Get them to recommend book, get them to explain it to you, ask them questions. I find that others who have invested in a topic are always more than happy to share that with others who are genuinely interested.
Interpret it. Take what you have learning an redraw it, summaries it, write a blog post, explain it to a co-worker. Having to digest something enough to be able to pass it on in some other forms helps to solidify things very well.
Look forward to a nice summary post from you.
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I read your message and thought yeah i reckon quite a few people go through what you’re going / you’ve gone through.
It’s what most people would call a breach of confidence – that’s all.
It’s not the end – just a period where reflection is required as to how you do what you do.
If you don’t know how you do what you do – then there’s trouble coming.
if you do know HOW you do what you do – then you’ve only got to re-affirm how you do it.
When it comes to being a student – it’s just a case of going back to what technique you employ to get data into information in your head.
Everyone has different ideas on how to do this…
Whatever you do – keep a clear head and ..keep up the good work on your blog.
all the best..
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Exercise, Fish Oils and generally a healty diet will sharpen up your mind. There’s no quick fix though, you’re looking at 10 to 12 weeks of the above before you will start to feel the gains.
With regards to the exam study material, break all the topics up based on the exam blueprint and gather from many sources for each topic. As you cover each topic condense and emilinate into notes in your own words. As you get closer to the exam you should only need to skim through bullet points which refresh the info in your mind.
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I see what you mean… I am the kind of person who just WON’T do a college assignment during the Holidays/half term breaks, or weekends, or evenings , and i like to wind down on friday after noons.
I wouldn’t say it makes me a bad student though, I’d say it makes me an individual , I believe if i am actually doing at least SOME of it in college then i don’t feel I deserve to take it our of college ( not because i don’t enjoy them, but because i enjoy OTHER THINGS TOO! ) where i’ll do WHAT I WANT!
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