- April 09, 2020

🕑5 mins reading time

相信大家对 “自学” 一词不会陌生，有的人说自学比付费上课更好，有的人却不知道怎么自学。这里来跟大家分享一些我自学路上的tips 吧！

^ My first attempt in creating a 3D model in Blender

With the rise of content creators all over the Internet, it's truly a bless for Internet users to learn basically anything for free. Let's talk a bit about my journey in self-learning.

I entered the art world with self-learning. Doodles on paper, sketching with references, reading step-by-step tutorial books and few practices according to the steps. These are back in the days when I'm still a kid, not being able to access to the Internet. I barely remember how the days went and eventually my parents saw the potential in me and brought me more tools and opportunities to grow this field.

Did I went to art classes? To be exact, not really. I only attended the art subject provided in school. I tried once going to art classes but due to the stress of needing to finish one A3 art piece every week and I felt that I didn't learn much there, I left. I'm glad to have some great art teachers at school, those classes to me are more than enough and I enjoyed it very much.

My parents had been telling me that university life is not about being spoon-feed with knowledge, it's about how you manage your time, resources and to learn with the assignments given. Soon or later, I came to a realize where an art piece does shows how much effort you put in, it's visible. I would say, that's when I decided to push myself into a growth mindset.

START

To start self-learning anything, the first thing is to set up a mindset of believing that there must be a way to achieve what you want. Searching things on the Internet can sometimes be tricky which you need to type in the correct or at least related keywords in order to get to what you want. Meanwhile, being a self-learner means you are lack of the professional terms or even the possibilities if something in your mind is achievable or not. By having the believe that there must be a way to achieve it, you will see yourself more in trial and error instead of being upset when things don't work out for the first few tries. I started believing in the power of the Internet when I succeed in searching a song with "dun-dun-dun..." beats. It was a magical moment in my life.

SEARCH

Self-learning through the Internet had never been easier. 1.Type your search 2.Leave it to the algorithms 3.Take your time to find the one you are looking for. Don't be embarrassed in using the Internet, no one is going to scroll through your search history just to give you a laugh. Language and grammar doesn't really matter in searching as you only need the keywords. So by all means go ahead and search for the gem. Once you get a hold of how to search in the Internet, it will be easier. Plus, some platforms are using AI algorithm to recommend posts you might be interested in, so after a few search of informative content, you will be seeing more related content showing up in your feed.

A few searching techniques I've been using with Google and YouTube search:

- Starting a new program or a new field:
🔍"beginner guide to (program name)", "things you need to know about (program name)"
Eg. Beginner guide to Blender// things you need to know about Photoshop

- To create something or solve something:
🔍"how to do (what I want to achieve) in (program name)", " (program name) (what I want to achieve)"
Eg. How to add lights in Photoshop// Blender image as plane// Crack items animation in After Effects

- To improve certain skills:
🔍"Tips to (what I want to improve)", "what is (what I want to improve)"
Eg. Tips to color use// tips to photo editing// what is typography

- To watch more works and process
🔍"(something) time-lapse", "process of the making of (something)", "how (something) is made", "behind the scene of (something)", "(something) portfolio reels"
Eg. Photoshop illustration time-lapse// process of the making of Instagram filter// how logo design is made// behind the scene of photoshoot// cinematic edits portfolio reels

I'm glad to be multilingual, so I have wider choice of content to look for. Besides, Google, YouTube and Instagram, there's more that I used to learn.

DO IT

Knowing what and how something is done is not enough until you really put yourself into doing it. Practical are always the best teacher. Follow the steps given and do it. Save it in your mind (if you're going to use it for a long time) or at least save it somewhere you can access again someday so you will not have to spend more time looking for that "perfect" tutorial you watched a few years ago.

Internet is undoubtedly one of the best tool for self learning. You can even look for online courses which they had the syllabus, tutorials and tips all well-prepared. While I'm still a student without income, I chose to spend my time in searching for free contents which my journey is more time and effort consuming. It's my choice anyway. So how I did it? I follow the chapters title of the syllabus and did my own search on the Internet. I took time to study the fundamentals in it and a step at a time. I search all the keywords I encountered, write down notes for what I studied and kept a journal of inspirations I found interesting.

A side point I would like to address it here that it changed my mindset and make my progress less stressful. I got this from a Ted-Talk: "Multitasking is not having your brain to do multiple things at the same time. Your brain can only do one thing at a time. So multitasking is actually how fast you switch between the tasks." I started seeing "multitasking" differently and learn to switch between task while keeping up with the progress of each to-do. Always remember to take a step at a time. It's gonna be a lifelong learning because no one is born smart or all-knowing. It's just how fast you learn and how much effort you put into.

Best wishes to you! 🍀🍀 Thank you for reading.