You can't. To make LIFE easier, don't go to school. What we need to do is bring back the concept of apprenticeship, to work under another person and learn the ways without having to learn a bunch of bulls*it that is otherwise pretty pointless.
Let me elaborate: I go to my lab and I learn a concept such as enzyme kinetics. "What the hell is this for?", I ask myself. Without a clear context of what I'm learning what is the point? If I can't put it into real world practice what is the point? The teacher may mention the idea behind it, but it takes time to understand the point. Real world connections MUST be continually be made in order for anyone to understand.
I have evidence: I spent two summers working in a lab and learned more techniques about how to use a spectrophotometer than I would have ever in any of my classes. Gradually, I understood the concept because I was actually applying it to a real world area of science.
You guys remember the 15 bottle mysterious chemical lab in general chemistry? That was pointless. I may have learned a thing or two about solubility, but you eventually learn that anyway when you apply those rules in most chemistry classes.
Furthermore, everything we learn is very inefficient. Of all the classes we have taken and all the information that was thrown to us, how much of it do we retain? How much history, how many terms or names do we actually retain? The education is very inefficient. The way I see things, the education feeds you information in blocks. Whether you actually catch that information and retain it is up to you. Often, it's too much to take it all in.
My solution: Learn at your own pace and learn everything well. You might say that this will take forever to get anywhere, but if you cut out all of the time that you spent studying for stuff that you end up forgetting and simply worked on things that mattered the things you learn would a lot more sense. To better understand what I'm saying, take for instance a puzzle. If you worked on multiple parts of the puzzle at once, you end up with blotches of empty spaces. You lose the connectedness of the image. You may have a general sense of the image, but there's still things missing. If, however, you were to work only on one corner of the puzzle and fill it into completion, you get a cleaner product, even if you don't see the whole picture.
In life, we aim for a goal such as becoming a doctor, which is analogous to the complete image of the puzzle. However, there are multiple pathways to get there, which is analogous to the way we approach the puzzle. Working from one part of the puzzle, filling all the gaps and fully grasping just that corner will enable us to remember how that part of the image looks like even if we don't get the whole picture. Adding pieces wherever to simply get a sense of what the image looks like, will give us only a slight idea of what the full image looks like.
My point here is that becoming an expert in one area will help progress much faster than trying to be a jack of all trades. In the case of school, we try to jump from too many topics, never really concentrating and making connections to the next topic and that's the downfall of the education system. Overtime, we lose the image simply because it was too vague.
My rant has gone on long enough. I will propose my complete solution in the next blog.
CHEERs ^_^
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Citric MOfreaking Acid Cycle
In a haste to get down some annoying biochemistry, in which I'm doing absolutely horrible, I have come across this video, which may or may not help you make your life easier. It sure as hell has made my life easier. This video not only explains the citric acid cycle, it also shows the mechanisms with some swooshing special effects.
If only we could just have Youtube be my teacher... at least there you can shut up annoying teachers using the pause button.
Cheers..
If only we could just have Youtube be my teacher... at least there you can shut up annoying teachers using the pause button.
Cheers..
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Procrastination Nation! I'll pay you to do my homework!
CHEATER
Have you ever asked someone to do homework for you in return for some monetary recompense? SHAME ON YOU! Well, if you are that kind of person, here's the site for you: Cramster.com.
The name gives it all away. For a little bit of money a month, you can acquire Karma points which you can use to essentially pay someone to do your homework for you. And depending on how much offer, your answer can be answered in as fast as five minutes by their so called "experts".
WHO ANSWERS THESE QUESTIONS!
These experts are in fact just other people who have joined the site to share their knowledge in return for Karma points. These people are essentially the people you ask to do your homework for you. The great thing though is that you have a vast array of people that have different subjects they are really good at.
THE PROCESS
So here's how it works: You can either get a free account and use the points they give you (which is very minimal) and purchase an answer for your question. The points will run out fast so you will most likely need one of their premium accounts. But it's not that expensive and you sometimes you get great answers with great explanations on how to do said assignment.
The downside to these experts is that anyone can essentially be an expert. So make sure you check their ranking and their activity to see if you get a legit answer. And if you post an answer be sure it's good because the person who posed the question gets to rate you on your performance. If it sucks, you get no points and a bad ranking. If it's good, they give you the title of "lifesaver."
Don't expect to get good answers or any answers at all if you're a cheap skate. Offering 25 Karma points for a question that takes twenty minutes usually will get you nowhere.
MY EXPERIENCE
I have yet to ask a question, but I myself have answered several questions and have amassed a little bit of points. You may ask, what's in it for me? Well two things:
1. You gain Karma points which you can use to ask questions or redeem them for really cool things like cameras, Ipads, Macbooks, and so much more.
2. I get to take my knowledge from the classes I've taken and put them to good use. It also helps me review the stuff that I've forgotten.
Is it worth it? Yes and no. If you're doing it just to gain Karma points then don't even bother. You make half a cent for every point you gain. The most you can usually gain is 175 Karma points plus one extra for tagging the question. This comes out to be 88 cents for that questions. And it's not always guaranteed--if your answer sucked, you might not get any. If it was semi helpful, you only get partial points.
The plus side to doing this is that I get to keep the stuff I know from disappearing. Having answered questions for about a week now, I've noticed that I've forgotten A LOT of the stuff I learned in school, which really made me think about how important it is to continually look back and review the stuff I've already learned. You can think of the Karma points as a side incentive.
START CRAMMIN!!!
Have you used Cramster?
Let me know what you think about it and what your experiences with the site are.
Cheers
Have you ever asked someone to do homework for you in return for some monetary recompense? SHAME ON YOU! Well, if you are that kind of person, here's the site for you: Cramster.com.
The name gives it all away. For a little bit of money a month, you can acquire Karma points which you can use to essentially pay someone to do your homework for you. And depending on how much offer, your answer can be answered in as fast as five minutes by their so called "experts".
WHO ANSWERS THESE QUESTIONS!
These experts are in fact just other people who have joined the site to share their knowledge in return for Karma points. These people are essentially the people you ask to do your homework for you. The great thing though is that you have a vast array of people that have different subjects they are really good at.
THE PROCESS
So here's how it works: You can either get a free account and use the points they give you (which is very minimal) and purchase an answer for your question. The points will run out fast so you will most likely need one of their premium accounts. But it's not that expensive and you sometimes you get great answers with great explanations on how to do said assignment.
The downside to these experts is that anyone can essentially be an expert. So make sure you check their ranking and their activity to see if you get a legit answer. And if you post an answer be sure it's good because the person who posed the question gets to rate you on your performance. If it sucks, you get no points and a bad ranking. If it's good, they give you the title of "lifesaver."
Don't expect to get good answers or any answers at all if you're a cheap skate. Offering 25 Karma points for a question that takes twenty minutes usually will get you nowhere.
MY EXPERIENCE
I have yet to ask a question, but I myself have answered several questions and have amassed a little bit of points. You may ask, what's in it for me? Well two things:
1. You gain Karma points which you can use to ask questions or redeem them for really cool things like cameras, Ipads, Macbooks, and so much more.
2. I get to take my knowledge from the classes I've taken and put them to good use. It also helps me review the stuff that I've forgotten.
Is it worth it? Yes and no. If you're doing it just to gain Karma points then don't even bother. You make half a cent for every point you gain. The most you can usually gain is 175 Karma points plus one extra for tagging the question. This comes out to be 88 cents for that questions. And it's not always guaranteed--if your answer sucked, you might not get any. If it was semi helpful, you only get partial points.
The plus side to doing this is that I get to keep the stuff I know from disappearing. Having answered questions for about a week now, I've noticed that I've forgotten A LOT of the stuff I learned in school, which really made me think about how important it is to continually look back and review the stuff I've already learned. You can think of the Karma points as a side incentive.
START CRAMMIN!!!
Have you used Cramster?
Let me know what you think about it and what your experiences with the site are.
Cheers
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Resume Blunders!
Okay so I recently stumbled upon this blog about resume blunders that you should DEFINITELY avoid if you want that corporate job once you graduate with your fancy shmancy degree!
I can't post the hyperlink, so copy and paste please... :)
blog.resumebear.com/featured-articles/15-resume-blunders-to-avoid
Number three is the one I think because you should always avoid. Trying to be the jack of all trades will dilute your main expertise, which can land you a job in the dumpster. :D
Cheers!
I can't post the hyperlink, so copy and paste please... :)
blog.resumebear.com/featured-articles/15-resume-blunders-to-avoid
Number three is the one I think because you should always avoid. Trying to be the jack of all trades will dilute your main expertise, which can land you a job in the dumpster. :D
Cheers!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Vlingo - best voice command app ever!
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1. Vlingo - voice command app can register pretty much everything you say!
The longest message I've said that Vlingo successfully transcribed: "Have you ever found yourself stuck in the middle of the sea? I'll sail the world. To find you." No lie. Kinda cheesy because I was just testing, it was sweet when it dropped every word I said down.
I want to try to say to say something really long in the future and see how vlingo handles.
If you say "laugh out loud" it puts in "lol." lol :D
Cool things it can do include in emailing, texting, reading emails back to you, and even opening other apps. There's also a hands free car friendly component to it that I've never actually tried it so I don't know how well it works, but here's a video of how it someone demonstrating it:
Give it a shot and tell me how well it works. Iphone users have to pay i believe, but it's free with Android phones!
Cheers
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tablets: is it hard to take notes?
Well the answer is yes and no. From the very first time I used my tablet until now, I have noticed a huge advancement in the way I take notes and how effective it is in terms of useful.
Starting out, I thought it was a neat idea, but I had trouble finding the right programs. I initially started with Microsoft's very own note-taking program Onenote. I liked for a while because I could click anywhere on my digital sheet of paper and type. I could also move the boxes containing the text I had written. I could even write with my tablet pen. The draw backs to using a pen on Onenote was that it didn't look real and it didn't feel real. Erasing was also a pain simply because it just tedious to switch from the pen selection to the eraser. Editing was also difficult. I couldn't really move things around once they were written. In the end, I probably spent more time messing with my notes than actually studying them. Another HUGE drawback is that Onenote is solely a pc based program. I have a Mac and every time I wanted to use it, I had to boot my Windows XP through Parallels Desktop. Running both operating systems at the same time drained so much power that I almost always had to recharge my battery before the class ended. Fortunately for me, there was always a plug near by or beneath my feet.
As an aside, I want to mention that I like both operating systems and I really don't have dislikes about either... So please don't hate.
Anywho, I decided using Onenote was just too much work so I scanned the interwebs for something more for Mac users and came across Circus Ponies' Notebook--a note-taking program designed specifically for Apple users. I tried them out for a trial period and liked what they had to offer: an interface that looked like a notebook; a pen option so that you could write with the pen and tablet; a recording option so that you could record your lectures (I liked this feature the most because it allowed to umm... rest my eyes :D). However, it didn't really work for me because the notebook lines were too small and it made it really hard to keep my writing on the lines. I would often cramp trying to write small enough so that it would fit on the line. The program would have cost a mere 30 bucks if I had stuck with it, but I decided it was just not the program for me. I'll have to post some of my notes from this program and Onenote in a later blog and you decide.
Desperate, I frantically searched for a better program to use. All the other note taking programs had really bad interfaces and were really difficult to use. Then it hit me--PHOTOSHOP. I had used photoshop for the longest time, but it never occurred to me that I could use this program to take notes. More on this on my next blog...
I'm going to cut it off here because I need to sleep... I mean study.
______
lo^_^ol
Starting out, I thought it was a neat idea, but I had trouble finding the right programs. I initially started with Microsoft's very own note-taking program Onenote. I liked for a while because I could click anywhere on my digital sheet of paper and type. I could also move the boxes containing the text I had written. I could even write with my tablet pen. The draw backs to using a pen on Onenote was that it didn't look real and it didn't feel real. Erasing was also a pain simply because it just tedious to switch from the pen selection to the eraser. Editing was also difficult. I couldn't really move things around once they were written. In the end, I probably spent more time messing with my notes than actually studying them. Another HUGE drawback is that Onenote is solely a pc based program. I have a Mac and every time I wanted to use it, I had to boot my Windows XP through Parallels Desktop. Running both operating systems at the same time drained so much power that I almost always had to recharge my battery before the class ended. Fortunately for me, there was always a plug near by or beneath my feet.
As an aside, I want to mention that I like both operating systems and I really don't have dislikes about either... So please don't hate.
Anywho, I decided using Onenote was just too much work so I scanned the interwebs for something more for Mac users and came across Circus Ponies' Notebook--a note-taking program designed specifically for Apple users. I tried them out for a trial period and liked what they had to offer: an interface that looked like a notebook; a pen option so that you could write with the pen and tablet; a recording option so that you could record your lectures (I liked this feature the most because it allowed to umm... rest my eyes :D). However, it didn't really work for me because the notebook lines were too small and it made it really hard to keep my writing on the lines. I would often cramp trying to write small enough so that it would fit on the line. The program would have cost a mere 30 bucks if I had stuck with it, but I decided it was just not the program for me. I'll have to post some of my notes from this program and Onenote in a later blog and you decide.
Desperate, I frantically searched for a better program to use. All the other note taking programs had really bad interfaces and were really difficult to use. Then it hit me--PHOTOSHOP. I had used photoshop for the longest time, but it never occurred to me that I could use this program to take notes. More on this on my next blog...
I'm going to cut it off here because I need to sleep... I mean study.
______
lo^_^ol
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Tablets - the fun and easy way to take notes!
So I don't have much time to write about this, so this one will be fairly short.
Writing notes can be tedious work--sometimes when you get a teacher that's jacked on caffeine, you often end up having carpel tunnel by the end of class. I have seen many people bring their laptops to class to type up their notes to combat this. If you're a fast typer often this can be the solution to your note-taking woes.
Initially that's what I did, but what happens when you're teacher starts drawing diagrams and figures?!!?!? How do you draw stuff with word!?!?!?!?
As a biochemist, I often encounter many classes that require me to draw chemical structures and graphs. My solution was the tablet.
I had heard about tablets from my Photoshop experimental days when I REALLY wanted to become a graphic designer (*Sigh*). So when I was trying to find out ways to translate writing into a digital form, the tablet came to mind.
So searching online, I found the Wacom Bamboo for a hundred bucks, which was a little pricy even for a refurbished item. However, it's one of the best investments I've ever made.
Wacom tablets are great to take notes on because they feel real, and are pressure sensitive, giving what you write a realistic look. The new bamboo tablet has come out and is quite nice and is reasonably priced. If you're rich and don't care how much you spend, invest in Wacom's higher end tablets, the Intuos, or if you're just ballin', get the Cintiq. These range from a couple hundred to a couple thousand--a bit much in my book so I'll just stick to my bamboo and use it until it breaks.
The new tablet by the way is called the bamboo pen and touch, which doubles as track pad (the flat mouse thing on your laptop) XD.
Long story short, I love my tablet and it has saved me hours of continually searching through my clothing for my notebook, or countless days of stressing out because my notes somehow were torn out of my notebook.
So Imagine this: All of your notes, for every class, from the beginning of college to the end of college, tucked away in one place, in one folder on the desktop of your computer. Essentially one notebook (your laptop) for everything. You never have to carry multiple notebooks or heavy 1000 subject notebooks to class ever again! Just your laptop.
YOU ALSO SAVE A LOT OF PAPER!!
I'll have to go over how I do it in class on another blog and possibly a video. But in the mean time here are some screen shots of some of my recent notes.
Leave comments! Please!
Writing notes can be tedious work--sometimes when you get a teacher that's jacked on caffeine, you often end up having carpel tunnel by the end of class. I have seen many people bring their laptops to class to type up their notes to combat this. If you're a fast typer often this can be the solution to your note-taking woes.
Initially that's what I did, but what happens when you're teacher starts drawing diagrams and figures?!!?!? How do you draw stuff with word!?!?!?!?
As a biochemist, I often encounter many classes that require me to draw chemical structures and graphs. My solution was the tablet.
I had heard about tablets from my Photoshop experimental days when I REALLY wanted to become a graphic designer (*Sigh*). So when I was trying to find out ways to translate writing into a digital form, the tablet came to mind.
So searching online, I found the Wacom Bamboo for a hundred bucks, which was a little pricy even for a refurbished item. However, it's one of the best investments I've ever made.
Wacom tablets are great to take notes on because they feel real, and are pressure sensitive, giving what you write a realistic look. The new bamboo tablet has come out and is quite nice and is reasonably priced. If you're rich and don't care how much you spend, invest in Wacom's higher end tablets, the Intuos, or if you're just ballin', get the Cintiq. These range from a couple hundred to a couple thousand--a bit much in my book so I'll just stick to my bamboo and use it until it breaks.
The new tablet by the way is called the bamboo pen and touch, which doubles as track pad (the flat mouse thing on your laptop) XD.
Long story short, I love my tablet and it has saved me hours of continually searching through my clothing for my notebook, or countless days of stressing out because my notes somehow were torn out of my notebook.
So Imagine this: All of your notes, for every class, from the beginning of college to the end of college, tucked away in one place, in one folder on the desktop of your computer. Essentially one notebook (your laptop) for everything. You never have to carry multiple notebooks or heavy 1000 subject notebooks to class ever again! Just your laptop.
YOU ALSO SAVE A LOT OF PAPER!!
I'll have to go over how I do it in class on another blog and possibly a video. But in the mean time here are some screen shots of some of my recent notes.
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Leave comments! Please!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
uhghguh.... I just Stumbled.
So this may not really be an actual way of making you life easier, but it does give you something to do when you're bored. Recently, I stumbled upon Stumbleupon (that was so intended :D), which is a website that leads you to other websites, specifically websites that you like.
To do this, create an account at Stumbleupon.com. There you will be led through the process of selecting your preferences. Once you're finished... you can stumble!!!
I found the website quite interesting because I can leave the window open and every time I need a break from studying, I'll start stumbling. So far the website brought some pretty cool things like pictures of hairy baby elephants, cool youtube videos, and other websites based upon my preference.
What's really cool is you can specifically pick a topic and be led to random websites based upon that topic.
I have yet to really explore the site, but I'm sure this one is a keeper!
Leave a comment about your experiences!
To do this, create an account at Stumbleupon.com. There you will be led through the process of selecting your preferences. Once you're finished... you can stumble!!!
I found the website quite interesting because I can leave the window open and every time I need a break from studying, I'll start stumbling. So far the website brought some pretty cool things like pictures of hairy baby elephants, cool youtube videos, and other websites based upon my preference.
What's really cool is you can specifically pick a topic and be led to random websites based upon that topic.
I have yet to really explore the site, but I'm sure this one is a keeper!
Leave a comment about your experiences!
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Why do I blog? Because I'm poor!
Having just started this blog, I find it hard to find people to come to click on my site. As I am writing this, I am only hoping to merely get 100 views on my page. Many of you may be wondering, "Why blog"? I remember when first heard the term, blog. I thought to myself, "this going to be another one of those internet terms that will bug you to death. Little did I know that i would eventually be blogging. The question still stands: Why blog?
As a college student, money tends to bleed out of your pockets faster than the information that you gain from going to college (although many would beg to differ). I myself have struggled to pay for schooling, let alone food. I go to a rather expensive school, filled with rich kids that have parents who can really pay for them to go to school and practically everything else that they need. So attending school is often a pain because everything at school is super expensive because they cater mainly to the rich kids.
I lived on campus for a good two years and found that I spent well over fifteen thousand dollars just to live on campus. In terms of rent per month, the price came out to be around 850 dollars a month--with no meal plan. And if anyone knows anything about rent in Minneapolis/St. Paul, that is REALLY expensive. Because I spent so much money to live on campus, I often found myself refraining from buying anything and everything--even food. Of course it was my choice to live on campus. It was quite sad trying to nourish myself with ramen and the occasional piece of meat. My parents own a restaurant, which I tried to frequent so that I could get some free food, but I often didn't have the time due to lack of time and transportation and I didn't really want to rely on my folks.
I was fortunate to have a good roommate my second year on campus, which definitely made it much better to live on campus. He would often buy me food, which was quite nice (you know who you are), although it felt like I was leeching from him.
Anyway, I'm veering off topic.
So because I was always strapped for cash, I have been forever trying to make money. I tried to apply for jobs on campus, but to no avail. I tried working at my parents place, but that was just too time consuming (and you smelled like food all the time). I have recently, however, acquired several jobs on campus, which has allowed me to rake in some money, but as any college student, that often isn't enough. We need money to pay for outrageous prices for books and tuition!
To search for additional income, or ways to alleviate the money that always leaves my pocket, I have come up with a number of things to help me, which I will discuss further in a different blog. I have learned to make good use of freebie sites and sites that post good deals to help me buy things for cheap, especially books. I have also found sites that pay you money to do surveys. However, none of them have really been substantial in helping me make/save money. If anything, they have made me spend more (more on this is a later blog). You may be wondering, if you have made it this far in my rambling, how does this ties in with blogging. Well, the answer is advertisements.
I've always heard of making money by allowing ads to be placed on your site, but I never got around to actually find out how--that is until now. And it's quite simple. The idea is to get traffic to your site (i.e. youtube, webpage, etc.) and then, when someone clicks on an ad featured on your page, you get a monetary reward for clicks.
So in short, my drive to make money has brought me to this point in my search for the easy way out. And there are success stories. Youtubers, for example, make lots of money from doing videos and allowing ads to be played on their channel. If you ever go on youtube and wonder why you have to go through long ads before you actually see their video, it's because that's the youtubers way of making some money.
This is why I'm blogging, and hopefully it'll work.
Leave a comment.
Cheers.
As a college student, money tends to bleed out of your pockets faster than the information that you gain from going to college (although many would beg to differ). I myself have struggled to pay for schooling, let alone food. I go to a rather expensive school, filled with rich kids that have parents who can really pay for them to go to school and practically everything else that they need. So attending school is often a pain because everything at school is super expensive because they cater mainly to the rich kids.
I lived on campus for a good two years and found that I spent well over fifteen thousand dollars just to live on campus. In terms of rent per month, the price came out to be around 850 dollars a month--with no meal plan. And if anyone knows anything about rent in Minneapolis/St. Paul, that is REALLY expensive. Because I spent so much money to live on campus, I often found myself refraining from buying anything and everything--even food. Of course it was my choice to live on campus. It was quite sad trying to nourish myself with ramen and the occasional piece of meat. My parents own a restaurant, which I tried to frequent so that I could get some free food, but I often didn't have the time due to lack of time and transportation and I didn't really want to rely on my folks.
I was fortunate to have a good roommate my second year on campus, which definitely made it much better to live on campus. He would often buy me food, which was quite nice (you know who you are), although it felt like I was leeching from him.
Anyway, I'm veering off topic.
So because I was always strapped for cash, I have been forever trying to make money. I tried to apply for jobs on campus, but to no avail. I tried working at my parents place, but that was just too time consuming (and you smelled like food all the time). I have recently, however, acquired several jobs on campus, which has allowed me to rake in some money, but as any college student, that often isn't enough. We need money to pay for outrageous prices for books and tuition!
To search for additional income, or ways to alleviate the money that always leaves my pocket, I have come up with a number of things to help me, which I will discuss further in a different blog. I have learned to make good use of freebie sites and sites that post good deals to help me buy things for cheap, especially books. I have also found sites that pay you money to do surveys. However, none of them have really been substantial in helping me make/save money. If anything, they have made me spend more (more on this is a later blog). You may be wondering, if you have made it this far in my rambling, how does this ties in with blogging. Well, the answer is advertisements.
I've always heard of making money by allowing ads to be placed on your site, but I never got around to actually find out how--that is until now. And it's quite simple. The idea is to get traffic to your site (i.e. youtube, webpage, etc.) and then, when someone clicks on an ad featured on your page, you get a monetary reward for clicks.
So in short, my drive to make money has brought me to this point in my search for the easy way out. And there are success stories. Youtubers, for example, make lots of money from doing videos and allowing ads to be played on their channel. If you ever go on youtube and wonder why you have to go through long ads before you actually see their video, it's because that's the youtubers way of making some money.
This is why I'm blogging, and hopefully it'll work.
Leave a comment.
Cheers.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
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