25 Learning Reflections
Cooper Furman
Learning Reflections
How I Learn
I find that I learn best when I have something to occupy myself with whilst learning. Whether it be note-taking, highlighting, or even doodling, I prefer to have some kind of way to distract my idle hands. If I can keep the totality of my being occupied, I don’t have any latent energy spurring my thoughts in a separate direction. The only real exception to this is reading. When reading, I tend to find myself either utterly engrossed or bored out of my mind, depending on whether or not I have something to latch onto within the text.
Outside of this, I generally also need some form of written word to absorb information. If it’s just a speech, I can struggle to pick up what a lecture is trying to disseminate. The cause of this is likely a mix of my sensory disorder, which can cause me to miss a lot if a lecture is faster-paced, and my naturally poor hearing (I’d be wearing hearing aids if they didn’t mess with my aforementioned sensory disorder).
Active Listening
Wednesday night, I attended a meeting of my club. This time, participation in one of their activities was higher than attendance had been all of last year, so it was very busy and rather crowded. By using active listening and pacing myself, I managed to easily make it through a very loud and eventful night and even made some new friends. I can’t tell if they noticed anything in particular, but it probably didn’t hurt.
Friday evening, I had a meeting with my advisor. We discussed my class attendance, which wasn’t doing as well as she hoped. I don’t think she noticed anything in particular regarding how I was listening, but it did help in securing a path toward regular attendance. In particular, I noted a suggestion she left earlier in the conversation, and we worked out a solution to the problem. I don’t think she was enthused by my active listening; rather, I think she was more so put off by it. It helped more when I engaged and thought up solutions to the problems rather than simply absorbing her criticisms and providing platitudes.
Monday evening, I spoke with an old friend of mine. He has PTSD, following from an incredibly abusive relationship I helped get him out of. He’d had a flashback and was reaching out for help. I helped him calm down through breathing exercises and stayed on the line with him for a couple hours, talking back and forth, and spending time with him. When someone’s hurting that badly, they need to know they’re heard. That they’re seen, that their pain is known, if only a little.
Visual Thinking Strategies
Though I had never heard the term before, I find VTS to be a very familiar process. It’s effectively a translation of literary analysis and critical theory techniques to the medium of sight rather than words. To look at at image and think, “What is happening here? What was the intent behind it? What do each of its component parts say, both apart and together?” It’s a powerful tool in medicine, where communication with one’s patient is paramount and the stress of an unfitting environment or their needs being ignored can have a real physiological impact on their health.
MERF was very impressive. It felt less like a hospital than some of the student dorms do. It’s carefully designed to curate a more open and free environment, with light streaming in through wide open windows into spacious rooms with comfortable seating. The presence of art across the building helps further divorce it from a clinical setting, and the proximity of the couches invites discussion and collaboration. Even with all of this, it still holds the clinical practicality in high regard. It doesn’t compromise on the effectiveness of its space as a center of research. It simply makes allowances for the human side of medicine. It holds an appreciation for beauty, for connection. In this, it stands as perhaps an example of the future; what we can make medical spaces become.
Generative AI
Generative AI is a complicated issue in modern discourse. To call it controversial would be an understatement. This class has had a notable focus on how to use it ethically in academia, through summarization of research articles and information compression tools among other things. I’ve thought a lot about what to write here, as it’s intended to act as a summarization of what I’ve learned about generative AI; yet, I can’t really think of anything in particular to put here.
I am, on principle, against the usage of generative artificial intelligence in the fields of academia and art. I don’t use it myself, and don’t really ever intend to. Maybe, come the next few decades, I’ll end up on the ‘wrong side of history’, so to speak, but in the current era, I feel wholly comfortable in my stance. I have not come across a usage of generative AI that has not been something I could both trust wholly in its accuracy and not do with relative ease on my own. I have also not come across anything that has particularly surprised me, except in how unsettling I personally find it, or that has changed my views on it.
I don’t intend this section to come across as particularly hostile or stuck up or anything like it; I’m just stating my personal opinion. I won’t condemn anyone for using generative AI or act like I’m morally superior for doing things the way I do. I only say any of this because I was directly prompted to share my thoughts on the subject; otherwise, I’d simply stay quiet and simply continue to do things my own way.
What I’ve Learned
I’ve learned a lot about health, and what it means. Health is more than being without disease. It’s about what you eat, how much you exercise, even what you think. Doctors have been pathologizing even the smallest differences from the norm for as long as organized medicine has existed. Health, in many ways, has been used as a tool to restrict and demean people, to make them seem lesser and unfit.
But it is also something good, too. Being healthy isn’t just about your body, or your mind; it’s about both, together, and about your environment, and the people around you. Being healthy means being the best person you can be, for yourself and others.
I’ve also learned a lot about asking good questions. The best questions come not when you fully understand something, or when an instructor expects it. There is no when for a good question. Only a what.
A good question is one that addresses an aspect of your problem, nothing more. For any kind of answer to matter, you have to be able to use it, and if you don’t know how, then you’ve asked a bad question.
Lastly, a good question is something that doesn’t really occur to you at first. Try to think outside the box, or in ways you normally don’t. What are questions you don’t normally ask? What are things you don’t usually notice? That’s where you’ll find the biggest gaps in your knowledge–and thus, the best kind of questions.
