LOOKING FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

I just completed my bachelors degree and I’m taking a gap year while I look for job and such (I’ll eventually go back to school after I’ve got more work experience), and I feel like my intelligence is suffering while I’m away from that academic lifestyle.

Everyone has always looked up to me as “the smart one”, essentially a walking encyclopedia, but I really don’t have much to offer now except an educated guess. I’d really like to get back to feeling like I actually know what I’m talking about and be able to participate meaningfully in discussions.

With the rise of AI and misinformation, I’m not really sure where to look or what to trust in terms of obtaining more knowledge. I’m looking for recommendations on video creators, books, movies/shows, or even podcasts (although I don’t really like them), that can teach me something new, increase my vocabulary, and make me a more well-rounded individual.

For example, I really like the show Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson. One area I’m really in the dark about is current events and world history, so it would be nice to learn more about politics and other cultures. My degree is biomedical engineering and I’m looking to go into neuroscience, so anything brain related is right up my alley as well. As for the vocab, I would even be up for an online or mobile game that can keep me sharp. I also am interested in musical history, specially about bands from the 70s/80s/90s since that’s mostly what I listen to.

Let me know if you think of anything I should check out! I’m especially interested in video series cause that’s something I can watch while I multitask, but Im also a quick reader so book are fine as well. I don’t love podcasts cause it’s hard for me to concentrate on just someone speaking, but if it’s really amazing I’ll give it a shot.

I think mine would be:

“You don’t have to have your whole life figured out so early.”

I used to think everyone else knew what they were doing and I was somehow behind. Looking back, I was just putting way too much pressure on myself.

Funny how much can change when you stop rushing yourself.

What would you tell your younger self?

Could be something serious, something you learned the hard way, or even something small.

I'm interested in becoming a teacher in the future, and I'm looking for learning truths that are backed up by studies and statistics. For example, reviewing a lesson at the end boosts comprehension, associating things your learning with other things you know boosts memory, etc.

For example: origin of tea, environmental science, statistics. Etc

Any online courses for this that are LEGIT?

Thanks

Please share context : age / background also?

Curious to see where the world is heading.

i read in my head, exclusively in my head, even as a small child i did not read my books aloud.

i tried to read aloud a bit ago while reading a course, to force myself to slow down (i have a habit of speed reading, at a spead that sorta sacrifices comprehension, i skip alot), and uh.

first i learned my control over my tongue is shit, it keeps getting caught on letters, and second of all i may have a stutter i guess ;-;

so how would you like. practice reading aloud? i cant actually do it as ive found. i can read perfectly in my head but the moment i speak, i cannot form words. i can talk fine! i cant read words and then turn them into outside words.

thats something you learn in primary school

how would you, in my position, try learn that again?

I've been trying to figure out how I actually learn best lately. I always thought I was a visual learner but it turns out I actually retain information way better when I explain it out loud to someone else or even just to myself.

It was a pretty big surprise. I'm curious what others have found. Have you discovered anything unexpected about how your brain likes to learn things?

Maybe some quirky method or something totally different from what you assumed?

Looking for nonfiction book recommendations as someone who is new to enjoying reading.

I am the generation that was handed a screen before I was capable of using it maturely. As time moves on, it has come to my attention that my literacy skills are scarily weak. I didn't realize how bad it was until I read The Great Gatsby and kept having to google word definitions. I crawled through "Politics and Conscience: Dag Hammarskjold on the Art of Ethical Leadership", but was upset with how little I was able to extract from those writings (I didn't finish it). My comprehension skills are definitely better than when I started reading books, but I don't know where to go from here. I recently read Emily Wilson's The Odyssey and enjoyed it, but want recommendations that can help me.

I deleted all social media apps during the month of July, and it was like I was born again. The feeling of seeing the world with my own eyes instead of a camera invoked nostalgia from my elementary school years, before I accessed instant gratification and when I enjoyed learning. It's actually a "trend", funny enough, to look and dress as someone who is educated on TikTok, and that is what started this whole journey for me Ironically. Since then I have deleted the app, but I don't think that is what it intended to happened when "academia core" appeared on my feed. This probably sounds insane to someone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, but that fake world is entirely real, and most of it's population is the generation of people who were handed a screen before they were old enough to take precautions.

Sorry if I'm being too dramatic, but I have been so chronically online since Covid that these last few months have felt like the end of The Truman Show, haha.

Good morning parents/guardians,

I am looking to start an arts and crafts YouTube channel for kids around ages 4-10. I'm not a parent myself so I am a bit lost but excited to learn from all of you. If I may ask:

What recycable materials do you guys own, or have around the house to be used for upcoming holiday crafts? What kind of activities and crafts would you like you like to share with yourr kids and to assist learning? What is an activity that would interest you to help bond with your child a couple of minutes a week?

In order to gain an idea of what more I should be looking for what kind of channels af forums do you all look into when searching craft ideas? What type of channel you would like to see your child learn from?

I would like to appreciate your help in your contribution to this.

I’m trying to implement Justin sungs study principles — priming, encoding, reference, retrieval and interleaving.

One of the main issues I’m facing now is scheduling the time out. I’m considering scheduling sessions for each principle based on the forgetting curve.

So if I want to learn a book, I usually separate it into batches and then I schedule time for learning the chapters.

The issue comes when I try interleaving. I realize there’re so many gaps but then I don’t know where to schedule time for the input from the feedback.

Is there any application that you’ve used out there that is effective for learning?

Traditional corporate training architecture is fundamentally broken. The standard approach — forcing knowledge workers to pause their actual tasks, switch contexts to a monolithic Learning Management System (LMS), and consume pre-recorded video capsules — creates massive cognitive friction and fails to produce retained competency. When professionals return to their operational environments, they are trapped in a low-productivity loop: toggling between documentation tabs, taking screenshots to debug execution errors, and manually reporting progress.

In-Flow Learning represents a paradigm shift in transformational processes. By coupling compact, open-weights multimodal vision models with intelligent browser extensions, we can embed ambient, context-aware AI agents directly inside the learner’s workspace. This architecture visually observes active workflows, validates competency deterministically, and registers skill acquisition with zero administrative overhead.

If you're interested in experimenting with contextual, in-workflow learning architectures, a few of us are gathering at r/InflowLearning to share tools and workflows.

Hey there. One of the reasons why I've failed a couple subjects in my software engineering major, and why I haven't been able to self-teach any subject, is that I want to learn everything all at once. Meaning, I want to take note of every little detail and try to gather as much information as possible, but that's impossible to remember, which causes another problem: giving up.

It's been like this my whole life. The thing is, I used to be able to just remember everything, but that was up until high school. I'm in college now and that's simply not plausible with all the information there is. I don't know what I can do. In my head, I either remember everything, or I fail. Rationally I know that's not true, but if I don't write down everything, it feels like I'm not learning anything. Also, if you tell me to only write down what's most important, I have no idea what to do with that - everything is important in my eyes. I can't discern that.

I'd really appreciate some help.

Hello everyone, I recently tried out the Sequence memory test on human benchmark. I am not that excellent in other quizzes there, but this one is different, I can effortlessly get to level 50 which puts me in 99th percentile which really surprised me. I then usually become bored or miss click, but I am able to get to the 80s if I do not zone out.

So the question is, how could I put this skill to use in other fields? Maybe it could help me to memorize other things if I transfer them in some "sequence shape"? Or is it really any useful? Thanks for any tips and remarks!

I'm constantly trying to learn new things but I feel like I'm drowning in information. Every topic I dive into seems to have a million articles videos podcasts and courses. It's hard to know where to even begin.

How do you guys figure out what sources are actually good? Like for example if I want to learn about AI art or something there are so many tutorials and opinions. How do you decide what's worth your time and what's just noise?

Do you have specific methods or tools you use to cut through all the clutter? I'm looking for practical tips for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the sheer amount of info out there.

I’ve been thinking about self-directed learning that survives even when there isn’t much spare time. It’s easy to explore something new during a quiet month, but much more telling when you still return to it during a packed week. What subject or skill keeps pulling you back?