The "I'm a fast learner" attitude covers only a portion of your competence when it comes to learning. Basically, you should at least assess yourself with these questions:
How much have you learned so far?
How well you can teach yourself?
How efficient you are in applying what has been learned?
How do you take care of your brain?
How much have you learned so far?
- The world does not work on enumerations. Terminologies can be reviewed again from references. Meaningless details either cloud your judgment or just plainly distracts you.
- If you learned it with quality, you will not have a problem explaining an idea you learned 5 years ago.
How well you can teach yourself?
- If you are confused, you just have to find how it fits the big picture. No matter how complex that is, it still started from something so simple. Therefore, master the fundamentals first.
How efficient you are in applying what has been learned?
- Being resourceful and still be creative. What are you able to produce with limited information?
- Remember that knowledge and wisdom are two different things.
How do you take care of your brain?
- Again, information overload is not healthy.
- Multitask at your own risk. As it turns out, parallel computing does not apply on humans. Technically, it is just "task-switching" and it is inefficient because it usually produces low quality output.
- Ask wisely. If it starts with "why" or "how", try to figure it yourself as much as possible. Your learning ability must not create a dependency from other people.
