Student perspective: Learning from your mistakes

Photo of Gloria, the author of this blog postby Gloria Bosi, Bristol Futures Advocate

Hello everyone, my name is Gloria, and I am back with another post (see Even STEM students need a creative outlet). This time, I wanted to discuss the importance of learning from our mistakes, both big and small.

One of the most difficult aspects of attending university is embracing the process of continuous change and growth. As we study to become professionals in our fields, we must be quick to accept our mistakes, adapt, and learn from them. When we are lucky, this requires little adjustment in our way of thinking. Other times, we may find that we have spent months consolidating our knowledge of a wrong idea or concept. We may learn something so significant, that it requires a profound change in the way we approach a problem or perceive a reality. Although this can be difficult, we must appreciate that it is part of the fun.

Having a strategy for learning from these mistakes can be quite useful. To help you with this, I wanted to share my process for ensuring that I do not keep falling for the same tricks. This can be summarized by the following steps:

1. Keeping a record for reference
I like to think of this as a sort of “diary of doom”, where I keep track of my most frequent mistakes. In reality, it is as simple as a bulleted list in the Notes app of my computer. This can be done in various other apps or websites, such as Quizlet. This list tends to grow when I am solving a problem sheet, for example. It this case, it is not sufficient to write down the number of the question I got wrong, but I must also supply a brief explanation as to why.

2. Identifying the source of the misunderstanding
Once you are able to look at the collection of your errors, you can try to identify some trends. Ask yourself:

  • Do these points have something in common?
  • Can they be traced back to a fundamental concept or idea that I missed

Pinpointing the source of the mistake can be time-consuming, but it is essential to stop it from recurring. To make this easier, you may need to scavenge through some of your old notes or resources.

3. Investing time to unlearn
After identifying the wrong idea that has been cementing itself in your brain, you want to get rid of it once and for all. Indeed, you must unlearn it. I find that this can be done in two steps:

i. Dissecting your mistake and breaking down all the reasons it was wrong. Convince yourself to reject the idea from this point forward.

ii. Recalling your mistake frequently as you study the subject. In fact, I find that reviewing my mistakes is almost as important as studying the subject itself. This is why keeping a record is so useful.

4. Linking back to the bigger picture
After unlearning the erroneous idea, it is time accept the correct one. Ask yourself:

  • How does this new idea fit within the rest of my existing knowledge?
  • In what ways has my understanding improved by rejecting my old idea?

In reality, this process is a lot less involved than it sounds. Most of the time, it is fairly easy to identify where we have gone wrong. The important thing, however, is what we do with this information. Every learner is different, so you should feel free to take this process and change it in whatever way suits you best. I hope it helps!

Thank you for reading! Leave a comment to let us know your strategy for learning from your mistakes.

Student perspective: Even STEM students need a creative outlet

Photo of Gloria, the author of the post, holding paper and paintbrushesby Gloria Bosi, Bristol Futures Advocate

Hello everyone, my name is Gloria, and I am a 2nd year mechanical engineering student. After picking up painting as my lockdown hobby, I noticed a significant improvement in my ability to focus on my coursework. This inspired me to write this blog post.

As STEM students, we are often taught the most pragmatic approaches to problem-solving. The ones which, like mathematics, involve standard procedures or logical successions of operations. Hence, the greatest mistake we can make is to get stuck in a cycle of mindlessly applying physical laws or equations, without appreciating their significance or exercising our creativity in any way. This would only teach us to approach problems in a machinelike manner, and we already have computers for that. A creative mind is a flexible one, which can think for itself and overcome obstacles more effectively. For these reasons, I will try to persuade you to invest some time in an artistic outlet, if you are not doing so already. Here I summarize what, in my opinion, are the key advantages:

Painting in a sketchbook showing the rough outlines of buildings and palm tree against a sunset background

1. Improved mental well-being.
As you may already know, arts and crafts are often described as natural anti-depressants, because they cause the brain to release dopamine, the chemical of happiness. More specifically, creative activities like drawing and painting can increase levels of cortisol, which is the hormone that the body releases in response to stress. In other words, engaging in creative activities can
improve our mental well-being, making us feel more relaxed and content. This can help you let go of that stress from your most recent assignment!

2. Developing employability skills
If you are not yet convinced, making space for art can help us develop highly employable skills. For example, the process of crafting something with our own hands can improve our self-efficacy, which is our belief in our ability to succeed in a certain situation. Psychologists claim that a strong sense of self-efficacy improves our resilience and shapes the way we overcome challenges. These are crucial skills for the workplace, and to survive the pandemic.

3. Improved focus (flow)
As you probably know, our nervous system can only process a limited amount of information at a time, which is why some people find it particularly difficult to multi-task. When someone starts
creating, and focusing solely on their creation, they forget themselves and their surroundings for a while. Their attention is at full capacity, and their brain is stimulated at just the right level. This
phenomenon is known as flow. With enough practice, one can learn to use creative activities to elicit flow, and then channel it towards their other academic responsibilities. This can help you
get motivated to start the assignment that you have been procrastinating on! All it takes is a bit of time for habit formation.

We all need balance. I believe that an artistic outlet or hobby can help you find the right balance to be able to focus, feel, and perform better.

If you are not sure where to start, here is a list of things you can try, even just occasionally:

  • Drawing or painting – this is what I do. I used to be terrible at it, but improvement is almost unavoidable with enough practice. Check out the pictures of my paintings embedded in the post. I will let you guess which one was my first one, and which was my last.
  • Ceramics – perhaps requires a few more supplies.
  • Blackout poetry – very simple to do if you’ve got lots of old books. I highly suggest you
    google it if you are not familiar.
  • Journaling – easy to do on a regular basis.
  • Creative writing – this one is a bit more involved, and probably requires more time.
  • Knitting – you might already have the supplies in your house without even knowing.
  • Cooking and baking – this one requires talent that I do not have.
  • Gardening – ever tried growing potato sprouts?

Thank you for reading, and let us know what creative activity you will be trying in the comments!