Lemushroomman - Mushroom Man

Tips on how to study history by an history student

I've had this idea at the back of my mind for a while now. The thing is that as an history student I very often have people ask me for tips on how to approach the subject when they have to study for an exam. Even before university, since I was the history nerd in all my friends groups I had people either ask me for tips, or for help studying the subject, and memorizing stuff. I fully understand that it can be a tough subject, expecially if you don't have a professor that teaches with passion, and that maybe expects you to memorize a bunch of dates without much explaining. If you are used to study other subject, and you only have a couple of history classes, you might find it difficult to approach it, because the study method you normally use doesn't work. So here are a few of my tips on how to approach history, some of them are honestly quite silly, but believe me they truly work.

Aim to understand the processes and not simply memorize everything by heart

This is one of the funamental things about history. I know some teachers don't care and will just tell you to memozire a bunch of dates but that is useless. The true aim of history is to understand the processes that took place in the past, how they are linked to each other, the consequences of actions, etc. Not only you will get more out of what you are studying, but it makes the job much easier. Everything that happened in history was the consequence of a previous action, and has caused something. If you truly understand the passages it will be much easier to remember the course of events.

Understand that events in history are just like the events in the plot of a tv show or a book

I bet that everyone here could write an essay on the full plot and characters of their favourite tv show or book, without looking for any references. Even if the characters are a lot, and have terrible names, you probably remember them all, can tell them apart, and know perfectly everything that happens in the story. History is the exact same thing. The only difference is that usually you don't get a chance to get invested in the characters, and don't really differenciated them. What I have always suggested it to try to see whatever period of history you have to study as a book, or a tv show. The events are the plot of the story, and historical figures are the characters. This point is fully linked to the next two tips, that are all about characterizing historical figures to better remember about them.

Put a face to the name

Look for paintings or pictures of historical figures. being able to imagine them with an actual face is very helpful. You'll find that a lot of historical figures have characteristics that make them recognizable. I truly believe that being able to actually imagine whatever historical figure, helps a lot with remembering whta happened. I fully try to imagine the whole movie in my head when I am studying, and this passage is fundamental.

Look for further silly informations on historical figures

This sounds very stupid but bare with me for a second. This is an additional step to characterize the historical figure you have to learn about. I find that associating them not only to their face, but also to very random informations, can help so much with remembering about them. I strongly believe that the stupidest the information the better, because it will probably be easier to remember, and it's less probable something they have in common with other people. I know for a fact that it's the silly things I will remember (which is something that will come up again in another tip). Here are some examples. Giacomo Leopardi, one of the most famous poets of Italian litterature, known mainly for litteraly inventig cosmic pessimism, hated soup so much as a child, he fully wrote a poem against it. Roman Emperor Claudius is said to have tried to hyde from the praetorian guards that were looking for him to put him in charge of the empire. He thought they were looking for him to murder him, and instead he became emperor. These are just examples, but they are very simple recognizable facts that stay with you and help you to have a full image of the historical figure you are studying.

Picture the events like a movie in your head

You now have fully characterized subjects, and have to learn what they did, and what happened, when reading and then reviewing try to imagine the events as if they were a movie. Fully picture things in your head (again paintings and photographs can help a lot in this step). This association, and the fact that you are linking one event to the next in a sequence will help you memorizing facts.

The sillier the retelling is the better you will remember it

Depending on the subject you are studying this could potentially be controverse. Historical facts are very serious, and they should be percieved as such, not only because it's actual stuff that happened in the past, but also because oftentimes we still have consequences today. But part of me also believes that we should make fun of historical figures sometimes, often it helps with making them smaller, less scary if you will. I won't dwell too much on this subject since is huge, but what I mean with the purpuse of studying history is quite simple. When studying history, expecially if you have a chance to review it with someone, try to retell it in a funny or silly way to each other. I know for a fact that what I remember better about past classes, are the informations on which someone made some kind of joke or stupid comment. I have no idea what's the science about it, but whenever I have helped someone studying (whatever was the subject really) the stupidest ways I explained things the better people seemed to remember them. This is surely quite a silly tip, but believe me when I tell you it works. (Honestly I also personally find that when I get really mad about something that happened, I remember it quite well. So probably the theory is that if there's strong emotions involved you have a better chance to remember facts. And there's a lot in history to get angry at, so keep this in mind too).

On memorizing dates

This is the most dreadful part of studying history for everyone, even for us who actually chose to study the subject. As I said I refuse to see history as a long list of dates to learn by heart, but surely there's important dates to remember, and the periodization is fundamental to understand events. I have different methods. The first is one is to have a specific highlighter that I use only for dates in my notes. I usually use yellow, because it's the strongest colour I own, and it can't be mistaken for whatever other colour I use to highlight other informations. Secondly When there's a big list of dates I like to have a second set of notes, only regadring those dates. I write everything down in chronological order, so that I can see what happened during the same period of time, and write a word/ sentence to describe each fact. Since I usally study long periods of history all togheter I like to divide the list in sections depending on the century. This is very hepful to create smaller groups of dates. After having this list, since there's no other way to remember all of that, I try to repeat it until I memorize it. What I normally do is repeate it at least once a day, much better if I manage twice. Usually I do it as the first thing before reviewing the full set of notes, and then once at the end of my daily studying session. I begin by only reading it outloud (I think reading outloud helps much more so I highly reccomend doing that). When I am starting to memorize things I start switching the order of dates so I read them from the last of the list to the first one. This helps because if you read the same list again and again, you'll start to remember informations mostly because you associate them to the previous and next points. By breaking up the usual order of the list you force yourself to only link date and fact. The last thing is to randomly go through the list and picking, for this same reason. I also would reccomend copying the list multiple times, and trying to rewrite it without looking at the original.

Review with someone who has no clue what you are talking about

This is actually a general study tip that works for any subject. I know it's not possible for everyone, but I highly reccomend finding someone willing to listen to you talking for a couple of hours on what you are studying. The less they know the better, because they will ask you questions. The thing is very simple, if you explain what you are studying to someone who has very little knowledge on the subject, you will be forced to : 1. Be clear in your exposition, 2. Explain clue points, 3. Have a very clear idea of what you are talking about. It's a great exercise to test if you have truly understood the passages, and sometimes it foces you to understand things you are insicure about. It is one of the most useful tips of this list in my personal opinion. This study tecnique has helped me so much in the past, and I still use it to this day. I usually annoy my father with this, who is quite interested in history, so he always challenges me with great questions. I also found that helping someone who is struggling with the class was helpful, because not only I had to understan the passages, but I had to force myself to help someone else understand those same informations for the test. Reviewing out loud on your own is always very importan, but this addition when possible truly changes the game.

This is my very standard set of tips on how to study history. I might think of others in the future, and in that case I will make sure to add them on here, for anyone who needs them.

Untill then I hope that this can be useful for someone out there. If I was unclear on any points, feel free to tell me and ask me for clarifications. Same goes if you have other doubts or a specific problem with studying history. My inbox is always open and I am very happy to be helpful if I can. Studying is fun and all, but it's much easier if we help each other in the process.

I'm sorry it was a super long post, thank you for reading, and good luck with your tests whatever they may be on.

"Animism suggests that we are equally surrounded and enfolded by spirit-beings. The individual and clan-spirits of the rabbits, the pack rats and the snakes all have a stake in things. As do the dead of the land, the faerie hosts, all the invisible people, the Others. The land spirit itself. Add in the wind, the rain, and the sky spirits.

In my biological animist view, we are all cells within the vast body that is the Field. We hunt in order to eat, or simply because hunting is our nature. Some cells gather together to aid one another, some to cast each other out or destroy each other. Some cells are mutations, diseases, dysfunctions, and need to be purged if the larger being is to thrive.

As I am only nominally aware of most of the physical life in and around me, I tend to be even less aware of the spirit ecologies I live in and move through. I am suffering from a huge disability in my ability to sense them. So it is for most of us."

From Six Ways Approaches & Entries for Practical Magic-Red Temple Press (2018) by Aidan Wachter.

800 free Computer Science classes | Comp-Sci Resources ♥

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Link: GitHub - Developer-Y/cs-video-courses: List of Computer Science courses with video lectures

I found this link in a tweet and found the site very helpful! Take full advantage comp sci learners!!!

Have a nice day and happy programming ♥

Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books  that I try to update regularly 

UPDATE because apparently not everyone has seen this yet the new and improved version of this is a MEGA folder

I know there’s so many more urgent things but if you like this resource you may consider buying me a ko-fi to keep this project alive

Lolo: [Thoughtfully] The problem with animism, really, is that once you start considering its implications, everything around you becomes both stranger and more terrifying. It unveils the predatory nature of our existence.

Mabel episode 48

What will the animals think of the human being? Felicia Chiao´s

The ramen noodles crop is coming in nicely in the Icelandic highlands this year!

JK, that's Alectoria ochroleuca

after almost a month and a lot of procrastination, I am happy to finally present: The CSGNF Intro to Programming Manifesto!!!!

PART ONE: SO YOU WANT TO LEARN TO CODE

When discussing learning how to code in general, I think it helps to think of an analogy where writing code is way more like building a car engine than it is writing an essay. When you write a program, especially more sophisticated ones, you’re putting together a lot of individually working parts that either you make yourself (such as functions) or the language provides for you. Debugging is the same way: you can slam out an essay and then look at it later and use the end product to figure out what you need to edit, but if you build a car without testing any of the parts first and it doesn’t turn on you have no idea what part of the engine is giving you trouble. 

One of the biggest “tips” I have is to start with the basics and build fundamental knowledge before jumping straight to big projects! A lot of material online follows the model of “become a software engineer in a week” and starts at a really high level—you’ll have a much easier time long term if you start with computing and coding basics rather than “how to code a first person shooter with no experience.” I really liked TheNewBoston’s introduction to networking series. While networking is very different from programming, they build off of the same fundamental computing concepts, and they also have series on specific languages and frameworks as well. 

Some of those videos are from as early as 2012, which seems like it would be outdated, but while frameworks and some new technologies change, the basic concepts of computer science have stayed the same for like 50 years. The languages I’ve done the most work in (C++ and Python) were first released in 1985 and 1989 respectively! They’ve gone through lots of updates since then but the basic concepts are all still there. 

Another tip I have is to pick an end goal and then learn the programming language that will help you program that project in the end! Once you learn one language it’s pretty easy to pick up other ones, because the concepts of programming translate across all of the major languages. for example, I started learning to code with C++ (about 5ish years ago), and have since done work in C, C#, Python, Java, JavaScript, and some other front end & database technologies. With our car engine analogy, think of like building a Toyota engine vs building a Subaru engine. They probably come together in different ways and utilize different parts, but the basic pieces and patterns are going to translate between the two. 

All that is to say: just choose a language based on what the thing you want to code is! A quick google search can usually give you a good idea of the best one for your project. Do you want your end project to be a Minecraft plug-in or mod? learn Java! Do you want to make a website to talk about how much you love your favorite twitch streamer? Learn HTML! Do you want to write a game in unity? Learn C#!

PART TWO: WHERE DO I LEARN TO CODE?

same

as an aroace, im particularly dangerous, because i wont fuck or marry. i only know how to kill.