Not bad. This is a collection of short essays contributed by self-learners that talk about what they did. The actual essays themselves were somewhat lackluster, and I felt like they were missing the actual "how" people did their self-learning, like what kind of structure they used. It talked more about the "what" that they did. In addition, there were only two interviews with self-learned scientists, which was extremely disappointing.
Nonetheless, it was good to get a sense of structure for how to do self-learning. First is deciding whether you want to go for a knowledge-directed learning process or a project-directed learning process. Next, you decide whether you want to do a linear process of learning, like a textbook, or an associative process, which is more random. Then, get a community of people around you to support your learning, which is essential for learning itself as well as staying motivated. That's a good structure.
And to hear that these people were able to be independent learners and gain knowledge as well or even better than others, and go on to be successful in their fields—it's inspiring to hear that.
A few more gems:
• Independent learning != learning alone; just independent of schools. Independent learning is best done with others, and most of the people she interviewed talked about how important community and connections to others was.
• Much as I suspected, the research suggests that intrinsic motivation leads to better learning.
• You can get some of the same benefit of having professors by asking them specific questions or taking them out for lunch. Some will actually respond to this.
• Self-learners have a different view of things than people who went through the traditional process, and thus are creative in a different way versus the traditional folks.
• Read the fuck out of review articles.
• Education, especially for art-based stuff, tries to teach unteachable things or things that are obvious that you could teach yourself.
• To get access to people, a) work in the media, b) have something you can offer them, or c) both.
• Know where to get access to people. Mailing lists are great for this.
• Project-based learning lets you gain mastery *and* a feeling of competence/confidence at the same time. You need a "feedback loop that confirms your work is worth it and keeps you moving forward." (14)