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Old Dec 25, 2012, 04:54 AM
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Oxidopamine Oxidopamine is offline
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Member Since: Jul 2011
Location: Canada
Posts: 293
Right now I'm in a program for computer science and software development. Before the course, I barely knew Java but after one semester, I learned the basics of it. On my own time, I developed a game and am working on another. We never learned making games, I just tried it and keep practicing at it, re-doing the code over and over until it's better.

A totally different suggestion is practicing any instrument. At first, you're going to suck and it may even sound down-right horrid, however, with practice it'll be much better. For me, I chose guitar and play it off-and-on due to course work taking priority. I went from knowing very little to being able to play classical symphony music, blues, metal, jazz and rock.

Another example is cooking. I had very little interest in cooking but I found I was able to solve difficult homework questions while making a meal. I learned to cook more dishes and found it was enjoyable. Additionally, I found I was able to solve more questions or come up with alternative solutions. At first, I burned oatmeal so badly, it couldn't come off and I had to throw away the entire pot. Now, I can make cakes, certain desserts, and entire meals all by myself from scratch.

In terms of what drives me: success. It sounds circular, however, for me, I want to succeed and part of that involves avoiding as many short-cuts as possible. I would try to find someone or a group that is very well-endowed in the field, then find lesser endowed people or groups. My goal would be to become on par with them and once I do, I use previous success at motivation to show myself I was able to overcome something I thought I couldn't. In terms of playing a computer game, I'd rather progress slower, get killed more often but develop skills at the game as opposed to using hacks to quickly get high scores.

The reason I'm flopping from suggestion to suggestion is to show the list of possible activities is almost infinite. You may have no interest in programming, playing an instrument, cooking, or gaming, and that's perfectly fine. All it means is of the nearly infinite list, 4 activities have been scratched out. You can also try doing something you have little to no experience in and perhaps you'll like it or have a natural talent you were previously unaware of.