So I've been taking online courses on the side for the last little while, including the author's often recommended, Learning How to Learn. I guess I was spurred

So I've been taking online courses on the side for the last little while, including the author's often recommended, Learning How to Learn. I guess I was spurred on because I felt like I wanted to use my spare time doing something outside of playing games during the winter. I have to say that watching lectures on Khan Academy, Udacity, or YouTube rekindled my love of learning. Now, I look forward to a block of spare time when I can watch a video and test out my knowledge by practicing on various quizzes from university sources, or by picking up a book with harder examples. And of course, one major advantage is that if I get stuck on a term or concept, I can rewind the lecture, or search on Google for more explanation, or find yet another YouTube video with another take on it. And if I get stuck, I recognize to take one step back and take a refresher on more fundamental concepts. I think that's why I prefer it over being back in school where the quality and personal connection to the teacher varied so heavily, and the class/course just kept going regardless of your comprehension. We all know those one or two teachers growing up who were so exceptionally bad at teaching a particular subject that it's quite probable some students stopped going in a certain path because of that struggle. Just look up popular math or biology videos, and you'll find students who leave comments like, "Wow you just explained in five minutes what my teacher/prof tried teaching me for x months." I know so many smart people who don't think they could excel in variety of subjects because of bad experiences in school, treating it like a mark of permanence. And it didn't help that some teachers honestly believed if you didn't get it then, well tough luck, you're hopeless. I still much prefer in-class instructions, largely for the communal experience of learning with others and because the curriculum tends to be more rigorous than online courses. But I find online videos, and write-ups far more effective at teaching me complex things over the average teacher/professor. And one can sometimes make up the difference in difficulty by taking up personal projects or finding difficult quizzes/tests online.