Getting the most out of training

How much do you learn subconsciously? Or rather, once you think you've learnt something, how long before you 'know' it?

I'm a bit of a serial learner – always taking some course or other. And last year was no exception. I was busily engaged in a programming course. Or at least, I should have been. Multiple house moves meant that the course took a bit of a back seat. And when the time for the final exam came around, I was far from ready.

So I did what students everywhere do – I crammed like mad for two weeks. And it worked. Well, it sort of worked. I ended up with a very respectable mark – not quite what I'd hoped for, but not bad at all. One question had stumped me, though. So much so that I was convinced there was some mistake in the paper. In the end, I gave up on it and tried a different one instead, wasting valuable time. I thought it through a couple of times after the exam, still convinced that there was something wrong with it. Then I forgot about it.

Nervous about the results, I couldn't bring myself to look at any of the course materials for at least a couple of months. When I finally got my mark, though, I decided to have one last look at that problem question.

It was easy. I could have done it in a matter of minutes. This was after not even thinking about the subject matter for weeks.

I think there are two lessons in this. For me, the most important one was not to leave it to the last minute! Cramming over a couple of weeks is no substitute for learning steadily. The second was more interesting, though. Maybe this works only for me (so don't rely on this!), but even though I had all the information in time for the exam, it really took more time for it to sink in. During that time, I didn't think about it (at least, not consciously), which made me wonder: how much does your subconscious work away at assimilating information once you've acquired it?