In college I told my teachers that I did not understand some of the subjects. They said "What do you mean? You got all the test questions right. You got high grades on homework. Your computer programs run correctly. Of course you understand it!" All I could do was reply "But, I dont REALLY understand it." It was frustrating. Sometimes I took courses over again, even though I had passed the first time with perfect marks, until I could grok.
I don't know how to explain it. I guess it is like saying I don't know how a calculator works. I understand how to press the buttons to get answers. But I need to understand how the calculator does it, how signals pass through the chip and how the logic is mapped. Not until then do I feel it really understand it.
Anyone else had this issue?
Before I wished that I understood the subjects better, but after finding that the other students infact understood the subjects worse than me it seemed kind of pointless.
other students infact understood the subjects worse than me
I eventually noticed that. It's easy to assume everyone else gets it. Especially if they turn in their test papers faster. Then you find out they got low marks. I get so upset when I feel I'm not getting it.
When I was in high school it was pretty much the opposite for me... A thorough understanding of the subject material but low grades in the class (if it was a subject that I'm not obsessed with). I think a lot of the classes in college are much easier.
silky check out my thread "Living in the Now..." about memory. That's exactly what I went through even though there were phases where I didn't get *very* high grades, in high school, college and especially uni later, when it just got too complex or there was too much on for me to keep track of everything.
Also, for me, it's like I am echolalic in everything I do, things that people understand pretty quickly, I only get a very vague grasp of but I can repeat the actions or words that I need to do or say*, but it's only after sometimes many years of actually applying this through "copy and paste" (in programming, actually literally so) that I become truely fluent, and even so I still have little understanding of the stuff in any way that I can communicate to others.
I forwarded that thread to someone, and they in return mentioned not being able to remember even though the memory is in their head usually, but that they seem particlarly good at searching for information instead. I am the same.
This was my reply:
"...again this is precisely how I work. I am highly echolalic but it's only since I started using computers (cut & paste, search engines, speaking in programming languages by patching programs together from bits here and there) that I have become fully able to utilise this skill..."
* Although I have more trouble remembering the words than the actions - it's like with mnemonics for example, in particular those words and rhymes people use to memorise stuff. That's impossible for me because it is easier for me to learn to write or say the original list in the right order, than to remember the word or phrase that is meant to trigger the memory of that list, let alone to build any links between each letter in the acronym and the word or item it represents!
I've got the same problem in my psych class. It 80% class discussion, and since I feel like everyone is dumber than me, I don't learn a thing. I started reading stuff on my own. I suggest finding something in the subject you like and teach yourself about it.
Interestingly enough, I was on both extremes of it - in the same subject! In the high school I made it till the penultimate round of the maths olympiad (only one point separated me for qualification for the national olympiad) though I never thought I understood maths well. Now, at the uni, I seem to understand everything but am quite bad in solving probems...
i sometimes get that feeling that i don't totally get it, but that usually happens in cram time. some other times, i can't really grasp the concept, even though i got an a on an exam. i'm one of those overthinkers...
I never got good grades, but generally felt that I at least understood the material better than the other students. I also retain the information much better.
What helped me to understand the material was to understand the theory behind it. I could never get "use this formula", but I always did well with "this is how we found the formula and this is what it is used for." This way worked best for math and science. It was difficult to obtain that sort of information in many classes though.
What helped me to understand the material was to understand the theory behind it. I could never get "use this formula", but I always did well with "this is how we found the formula and this is what it is used for."
yes i agree
I was like this all through school. Or I would want constantly to know "why," for it to make sense to me. I think I surprised some teachers by wanting to understand the material, not just know for the test (which wasn't because I was necessarily particularly interested in that subject, but because I always want to have the context for things).
Sometimes I had the opposite issue: knowing within myself that I had a reasonably good grasp on the subject but not having it reflected in the marks I got.
For me I think it is a case of gestalt processing. My brain "tries" to swallow the concept whole but is overwhelmed, so it picks out chunks of facts and details here and there, seemingly at random (not sequentially), until something "clicks" and I can feel/see it in my head.
Only when I have an inner landscape or feel for the WHOLE concept and its place in my knowledge can I confidently say I understand it, but it takes a lot more time to build up this landscape than is usually given in school.
I can however often answer questions because the "chunks" I have taken in sometimes get triggered even before I actually understand them, and even though I could not consciously remember and tend to be unable to remember the same thing again afterwards, I can sometimes answer questions and partially understand the subject while answering questions.
Everything else I learn by rote, usually easiest by writing something down over and over - although this creates a lot of problems when it comes to having to orally answer the same questions.