SCI WEEKLY - My routine to stay up to date in the science world
Deliberate practice, satisfying curiosity and enjoying the journey of learning
This year I am starting a Msc in Chemistry and I want to be more prepared for it. So I am restarting my weekly routine of learning about chemistry on my own terms. Here’s what I do each week.
Sci weekly is a 2-3 hr block of time where I focus on learning and reading about science on my own terms. Its one of my goals this year to “become a master of science both inside and outside of the classroom”. This is one way of meeting that goal and also finding some joy and curiosity in science even when uni gets tough.
Sci weekly involves a few different activities that help me stay current in my field of science: chemistry; while also learning and being curious.
Deliberate Practice
The first activity I do is reading a journal article (or part of one) on chemistry. This is inspired by a concept Cal Newport discusses in his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” which is the concept of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is a type of practice which is systematic and hard work. In the book he discusses how each week he summarizes a paper relevant to his research and adds it to a document he calls his research bible. I take part in a similar activity however I am more focused on learning and gaining knowledge about science.
I do this to stay current with new developments in chemistry while also understanding amazing research that was done in the past. Another reason is to develop my reading and analysis skills when it comes to academic literature. I feel like I didn’t learn well enough in my bachelors degree. I definitely need to improve my reading and analysis skills and what better way than reading academic papers and then summarising them.
Chemistry Curiosity
Another part of sci weekly is what I love to call “chemistry curiosity”. This involves picking a famous chemist, an element or an important discovery in chemistry history and spending some time doing a deep dive on that subject, learning everything I can. I like to summarize my findings in a document so that I can refer back to it if I need to in the future. This activity is mostly for fun and to indulge my curiosity. But I also love to have more chemistry knowledge and know unusual facts.
Pop Sci
The final activity I love to do is reading a few chapters from a popular science book. Currently I’m reading Stephen Hawking’s: ‘Brief Answers to the Big Questions’. I love reading pop science books as they are easy to read and allow me to learn about a science concept or subject I know nothing about. Reading pop sci books also brings out my enthusiasm and joy for science. Studying science can get heavy at times having to learn and understand complex topics within a short amount of time. Pop science makes science fun and easy. And I love that.
Another activity I started to do last year was listening to science courses on audiobook. I found one course which was an Intro to Psychology. I had never taken a course on psychology so it was fun and interesting to learn about a subject I knew nothing about. The course was very research based, it explained studies and quoted from journal articles which I could go back and read if I was interested to learn more on that subject.
Chemistry Compendium
Bringing together all of these activities is one single habit: the habit of notetaking. Note taking helps me to understand and distil all the science I am learning. Depending on the circumstance I either write notes by hand (if it's my thoughts or ideas or a theory). Whereas if I’m summarising a book or writing notes and facts on a specific subject I will write those on my computer in a document. I call this document my chemistry compendium as it sounds cool and important.
Well its time for me to do my first sci weekly session of the year (I had a break over the summer) and so I must finish up this post here. Please let me know if you liked this idea, maybe one day I’ll share some excerpts from my chemistry compendium!