Learning

ML20: Scott Young on Ultralearning Projects, the MIT Challenge and The Year Without English

Discover the core skills needed to become a self-directed learner, the advantages of different media sources for MetaLearning and the key principles that cognitive science has proven help people learn faster and more efficiently.

Nasos Papadopoulos

12 May 2017 • 1 min read

Scott Young is a lifelong learner and online entrepreneur who runs the business ScottHYoung.com where he tries to answer the question: “What’s the best way to learn?” through free articles, and a series of books and courses.

In a world of limitless access to information, it's become possible for all of us to direct our own learning like never before. And Scott is a great example of someone doing this - taking on ambitious ultra learning projects which include:

The MIT Challenge, where he successfully learned MIT’s 4-year computer science curriculum in a year without taking classes
The Year Without English, where he travelled the world with a friend to learn four languages in a year – Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin and Korean.

In this episode we discuss a wide range of topics including:

- The core skills and habits someone needs to become a self directed learner
- The advantages/disadvantages of the different forms of media for learning like blogs vs books and podcasts vs videos
- The principles that cognitive science has proven help people learn faster

So whether you're building a business, learning a language or learning to code, this episode will give you the tools and techniques needed to direct your own ultralearning project.