you can find it pretty much everywhere. Sometimes it sticks and sometimes it doesn’t. In the summer you can’t be sure if it was ever there or not, but it eventually comes back.
PFK – wikipedia.org
The act of learning, or acquiring knowledge is a bit more difficult to describe. It’s different for everyone, since we all have distinct experiences to relate new information to. The aptitude people have for learning things differs too. Personally, I probably wouldn’t pay much attention if someone was trying to teach me twitter or instagram or something because I wouldn’t care to remember it. On the other hand, if I was trying to explain how phosphofructokinase is essential to cellular metabolism, most people wouldn’t care to remember it.
Some things I just find difficult to focus on. During my Liberal Arts Seminar, I really liked
the professor, but found it hard to retain the knowledge about dance and theatre (good thing the point of the class was to learn how to think instead of memorizing facts.) I can
more easily retain stuff that I consider helpful to my future. This could be anything from the obvious chemistry and biology, to improvements in running technique, to handy street skills. (Occasionally I pretend to be Sherlock Holmes and fool myself into thinking that everything will eventually be useful, though I’m still not sure how I managed to make that work for Calc III)
Regardless of our desires or interests, we all have to learn things that aren’t up our alley. For me, there’s certain things I can do that make it easier. In running, I am more apt to get better when I have goal times or measurable improvement. If I’m stressing over a quiz, it really helps to remember that it is just a stepping stone on path to the final, which is a stepping stone to something else. Basically, I continuously remind myself of the bigger picture.
Maybe I’ve grown to be this type of learner because I’m more active than I used to be, but it is particularly helpful for me to physically investigate material. I was one of those kids
AP Chem, synthesis of a photoactive material
that played for hours with molecule model sets (even if I was just building spaceships,)
electing to create a diorama or a model, or anything 3D. It makes an unforgettable impression when you can not only imagine a concept, but manipulate it. Perhaps that’s why I’m so fond of the sciences, and why my three hour lab classes seem to go by faster than the walk there.
Of course, the conditions might be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I’ll learn it. Motivation to learn is a pretty tricky thing. There’s so much to do other than be productive – movies, video games, websurfing… The sad irony is that in order for those distractions to have been created, somebody somewhere had to have been highly productive. How do I beat that game, and move onto more meaningful moves? To be honest, when I was younger I worked hard in everything to get approval from adults (parents, teachers, etc.) As I grew up I wasn’t hung up so much on what others thought of me, so I had to find another reason to keep at it. That’s when I started figuring out what I want in life, and what I need to do to get there. In groups motivation is a lot easier because I know other people are counting on me, but in solitary assignments, reminding myself of the ultimate goal works out well.
Confront Your Reflection 
It’s so encouraging to see the process you take in completing your assignments. I will definitely start using these methods when I get discouraged in the middle of my business law homework!
So did you find you learned anything useful in your liberal arts seminar? I found mine to be decidedly unhelpful.
I did feel like I learned a lot in my LAS class. Mostly I felt like I learned better how to research and how to critically think, both skills that can help me later. I found the class to be pretty challenging overall.
No two people learn in the same exact way. What is interesting for one person might seem unthinkably boring for another. Motivation can work this way as well. People have different reasons for doing the same action. For example, you wrote “I can more easily retain stuff that I consider helpful to my future.” This might be because you consider it more important than other info because it will probably help you out later in life in your career. Reasons for learning can come from values and morals or something far more fleeting, like a random urge to learn.