You sit in chemistry 102 for two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays and then attend a three hour lab every Thursday.  By the end of the semester you have been taught a lot about chemistry.  But what's the point?  Will the lessons prepared and presented to you provide you with any useful, applicable information or skills? Too often, we learn things with a bubble mentality, thinking that this information will only be useful in this specific setting, within this type of bubble, and therefore does not require long-term storage in the memory banks.  Other times, we learn things with a vacuum mentality, thinking that this information will only be useful if these exact conditions and exterior circumstances can be replicated, and therefore doesn't demand that we file this away within the mental safe.  The most effective way to learn, to really internalize, any information is to get rid of both of these types of limited-mentalities and ask yourself, "what's the point?".  Ideally lead by the teacher, students who are learning new information should be allowed and encouraged to discover other applications and uses of this information. I recently attended a very informative, motivating conference.  I learned a lot.  But unless I figure out how to use the information I learned, there is no point.  Otherwise, the information just becomes a dust catcher sitting on a shelf.  Getting rid of the bubble and vacuum mentality, and really trying to see the point is important.