Learning, as the name indicates has lot many meanings as to which source one would
choose to understand things of his own interest. Books have always been an inevitable
part of one's life as they have the ability to make people aware of the different things
happening in our world. It is said that not everything that is learned is contained in books.
This is in fact true because books can offer us knowledge regarding the things that have
happened and sometimes the ways to deal with a situation that one can encounter in his
life. I would appreciate the fact that the knowledge gained from experience is much more
important than that we receive from books. I would like to further illustrate my reasons as
follows:
Everyone would admit the fact that knowledge gained from experience is one that
remains in our mind forever. It is correctly said, "Experience is the teacher of man."
Being a science student, I have gone through different books where we come across
different reactions and experiments, where the results will be shown in the form of
diagrams or may be expressed in a simple language. Unless we conduct that experiment
we will not know the problems or the difficulties we will have to overcome during the
experiments. Textbook knowledge is merely a description of facts and outcomes, whereas
the same knowledge when gained through experience teaches us a lot, right from the start
till the end and its a journey through the various aspects of one process which one might
not be aware of and might not be described in the books.
During my undergraduate years I had only knowledge from books and I used to wonder
how the experiments are designed and how they are carried out. But, during my post
graduate days I had to do a two month nutritional trial on fishes where I had to cope up
with everything like procuring tubs and fishes, arranging aeration facilities, preparation
of food for the fishes, daily water exchange, samplings, analysis and so on. Now, I am
confident of carrying out similar works and the experience that I have gained will remain
with me as long as I live. When similar instances occur, we will have more selfconfidence
and when such aspects are passed on to our juniors, they would also feel
happy and confident.
Needless to say books are also very important. What I have mentioned is from my
viewpoint as a science student. There are many different subjects where the conduct of
work is tough and in such circumstances we gain information from books. Some aspects
would be time consuming and tedious and performing such a work with a limited period
of time would not be feasible. In such cases, books definitely open a person's eye towards
various aspects and give him first hand information about what he wants to know.
A person who has learned from experience never forgets what has happened and if it was
proved a bad thing then he would certainly try to avoid that situation in the future. If
something good has happened then he will put his best to further improve it; that in turn
will enhance his skill and boost his self-esteem. Knowledge gained by experience can be
passed over to others who also are supposed to face the same situation and that helps the
person to be aware of what he intends to do. He can even avoid those factors that can
affect his performance.
In fact I would rather say that knowledge gained from experience lingers in our minds
forever and that boosts our confidence when taking up a similar task. On the other hand,
the fact that books are knowledge providers cannot be ignored, because books provide us
with lot more information about the different things that are very difficult to be
experienced. Hence it can be concluded that knowledge gained from books is second
hand knowledge whereas knowledge that are gained from experience is firsthand and it
takes a person through the different hidden intricacies of the task and makes him learn the
knowledge in a practical manner.
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