My Favourite Learning Resources

I quit my masters in June and since then I have been diving into countless history topics, and loving every single second of it. I want to learn literally everything which is no small task, it will take me the rest of my life. I started with British history (as I know very little), and just went from there.

I realised that I want to learn in a semi-structured way though. I want the freedom to follow my interests, but I like the idea of professional input to help me work out a logical way of doing this, or help me work out what I actually need to know about a topic to get me started.

I found some cool resources so I wanted to put together this quick list of places I’ve got these resources from in case it’s of any use to anyone! I don’t think I’d have referenced any of these in my studies, but I think for casual learners they’re perfect.

Wondrium

I found this randomly one day and it has changed my life. I get to dive into so many different topics in structured courses taught by professionals and really well developed. New content is added all of the time and it’s just so enjoyable to watch. You can also download a pdf coursebook which has references and can be imported into Readwise to highlight which is perfect.

Normally I watch an episode whilst on my walking pad (lifechanger btw!) and if there’s something I want to remember I’ll just put it in Apple notes whilst walking, and then find the relevant section of the pdf later in Readwise.

I pay for the quarterly plan, and so far it’s been worth every penny :)

PBS Channel on Amazon

This is probably a UK only option but we can add a PBS America subscription to our Amazon Prime accounts which I do periodically when I’m in a long documentary mood. There are loads on here. I like to put these on in the background whilst cooking/tidying but often I get to a really good bit and then have to stop what I’m doing to write something down. I can always rewind or take a break to watch something again if I want to.

I could absolutely sit and take notes the entire way through the documentary, but sometimes doing something whilst watching the doc shows me what I’m really interested in/surprised by. The times I have taken notes throughout a whole documentary I have essentially ended up with a script, and actually continually pausing to take notes was not aiding my understanding as I was interrupting the flow. Whereas if I’m doing something elese, it forces me to be more selective with what I put in my notes which I think can be a good thing.

A Level text books

These were actually the first place I looked when I left my masters. I think after 6 months of going in depth into a handful of topics, I realised that actually I want to know about a vast breadth of topics. But working out what I needed to know and finding resources that could put information in some kind of order for me was tricky.

Then I realised I could use syllabuses from A levels (which are the exams some UK students take before going to university aged 18). There are countless options here that cover the breadth of British history and a lot of Western history too. I found these to be in enough to give me an overview of a topic and enough guidance and terminology to dig deeper into an interesting tangent or different viewpoints if I wanted.

I do think it’s important to read around different perspectives though, so I will certainly move beyond these books once I have my grounding.

It’s not just history either, I got a politics book, a geography book and more. There is a LOT of content in them, but it’s not a race to the end, it’s just a guide along the way.

Futurelearn/Coursera

There are some really cool courses affiliated with global universites available either for free or for a monthly cost. I plan to pay monthly for one platform at a time and just go through the courses that are relevant to my interests at the time.

I have a Futurelearn subscription at the moment and have taken courses from lots of different UK universities. They’re not super in depth, but it’s a nice format to learn in.

Fiction/Films

Reading or watching representations of my historical interests has always been my favourite thing to do. Now the PKM nerd in me gets to take notes on these pieces of media and aspects of history, and then I get to organise all that information. It’s the absolute essence of my interests and I love it.

I am exclusively reading historical fiction at the moment, and they often inspire my film choices after, and then the tangents I go on in my research.

There are so many resources out there, across all topics (not just history!) so if you like learning it might be worth a look at some of them!

What are your favourite learning resources?