If you're still in school, or out of school, what do you do to refresh your knowledge, stay aware of current developments, and learn new things?

When I was working, it was reading journal articles and (mostly) going to conferences. I also served on a review team for a couple of DARPA programs.

When I was in school it was more about getting up to speed than staying current, but papers and conferences, too.

6 hours ago, Baby Astronaut said:

If you're still in school, or out of school, what do you do to refresh your knowledge, stay aware of current developments, and learn new things?

In this day and age professional people are required to carry out a certain amount of documented 'continued professional development' or CPD each year to maintain their professional status.

This may be achieved by inhouse courses/training by their own employer, by visiting conferences or external training or by attending even9ing lectures from learned societies.
I used to take advantage of foreign holidays to visit installations (like dams, canals or bridges) of interest.
It is suprising what the local custodian will show you around if you ask.

Many establishments like universities, research establishments, living museums, company premises and so on also have open days you can attend.

There are many ways you can be creative about this.

Edited September 24Sep 24 by studiot

Conferences for me but this is legislation rather than science. If a new thing pops up we usually get approached.

For science my degree was biology, the physics did not really start till I was in my 30s.

Chemistry was ok.

Text books and websites since then to learn physics. Some of it that is, there is a lot of it and it's hard!

8 hours ago, Baby Astronaut said:

If you're still in school, or out of school, what do you do to refresh your knowledge, stay aware of current developments, and learn new things?

I think it depends on your motivation, if you want to learn enough to impress your friends, then you could memorise as many abstracts of different paper's as you can and hope that one of them is relevant to the topic your friends are discussing.

Otherwise:

There's an FB page called IFLS (I fucking love science), they post all sorts of interesting science news, and when something pops up that interests you, read on for fun; then you'll be the one leading the conversation, with your friend's, with a deeper understanding, but on fewer topics.