My Journey of Learning New Technology

A few months ago, I taught myself SketchUp, a CAD program. And, last month, I registered for a series of courses to earn a certificate in Data Science. The classes are focusing on spreadsheets, SQL, tableau, and r-programming. I have completed five of the eight classes. I am very familiar with spreadsheets so most of that content is a review, however, the other topics are completely new to me. The content has covered SQL so far, but not the other two.

I have been on this journey to learn new software and technologies. One of the reasons, I took the classes was to be able to put myself in your shoes. So, I could help better with your learning process. There are a few things I learned that I want to share with you.

1. Engage with the content.

I find when I really focus on the content is when I learn most. I am a fairly lazy learner and want to multitask when I go through a course. However, when I do this I have no idea what the instructors are talking about. When I decide to focus and learn by taking notes and actively listening is when I learn the most. I find this to be hard to do with online classes because there are so many distractions and no peer/teacher pressure to keep me focused on the content. With in-person classes, the teacher and the rest of the students keep each other in check to learn.

2. Practice. Practice. Practice.

When an instructor is demonstrating an example, on good days I will do the example as well and pause/unpause/rewind the video as needed. This really helps when I am expected to do it myself in practice or on the tests.

3. Mistakes are moments to learn.

When I practice, the more I practice, the more mistakes I am likely to make. These mistakes allow me to learn the nuances of the content, which gives me a deeper understanding of the content.

4. I am not a computer and neither are you.

I think this might be the biggest one for all of us. There is all this talk and expectation of maximizing efficiency. However, we are humans, not robots. Is it good to learn a faster, easier way to do something? Of course, it is, however, we most certainly don’t start there. It takes time. I will do it the long way in discrete steps before I learn to do it all once elegantly. I will click on the wrong button and have to hit undo. Some days I will be super-efficient and other days no matter how hard I try I am doing it the long way. I think taking small steps to improve efficiency on a continual basis is more effective than trying to learn all the efficiencies at once. Bite-size learning.

CAD programs, SQL, Tableau, and R-programming are not everyday technologies. The average person has no reason to learn these software programs. However, the things I learned can apply to learning anything. I know most of the time, you just want to accomplish the task, however, learning is a journey. We are humans and not robots.