Continuous learning
Information Technology (IT) is constantly changing and it is important for technology workers to keep up with these changes. Today continuous learning is NOT an option BUT a necessity to maintain employment and career growth. To keep their jobs in technology industry, workers must have a broad knowledge of industry trends, market trends, technology trends, and social trends to select the right trainings for their lifelong learning. Most companies always encourage workers to improve their skills and often pay for these trainings. On the average, companies in Scandinavia, Japan, S. Korea and Singapore spend 8% of their annual budget on employees training. U.S. companies spend about 6%; and Western European countries spend 3% on training. In places that provide trainings like schools and universities, continuous training is considered a high priority. Most university professors often go to conferences and seminars of their interests to learn new things. It is common for university professors to go to seminars or workshops at other universities to improve their skills. Each summer, I often go to Stanford and Georgia Tech. for additional trainings and many professors from other schools also attend my seminars at CMU.
Today there are many learning opportunities provided in short courses, certificate trainings, workshops, seminars, and technical conferences etc. By frequently participate in these trainings, workers can keep their skills current with technology changes and maintain a momentum to their lifelong learning. Basically, new knowledge is acquired via three steps: aware, understand, and retain. BUT skills can only be developed when new knowledge is applied and integrated into existing skills. There are several learning methods associated with knowledge retention and skills development. Lecture type of learning only has a retention of 5% to 10% but 0% of skills development as people may not pay attention to what they hear during lecture and may not remember what was taught after leaving the courses. Reading books and magazines have a retention of 10% to 20% but also 0% skills development as people may read many things BUT only understand and retain something that interest them. Group discussion and teamwork have retention of 30% to 50% and 10% skill development as people must understand the new knowledge and be able to explain it well. Learning by Doing method have retention of 50% to 80% AND 50% to 80% skills development as people must know it well in order to apply it to something. Hand-on practices have retention of 80% to 90% and 90% skills development as people must focus on doing something based on what they know well. Teaching others has retention of 95% and 95% of skills development as people must know something well, but they must be able to teach others on how to do it.
I often advise students to spend at least half an hour each day to read newspapers, magazines and blogs to broaden their knowledge. Since they are still in school, they should pay more attention to market trends, business trends, and social trends to broaden their overall knowledge. To graduates who are working in the industry, I advise them to focus on technology trends, global trends, and market trends to plan and advance their career accordingly. They should continue to learn by taking training courses, seminars or attend conference at least once a year to keep their learning momentum active. If they go to work but not actively learning something new, they will become lazy and eventually find it difficult to learn new things. Without keeping their skills current with changes, they may not be able to keep their job when new technology emerges.
Most U.S. universities offer short training courses, seminars, and workshops for working people. Each year many graduates go back to school to improve their skills. These trainings are often focus on particular skills based on hand-on practices or “learning by doing” to address specific needs of the industry. This summer I teach a seminar on Big Data analytics and enrollment has exceeded the plan. The school expects 20 to 40 people but over 130 people enrolled. That means they understand the industry’s current need and take action to improve their skills. Technical conferences are another good learning opportunities as they offer a variety of topics in one place. Most conferences also offer full day workshops, tutorials to keep attendances informed about technology trends.
Certification trainings are another valuable learning opportunity in a wide range of topics. However, some training programs have been questioned by the industry as there are good training companies and “Not ethical company” where they do not teach anything and issue certificates without qualify workers to do anything As with all learning opportunities, when considering certification trainings, workers must assess how effectively is the training in improving their skills. It is your money, your time, and your future, so you must select training company carefully.
Beside formal trainings, there are many informal trainings such as books, magazines, websites, blogs, wiki, and online tutorials etc. that can broaden workers knowledge. The issue is how many workers are taking advantage of these reading sources? How many workers are reading this information on a regular basis?
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
