Lifelong Learners

As graduation day is near, some students told me that after they get their degrees they will not have to worry about study anymore. That is a wrong thinking as learning should be continued to the rest of a person’s life. There are two types of learning: Learning to get a job and learning to be educated. To many students, the purpose of learning is to get a job. Parents also told children to go to school, get degrees, and get jobs so the purpose of learning is narrowed down to simply making a living. However, today a degree is not a guarantee for lifelong living. If you look around, you will find many people with degrees but could not find jobs. That led us to the other type of learning or learning to be educated. In this type of learning, students do not think about getting jobs or making a living but want to be educated. They study because they love to learn and they will continue to learn as much as possible. Of course, they will get degrees, they will get jobs but they aim for more than that. They want to be educated, they want to be a professional, and they want to continue to learn for the rest of their lives because they love learning.

Today the world is dominated by information technology and it changes very fast. No one can predict what will happen next. It is not easy to keep up with technology. Students must understand that a degree is only a key that opens the door to enter the job market. To stay in the job market you need to be educated and be lifelong learners. If you have degree but do not have the skills, you may not be able to get a job. If you do not keep your skills up to date, you may not be able to keep your job for long. Today, there are many people who do not want to learn new skills but only depend on what they know based on what they learned in college. They may not know that after few years they may not be able to keep their jobs as their skills can become obsolete.

As technology changes, the economy becomes more volatile. Companies must compete fiercely for survival but only few companies using the latest technology and best workforce will remain. Technology workers who do not continuously improve their skills will no longer be needed. Technology workers who learn new skills could advance their career quickly because they know something that others do not. Learning new skills is not just for survival but also increasing the opportunity, advancing the career in a competitive market.

There are some people who can learn new skills by themselves. However a better way is to do it in a team. The most successful teams often enjoy learning together where everyone on the team learns new things and share with others. They learn about the business as well as technical skills so they can come up with new ideas, unique solutions that may not occur to people who learn in isolation. Team learning also reduces stress and encourages collaboration. It enables you to foster innovation and be a catalyst for team growth. When you bring new ideas to your team, you challenge other members to think of new and better ways to do things. Knowing that you have new skills will keep you from worrying about losing jobs. When you frequently devote time to learning, you keep your brain active, and you are confident that you can quickly learn anything you need to know.

Laziness is the downfall of many teams. Team members get complacent and often develop bad habits. Many people refuse to learn new things because they think that they already know them. This arrogant attitude is foolish because they will make mistakes and cannot improve the way they do business. Today, there are many companies struggle to survive in the highly competitive environment. Every day, newspapers printed news about certain company filed for bankruptcy and many people lost their jobs. Most failed because their leaders do not know how to adjust their business in this fast changing market. The simple reason is they believe that they already “know something” and do not need to learn new things. Looking into the cause of failures, you may see that many of these companies have not organized according to well defined structures with policies and directions, or follow any process with measurements or feedback loop. Everything is based on personal direction of company owner and management. Without a feedback loop and certain measurements to analyze and predict risks early, the company is not in a position to deal with them when they happen. For example, some software teams ignore defects instead of fixing them. Some even skip testing to save time and hope nobody will know. Without a process in place to identify these issues, the team will deliver bad software then spend all its time fixing defects. As the cost of development increases, customers are not happy and decide to do business with others. Without customers, the company cannot survive.

As individual, you should focus on being educated by continuous learning. By doing that your brain will not slow down, even when you have worked for many years. Your love of learning, your experience, combined with an active brain will allow you to learn new skills, having new ideas, and make you more valuable to any team that you work with. Continuous learning also gives you the opportunity to become part of a group of thinkers. You will rise to be leaders in the place where you learn, teach and reflect on your work. You will share your ideas with other professionals who also love to learn new things. You can discuss with them and expand your dialogues with other innovative thinkers. The cycle of learning continues when one person contributes an idea and someone else improve on it and takes it to a next level. You can share ideas and experiences with others by present it in conferences, seminars, workshops, or even writing articles in blog.

Collaborating with other leaders can help build a successful industry. There are so many opportunities to learn from others as more businesses are distributed around the globe. Being an educated person, you can be prepared not only for the technological aspects of collaboration, but also the cultural differences. Gaining expertise in the business domain of the company where you work enables you to do a better job, as well as help your leaders to solve their problems and structure the company based on best practices. By helping your company organize their business based on global standard, you can rise to a strategic position, trusted by the company owner and management. Being an educated person allows you to provide valuable contributions to your company, to your industry and to your society.

I believe the most important skill today for all students is to challenge yourselves to be lifelong learners. It is the essential skills for all people who want to be educated and that should be the true goal of education.

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University

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