Tag: learning

I’d like to announce a new series and category I’m writing on this blog. The category is “Learning”, which is a very broad word, but here it means sharing my own learning process. I’m going to focus especially on topics that I used to think were out of reach for me to learn. I’ll cover how I learned topics such as Java and Android development for my new full-time (paying!) job, self-management that works for me, making electrical circuits that work, entering the huge world of 3D printing, and so on.

To give a little bit of context without giving to much away (more to share in this series), I have a TA at my current job, where my current full-time job is to learn as much as I can about application development and working in teams to deliver. Today the TA and I sat down for an hour and talked about feedback he’d written about me after I completed a project last week. He wrote, “I have not seen him expose his ignorance.” That got me to thinking—I don’t really expose my ignorance. I don’t really let others, especially those who care for me or those who are trying to help me learn, know where I need help. I try to take on everything myself, and I don’t share the struggle. We also discussed how I don’t even have a feel for the boundaries of my “learning zone”, that is, the zone between comfort and drowning. I’ll be reflecting on this as I try to find those boundaries.

This series then is about sharing the struggle of learning. Learning is hardly ever easy, but it’s fulfilling. I do share my successes when I get there, but I notice that I haven’t been creating or writing much in recent times, and I think that’s because I don’t have much to share as a “success”. Learning is intrinsically valuable even without “success”. I’m learning, and there’s lots of failure on the path of learning. But I’m starting to accept that. This series will be a reflection of what works and what doesn’t for me. There will be lots about failure. Perhaps my readers will find value in that. Even if they don’t, it’s therapeutic for me to expose my ignorance for my own sake.

A long journey ahead,
Art