{"id":466,"date":"2012-06-26T09:28:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T16:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/?p=466"},"modified":"2012-06-26T09:29:52","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T16:29:52","slug":"learning-to-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/learning-to-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to learn"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I write this, I\u2019m waiting (literally, waiting on hold) to give a webinar for Swiss Testing Night. It\u2019s a twenty minute presentation \u2013 which I love (see my last post <\/a>for another<\/em> twenty minute presentation from me. I would love to see a test conference filled with nothing but 20-30 minute presentations someday (and would probably even help organize if someone were willing to really do it).<\/p>\n

But this post isn\u2019t about conferences, it\u2019s about learning. These days, I\u2019m a bit obsessed with ideas and learning, and can\u2019t help look for patterns of learning in nearly everything I do. It\u2019s intern season at Microsoft, and we have a few dozen eager young faces floating around the hallways making great things happen. As part of their experience here, the interns are invited to a weekly lecture series on a variety of topics \u2013 including a talk from me later this summer. I haven\u2019t settled on a topic yet, but I expect it will be something along the lines of how what you learn at university probably won\u2019t help you in the real world \u2013 the point being that the bits of facts and knowledge will help<\/em>, but knowing how to learn<\/em> is the most critical knowledge one can gain at university. I\u2019ll find some ways to make sure the message works without sounding too much like a crazy old man, but we\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I had a great visit with a computer science student at a university in Georgia, and I had a wonderful conversation on this same topic I\u2019m on the alumni board for the school of Arts and Humanities at my alma mater (Central Washington University). Last  week, the chair of the music department emailed me (we\u2019ve met once before) and asked me if I could talk to his son (the CS major mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph). They came over yesterday for a quick visit and chat. Over lunch, and during our tour, we talked a lot about the power of learning, systems thinking, and critical thinking. I\u2019ve interviewed MIT grads who could practically recite a textbook, but couldn\u2019t think<\/em> \u2013 so it was great to talk to this kid studying computer science at a liberal arts school who seemed to already have a grasp of how he fits into the real-world.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve said this before, but it\u2019s worth stating again. Programming is easy \u2013 especially with the languages available today. What\u2019s really hard is implementing the right<\/em> program, or writing code to solve the problem in the right<\/em> way. This is true for applications as much as for test automation \u2013 and you need to use your brain and learning skills to have a chance for success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write this, I\u2019m waiting (literally, waiting on hold) to give a webinar for Swiss Testing Night. It\u2019s a twenty minute presentation \u2013 which I love (see my last post for another twenty minute presentation from me. I would love to see a test conference filled with nothing but 20-30 minute presentations someday (and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}