For some reason, I have been holding myself to some wild expectation that every blog I write should be the most profound and lengthy piece of text there ever was, something that would ultimately shift the tech paradigm on its head. Why I added this constraint to myself, I have no idea! Here's to a short but hopefully helpful banger.
As I continue on my job hunting journey, I have come across some amazing opportunities, but there may be a library or language listed in the job description that I have not worked with. I apply anyway, since I meet more than half of the qualifications. I make it a point to mention my lack of professional experience using [insert tech stack here] in my cover letters, but I’m confident that I can produce production-ready code within two weeks. I can confidently say this because I’ve learned how to learn.
I’m part of several online communities. One of them is 100 Devs, led by community member Leon Noel, who is hands down an exceptional teacher! Exceptional not only in his technical knowledge, but he teaches with empathy and is very resourceful.
One of the first homework assignments he gives is Barbara Oakley’s Coursera course, Learning How to Learn. This has been such a game changer for me, and as a former teacher, I wish I had known about this course so I could have implemented similar methods with my students. I especially loved understanding what goes on under the hood in my brain as learning takes place.
The real game changer, though, has been this flashcard app called Anki, which has a pretty nifty algorithm underneath it. You can download it for free on desktop. As you go through the cards, you tell it how easy or difficult it was to answer each one. The more difficult the question is for you, the more frequently it will show up. I have some cards that I won’t see again for over a year! This ensures that you truly never forget what you’re learning, because you’re actively recalling the information through spaced repetition.
Spaced repetition and active recall are the magic that makes learning stick. There are studies showing that people who practiced active recall right after learning something did four times better on a test than those who just reviewed their notes. I like those statistics.
To make the most of your cards, try asking questions instead of just writing definitions so you can practice active recall and really test yourself. It’s definitely slow and painful in the beginning, especially with a brand new subject, but things have been sticking a lot better overall. I have fallen off the consistency train a couple of times over the last year, but right now I can honestly say I have been going through my Anki deck every day and am on a two month streak!
So, back to my opening point about applying to roles where I don’t meet all the qualifications. There was a particular role that had React on the frontend and Ruby on Rails on the backend. The job was open source software, so I cloned the app and was able to get the repo running locally, but I had absolutely no idea what I was doing once the app started up. Before I could even jump into a Ruby on Rails project, I figured it would be best to learn Ruby first.
I’ve gotta say, it’s been such a joy learning Ruby. While I’ve yet to create a production ready application, learning object oriented programming in a different flavor (I only knew JavaScript before) has been incredibly fun. The syntax is enjoyable, the naming of some of the methods is cute, and although I didn’t get the role, I’m still going to continue learning Ruby.
You can check out the Coursera course Learning How to Learn here. Be sure to also check out the The Programming Podcast where Leon and Danny interview Barabara Oakley! You can also find YouTube videos that show how to implement active recall and spaced repetition with Anki here and here. And if you’re like me and don’t pay for YouTube, be sure to watch these videos and all future videos in the Brave browser because it blocks ads. Thank me later!
