Learning curve
Learning curve
(OP)
In the practical/industrial world experiences, what would be an engineer's learning curve looks like. At what stage does an engineer stop/start to slow down learning process. I know that this is very subjective to the engineer/s goal, character, etc.
For those of you who has tons of experiences, how do you keep yourself motivated to learn or to ask question?
Just curious,
APH
For those of you who has tons of experiences, how do you keep yourself motivated to learn or to ask question?
Just curious,
APH





RE: Learning curve
How to stay motivated? For me, that just happens, a lifelong personality trait I suppose (as a boy, I would pull out a volume of an encyclopedia, at random, and read it - just like a novel). Teaching continuing education courses, which I started doing part time last year, is a good avenue - preparation for a course, from scratch, is a real challenge. The challenge is to take "something" that you understand and "boil it down" into a form that can be communicated effectively.
RE: Learning curve
RE: Learning curve
If you sit at your desk and do your job strictly by email, your learning curve will flatten. (Although I must say one can learn a whole lot surfing the net...)
It's a matter of taste.
RE: Learning curve
Everything I know I've heard someone say--by sitting in meetings, eavesdropping, or just wandering into someone's office and and asking what's up. I've accumulated many little bits of information this way, and I've greatly expanded my circle of people to ask when I don't know. I've been through some formal training but classroom stuff never sinks in any more. It's the things I stumble across in context that I retain. The trick is to put myself within stumbling distance of the knowledge I want.
Hg
RE: Learning curve
This is a very difficult in the US. Despite being a world leader in technology and science, the typical American despises someone who would rather read Photonics Spectra and thinks they need a "life." Makes you wonder about someone who thinks that it's more important to know Hank Aaron's batting average by season rather than to know what the state of the art in engineering is.
TTFN
RE: Learning curve
Seriously, USAn culture is extremely anti-intellectual. It's at the heart of a lot of what I think is wrong with this country, all of which is off-topic. But what's relevant here is IRstuff's point about being motivated to know what one should. There's pressure against doing well in school before one ever heads off to college, and then lesser but still-extant levels of anti-intellectualism in college and then in the professional world.
Sad.
Hg
RE: Learning curve
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com
RE: Learning curve
APH
RE: Learning curve
Four years ago I thought I'd pretty much learnt as much as I could (within various external constraints) in the field I usually worked in, realised that, and got a job in a whole different area.
The new job has been an excellent learning opportunity and my interest in work has jumped by at least one hundred percent.
If I'm not learning (which means making mistakes) then I'm on the verge of being bored.
Cheers
Greg Locock
RE: Learning curve
RE: Learning curve
As we age we plateau. I no longer seek to attend lots of seminars or read lots of papers on an abstract basis. However, I gather and read lots of stuff when my project has unfamiliar requirements.
John
RE: Learning curve
That said, even the narrowly defined area of steel bridges is broad enough that the parts I don't routinely deal with I have to work at to maintain a slight clue.