Learn Anything: Streamline your skills.[4]
Almost any skill you would like to learn now has a companion website or app, however, considering the cutthroat competition that we are a part of, learning new skills usually comes in handy when they bring in a means to an income. Taking that into consideration, some skills can be divided into the three main streams of education that exist in India- the Arts, Science, and Commerce. Just to give you an idea of what kind of skills one can develop professionally and how they come in handy in said professions, here is a small list of things you may consider learning in any of those three streams.
Arts
Depending on whether you decide to specialize in fine arts, performing arts, or liberal arts, the skills you need to pick up would vary in form and aspect however some skills will help you professionally regardless of the specialization.
Learn how to use Excel
This may seem funny at first, but very few people realize how hopeless they are at using an excel sheet. Sure, they may be able to put in numbers in one cell and letters in the other, but the only time this software is used to its maximum potential is when the user knows how to create his own formulae and tabulated data to use Excel the way it’s meant to be used instead of an easy way to print tables. There are high-flying professionals out there in every field- media, event management, Digital Marketing, producers, who know what an f/4.5 50–250mm VR Lens is, but can’t tell a =SUM function apart from a =TEXT function. Knowing Excel can make the difference between acing a job interview and failing miserably.
Media Editing
Knowing how to fiddle with Audio and Video equipment is always a plus point in Arts related careers. Artists need to be photographed, singers need to be heard, writers need to be read. Since the advent of the digital era, It’s always handy to know your way around audio and video editing software. It’s fun, and a definite plus point from the point of view of employers. There are a few software out there used by the industry as a whole.
Although most editors prefer the Adobe Creative Suite, beginners can start using the Wondershare Filmora. When it comes to image editing, Adobe takes the cake with its Photoshop software, which rarely needs an introduction.
To get a preliminary grasp at the basics for any of this software or the several dozen of other Softwares, Youtube has several tutorials to keep you busy. As for the software themselves, most of them are quite pricey especially if you want to use them to their full potential. There are open-source alternatives that are quite rich as well, GIMP, for example, is a decent image editing software.
Practice Creative Thinking
Since the majority of any future in an Arts-based career depends on your creativity, it may be time to start honing that imagination you have. Start doing exercises in creative writing or thinking. Start making an effort to genuinely think out of the box. let your imagination run wild around your head to free your thinking, There are many accepted techniques to free your thinking available online. Several people indeed say “ you're born with it”, but tests show that even monkeys can be taught to think outside the box. And if you're reading this, I'm sure you're smarter than your doltish cousin.
Several methods of freeing your mind also have a lot to do with spirituality. So maybe you could get two birds with one stone. Achieve Inner peace and be creative at the same time. Just be clear: Spirituality has nothing to do with belief in God or with popular opinions.
Science
When it comes to science in recent times, the world is almost synonymous with technology. With the advances in practical biotechnology and quantum theory in the past century, all three pure sciences seem to be looking towards tech being the crux of the future. In the up-and-coming digital future, several skills can come in handy in not only careers but even day-to-day life.
Coding
You must have seen the Matrix, Well, everyone in that world sees objects while looking at a screen full of random zeroes and ones flickering down a screen. Doesn’t that make you feel out of the place?
Maybe you don't need to memorize Binary, but learning the basics of coding makes it easier for you to understand your computer beyond “turning it off and on again” and “enter CD to play GTA”. You may even end up getting so involved that you write the program that brings The Red Queen down on our heads. Either way, it’s a great skill to have. The basics are easy to find online, albeit difficult to master. But then again, no skill worth having was easy to obtain. Be it Python, HTML, or plain and simple Java, it takes a lot of work and a lot more patience.
Dabble in some theoretical Science
Quantum theory, fringe robotics, temporal physics- all well-founded and accepted branches of science. Some of them may openly toe the line between science and fiction. And yet the fiction of today is the science of tomorrow. No one expects you to be the genius who figures out how to make a functional robot to house a living human brain, make the first bioelectrical processor, or crack the teleportation code. There's a good chance that immortality, biotechnology, and space travel may be out of your league, And yet that is no reason to avoid taking a good look at the theoretical science. Knowledge of the theorized future is the key to leading the civilization into the fantastic hereafter that consists of faster than light travel or technology that pushes mankind to its hypothetical limit. And besides, it's interesting!! If you can’t understand the math, look for sources that dumb it down for you and take it from there, one step at a time. There is more to life and science than is dreamt of in your philosophy, and it’s good to accept that. On a professional level, It’s good to know about what people are postulating out there. Just access to that kind of knowledge could be what differentiates you from all the other people out there. Make it so!
Commerce
Commerce has been accepted, across the board, as the most boring stream of studies. That is unless you've got the mind for business and find terms like “ economic depression” exciting. Commerce geeks stand apart in a crowd, discussing the rise and fall of the stock market and the state of MNCs in the financial world today. Well, if you're one of these, or want to be, there are several skills that you can hone to make your way up Maslow’s Hierarchy.
Data Mining
Numbers and figures form the basis of commerce. Online Analytical Processing or OLAP were used to keep tabs on an entity or a company and to predict the path they may take in the near future. This can be done using easily available data. OLAP tools can be used by people to analyze multi-dimensional data interactively from multiple perspectives. Assuming you ask the right questions.
The next level of OLAP is the process of Data Mining. The beauty of this method is that you can get the same level of information without having to directly ask specific questions. Data mining serves two primary roles with the respect to information: The predictive role and the Prescriptive role.
Predictive Analytics predicts what is most likely to happen in the future while Prescriptive Analytics recommends actions you can take to affect those outcomes. Data mining does the hard work for you and figures out what questions to ask your OLAP tools for a more accurately useful answer. It’s an interesting skill and very hard to master. If you like a challenge, the rigors of data mining are completely up to your alley.
Practice maneuvering way in the stock market
Having a good idea of the stock market is pretty critical to someone dabbling in the commerce stream. That’s serious stuff. Not to mention addictive, with some extreme cases that seem to emulate as gold fever and gambling withdraws. It isn't a cakewalk, especially if you don't know when to stop.
Ever since the rise in popularity of online trading, the fluctuations in the stock market have increased incredibly. Buying and selling stocks can be done in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. A good way to get a hang of the system is the “Money Control” which uses real-time data to create a stock market simulator for beginners. Basically, it's a lossless way of trying your hand at the stock market. Being a simulator, you invest imaginary money in very real companies, and the simulator over time will tell you which of the investments were wise ones and which ones you lost money in.
So if you're not sure you have what it take to be a big shot businessman, try your hand at the simulator before you decide to take a crack at the real thing.
Bottomline: Stay Sharp
The rules aren’t set in stone. And with an ever-adapting, constantly changing environment like the one we live in, the rules are even more fluid than they used to be. Skills have to keep improving to keep up with the times. Society is making its way to a point when specialization in a field will focus down to the scale of extreme micromanagement, leading to people being trained to be perfect in the smallest of tasks. Meanwhile, however, organizations are looking for people to be adept at everything within their field ( and maybe even a few skilled at a few things without). Aim at keeping yourself up to date with the times, and being prepared for any kind of challenge life throws your way.
