The most effective but forgotten way to learn
Ask me if university is worth it and I might hesitate. It took me until the third year - the internship - to see the value. Mind numbingly sitting in classrooms and lecture rooms, built book knowledge and made me believe I was learning something - but in reality, I wasn’t. If the reason we learn, is to survive and thrive in the real world, I was unproven. I had no idea how the learnings could be applied to the real world. At least the Internship gave me a chance to experiment in the real world. As expected, I didn’t end up applying any of the theory I had learnt back in class, but I tackled real-life challenges and built crucial soft-skills - more on these later.
Looking back, this is the first realisation I had that in-field/practical learning beats classroom learning all day, everyday.
With all this said, I’m still a hypocrite. I’m easily swayed by new courses or bootcamps hailing buzzword skills, like Negotiation. My priorities can crumble and i’ll start considering signing up. So this goes out to me and anyone else who needs to hear it.
The holy grail: 'Bootcamps'
Quickly before we begin, I am defining a soft skill as non-technical, interpersonal skills. Such as confidence, communicating, decision-making. You’ll see me refer to them sometimes as buzzword skills, because they are everywhere and trend most of the time.
Today I’m talking about soft-skill classes. Like this from LSE:
This is one example of many. There are plenty of large institutions smartly packaging bootcamps to learn “in-demand” skills. What they are doing is clever and simple:
- Take any buzz-word skill like ‘Negotiation’
- Tag it alongside an eye-catching institution name like ‘LSE’ or ‘Harvard’
- Set a fixed time. This suggests you can learn the skill by the time they are finished with you.
- Ohh and add a price with a few 000’s alongside it.
6 weeks to learn negotiation? My dad spent years buying his daily food from the markets in Ghana; he's the best negotiator I know.
But why do I constantly sign up or seriously consider this stuff?
One word. FOMO - fear of missing out. No surprise we all want what’s best for our careers, every achievement matters, every inch matters. We are constantly looking for that edge and so we are quick to snap up any training opportunity for skills often associated with savvy business people - like strategy. Is it to do with image? Not sure, that’s a rabbit hole, we can explore another time. But regarding the need to have one up over everyone else, surely I am not alone in this. I'd bet you are here or know someone in this space. It's the 'rat race', most of us are participants and we are all desperately trying to get ahead.
I would ask anyone about to hit 'Buy' for a course, this: How do you know you don’t have this skill yet? Have you tried the skill? How many times have you tried it?
Ironically we sign up to these classroom-style courses to learn skills we will apply in the field. But we never think of picking up the skills in-field straight away. This is basically when people say ‘they got thrown into the deep end’. Learn skills in the real world because at the end of the day, that is where you will apply them. Over the past few years I’ve learnt that there are other ways to learn in-field, with lower pressure and whilst having more fun.
Here’s an example of how I learnt soft skills in-field - the unconventional way
Around the age of 25, I did what most do and hit an identity crisis. I began to second guess myself and lost my voice in the room. I fumbled around for a few months and got by, until I figured I better get back to doing activities I once loved. I remembered my intrigue for acting when back in college. So, I did what most millennials do, and ran off to ask Google for acting lessons round London. One thing hit me though: lines. I hated remembering lines. So acting wasn’t going to be an option. A few search results later, I came across improvisation classes, which involves acting without lines, using your imagination and others to create a scene on the fly. I really recommend it.
Yes, it was a bootcamp, but most importantly, it was fun and on stage. I remember the instructor told us that the moment we step into the class we leave ourselves behind, what we do in these four walls stays. We could scream, cry, be a turtle, anything went. Towards the end of the course, I turned into someone else in those four walls, overloading with confidence, swag, creativity and -generally- more positivity. It was just down to me to apply those skills outside of the four walls (I was already out in the real-world) when I wanted to. Five years later, my conversation style and charisma is stronger than how I walked into that first improv class.
I didn’t have a situation where I learnt this through a book or in a classroom and had to start talking to people after to figure it out. Improv taught me improv (first and foremost), the soft skills came about during the process. Made a few friends in the process. Worth adding that in.
How to learn - the unconventional way
Classroom studies are the norm so ironically my suggestions for in-field learning would now be seen as the ‘unconventional way’. This is not an exhaustive list but you'll get the general idea: do activities in the real world which build the skills you seek.
Chances are you do some of these activities already, but how aware are you during all of this? Unbeknown to you, you’ve actually been building these skills every time you do these things. Use the list for inspiration, but be creative and in no time you’ll realise there are countless activities that can help you grow.
Humans are social creatures, I strongly believe this. We are meant to interact, to express, to move. There’s no shame in sitting in a class to learn, but get out and learn that way as well - you won’t look back.
