Thursday, August 26, 2010
Successful new-era engineer = engineer + philosopher
What I learned from the video clip is that we need to re-learn some "common sense" to bring effectiveness to our work. As I think about it, my three biggest problems among the seven missing basics would be failures to communicate effectively, to label, and to visualize. so I think I need to learn from Paul Newman, Aristotle, and da Vinci. The best way to learn from them is to read their books, and reflect on their ideas. Starting from the most interesting one, I'll learn more about da Vinci first, and I'm actually googling about him right now!
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ReplyDeleteReading and reflecting about a skill is a great way to understand the skill in question, however it isn’t an effective way to learn it. Of course, we all can read about how to communicate well and know the different tactics in deploying such a skill. Then we can reflect upon what we should do when in this situation and in that situation to better understand the question. There is an essential step that is missing. Learning without practice is as good as driving without wheels. It’s not going to get you anywhere. I believe the best way to learn something is to know what to do, and then actually practice it.
ReplyDeleteI'd actually tend to agree more with Muyun. Without reflection upon what you *believe* is what you should be doing, it's impossible to identify causality. I believe people need to continuously self evaluate - asking yourself the killer question "How do I know this is true ?"
ReplyDeleteI think that there are somethings in life that can only be learned through doing, rather than reading. The missing basics would be one of those things. Like for instance communication. You can read as many books as you want about communication, but you won't learn how to communicate unless you actually go out and talk to other people
ReplyDeleteYes common sense is important but I feel that the video was suggesting that we learn more than common sense. Commmon sense 2.0 if you will... not all of the missing basics come under common sense. This is essentially common sense modified to help us deploy our core engineering knowledge. With out it we would have all these great ways of solving problems just in our minds, with no way to actually use them in a project with other people. As for reading, yes it is a great way to achive your stated goals, but in my opinion it is only a starting point. You need to go out and learn through practical experience too, developing your skills more directly by being invloved in the skills you are tyring to learn and not being passive.
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