ITCareerCoach Training - Coaching » study skills http://www.it-career-coach.net How To Take Your Career To The Next Level Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:09:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Self Study or College, Which Is Better? http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/07/27/self-study-or-college-which-is-better/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/07/27/self-study-or-college-which-is-better/#comments Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:25:23 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3243

Self Study or College, Which Is Better?

Self Study or College, Which Is Better?


Here is the question: can you study all the subjects that you are passionate about through self study (by using the internet and textbooks) and still learn more than someone who goes to college for the same purpose?

Consider both sides of the debate. Forking over $40,000 and 4 years of your life to college gives you something that you can hang on your wall, a certificate that both you and your employers can be sure off.

But what happens after you get your foot in through the door? Job descriptions change at such a rapid pace that what you learned after 4 years of college education may become obsolete in a heart beat!

What happens when your employer shifts your focus away from a task that you learned in college (like writing test cases) to a task for which you have no formal education like (analyzing and documenting business requirements)

Or what would you do when technology shifts emphasis from one platform like Mainframe Programming to another like Web Programming … would one go back to college and spend another 2 to 4 years and $20K to $40K on another college degree like a Masters or a Doctoral Degree?

However you look at it, there are not too many options for learning or studying new information after college … You may:

  • Self study or learn from scratch using textbooks and the internet …

  • You may enroll for another College Degree …

  • Or enroll in a training program.

In this post, I will only compare the pros and cons of self study compared to more college education.

How to self study or learn anything by yourself

Studying by yourself may work if you enjoy reading or if you are the kind of person that is not afraid of a challenge.

Self study is far cheaper than paying your way through college but at the same time it may require some form of external support or coaching just like a college education requires the external support of a university and college professors.

The first thing that you have to do is to create, get or buy a study / learning curriculum.

How To Study Using a Curriculum

The curriculum you get should be comprehensive and it should cover all the topics that you need to study in the right sequence or order.

In other words your self study curriculum should differentiate between beginner, intermediate or advanced level topics.

You can only create a curriculum after you have created a list of topics that you need to study or concepts that you need to master.

How To Create Study Lists of Textbooks and Internet Articles

Next research the study textbooks and internet articles that complement the topics or lessons listed in the curriculum.

Most of the topics listed on your curriculum will be covered by multiple textbooks or internet articles.

You are going to be doing a lot of personal study and you must get used to the idea of spending a lot of evening me on bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com

However, do not expect that any one textbook, website or article will supply all the information you need.

When I was building my skills as an Information Technology consultant, I would visit Borders Bookstore at least once a week and spend up to $200 at any one single visit which means that I could spend up to thousands of dollars per year on study textbook alone!

How To Learn By Doing

Arrange for additional handson activities, quizzes or assignments that you can participate in to verify all that you have been learning.

Self study needs the presence of an online community which is a community of users, studying similar topics.

Your community is a forum or group that you can bounce questions against, answer the questions that they ask, discuss ideas with solve or troubleshoot problems with, exchange study lists (list of textbooks and articles), job interview questions, etc.

You will also need the help of coaches, group moderators or group sponsors who can help you answer the bigger questions or keep motivated just like a top performing, world class athlete needs a personal coach or trainer or help them get the best out of their abilities.

How To Get A Formal Education?

Alternatively, you may enroll for more formal education in college. Keep in mind that a college education may set you back by tens of thousands of dollars.

Evaluate your background

You also need to evaluate if you qualify, because getting the right prerequisites or educational profile for an advanced college degree like a masters or a doctorate may set you back a few months depending on whether you have the right background.

Do you have the right background or prerequisites

How will you manage the schedule?

Time is also something that you have to factor in. Before you finish 2 to 4 years getting a Masters or a Doctoral Degree, your job or your company may not be there and you may be left with an expensive education but without a job to match.

Scheduling may also be a pain. Some colleges may require that you attend classes during official working hours meaning that you have to choose between your job and your education or even have both suffer.

Also keep in mind, that Some colleges may be inaccessible to you because of their location or you will have to relocate before you can actually finish or complete the enrollment / degree requirements.

The best thing about a college degree is that you will have a certificate that you can hangup on your wall and say, I went to Princeton, Yale, Harvard or whatever school that is and you can feel really proud of your accomplishment!

How Does Self Study Compare To A College Education?

Here are some answers to this question …

  1. A college education is important because it allows the employer an objective assessment of your capabilities and skills. For that reason, you need to have at least a bachelor’s degree.

  2. Your first college degree will help you get your foot in through the door, but when it comes to keeping up to the demands of a fast paced, constantly changing workplace, you must learn how to advance your skills through self study

If you need more coaching, help or guidance with choosing self study or a formal education, let me know by posting your comment or feedback on this post and I will be glad to help you!


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/07/27/self-study-or-college-which-is-better/feed/ 0 Live Up To Your Potential in 3 Steps http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/20/live-up-to-your-potential-in-3-steps/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/20/live-up-to-your-potential-in-3-steps/#comments Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:28:39 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3144

Live Up To Your Potential

Live Up To Your Potential

This question was submitted by a very young, exceptionally gifted and talented top performer who wants to know how he can live up to his potential.

Hello,

I am very young (23) and was radically accelerated through college \ graduate school.

By next year, I will have a BA (Math \ Religion), MBA (Management Consultancy), MSc (Business IT), PhD (Computing & Mathematics), and PhD (ABD), in IT from leading universities, as well as 9+ years IT experience, with 5+ years BA experience with stellar recommendations.

I do not want a career in university teaching or research … could you suggest a few viable directions to move my career forward in IT business analysis?

I feel “painted into a corner” and now am not certain which way to go at this point, as a Senior Analyst.

Just a few alternatives would be helpful.

Best regards and thank you.

How To Fulfill Your Potential

The first of the three most important challenges facing talented people is that of identifying their passion.

This is a big challenge because talented folks can do almost anything and succeed at it.

Another challenge facing talented folks is not doing what they love and / or following the money trail!

Because talented people can easily get high-paying jobs and get paid a lot more than their colleagues, they can be easily derailed from their true objectives.

Following the money trail is bad because it eventually leads to mediocrity.

Regardless of how talented one is, it is not possible to achieve your deepest potential if you do not identify your passion and do what you love.

The final challenge that talented people face is not taking their passion to market.

They pick vocations where they are unable to serve their community or their world because of money concerns or because of poor career recommendations.

Discover Your Passion

The first and most important thing that you have to do: “is to discover your passion“.

Your passion is something that you are deeply interested in doing because you love it, you have strengths in it, you enjoy thinking, dreaming or even speaking about it.

Your passion is not necessarily what promises you job security or what promises you lots of money.

Money and Job Security are used as the primary basis of making career recommendations and yet, they don’t truly matter because … guess what?

If you do what you truly love, the money will surely follow!

Discovering your passion is an exercise of the heart and not of the head.

You must be able to dream or envision your passion in your heart first and then use your head to figure out what to do.

Good folks get this heart and head mixed up all the time! Your heart is your instinctive, sensing personality and your head is your rational, logical person.

Do What You Love

The second thing that you must do on the path to self actualization is to: “Do What You Love”.

Doing what you love means working very hard at something that you love.

But it also means more than that … it means training yourself the way that world-class athletes do!

Though you can do several things exceptionally very well, you should concentrate on a few disciplines and hone your abilities in those alone.

You want to become so good in your chosen field, that your work in those areas will stand out in comparison to that of any others in your chosen field.

Think about this for a moment: world-class athletes have to invest considerable amounts of time into just training and honing their skills.

They understand that even through they may be exceptionally gifted, they cannot win unless they are much better than the competition or other equally gifted and talented folks.

And also get this … no world class athlete depends on their exceptional talents or giftedness alone!

Instead they put themselves through the most rigorous, skill-advancing training that they can find so that they can live up to their potential.

The issue is not really whether you are gifted. The true issue at stake is whether you will live up to your potential? I will advise that you read these two books:

  1. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  2. Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Amongst other things, these two books point out that to become a world class player, you will have to invest a solid amount of time into just doing nothing else but honing your skills and abilities!

Take Your Passion To the Market

Starting a blog and getting on Social Media is the starting point for taking your passion to market.

The next thing that you have to do with your passion or the work that you love is: “Subscribe to the Publish or Perish” mantra which you are already used to coming from academia.

The main purpose of your blog is to create a market for your passion or connect your passion with an existing market on the internet.

Your market is the readers or subscribers of your blog and what you must do is: help them, talk to them, connect with them using your blog as your premier publishing or speaking platform.

Without sharing your passion with other people who love the topics that you care about, your passion dies with you … which is the definition of being boxed in!

Not having a blog means that you are not others learn or grow. It also means your own growth is incomplete because you are closed off from the feedback of your industry … and no one can develop your passion in isolation

Starting a blog does not mean that you must offer a service or sell a product.

Starting a blog does means that you have decided to make your world a better place by serving humanity with your gifts and talents.

The lesson here is that being wired or connected to others using blogging and social media is now considered essential for success!

One person that comes to mind in that regards is Jacob Nielsen, the world’s numero uno usability expert!

For several years, he has been conducting researches on usability and publishing his findings online.

From those findings, he has written books and he conducts training seminars around the globe.

You can see that Jacob is deeply passionate and extremely knowledgeable in his field and that he publishes more than most people in his field.

Do these 3 things (discover your passion, do what you love, take your passion to market) and you will succeed.

Jonathan, when you break into stardom, don’t stop telling people how I helped you, ok :-)

P.S. I am sending you my new ebook titled “Discover Your Passion, Do What You Love, Take Your Passion To Market“.

Best Wishes and Lots of Success in your Career

This question was published using [Ask IT Career Coach].

[Ask IT Career Coach] is a Career Advice Column for Information Technology (IT) professionals looking for answers to their most challenging career situations.

If you have a question about your career that you will like me to answer for you, go ahead and submit it using the [Ask IT Career Coach] Career Advice Service.


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/20/live-up-to-your-potential-in-3-steps/feed/ 0 The Survivors Guide To Overcoming Unemployment http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/02/13/the-survivors-guide-to-overcoming-unemployment/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/02/13/the-survivors-guide-to-overcoming-unemployment/#comments Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:46:02 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3098

The Survivors Guide To Overcoming Unemployment

The Survivors Guide To Overcoming Unemployment

Several years ago, I had a conversation with a lady who had a computer science degree but was unable to get hired for any type of Information technology (IT) job.

I realized right away, that what she lacked was an understanding of how the IT job / career market works. The sort of information that is generally omitted in schools because no one thinks it is important enough.

So, after she shared her story with me, I did some research and came to the startling conclusion that she was not alone.

I discovered that there was a big gap in our educational system and I am not just talking about schools, but staffing / recruiting / training agencies as well.

The problem was that all the players were in a hurry to make ends meet and no one really cared about the professional whose career or job was at stake.

For example, recruiters / staffing agencies will only work with you when your skills and experience matches that required on a job posting.

They will not think of helping you bridge the gaps in your skills, resume or experience or advancing your career further through coaching and mentoring.

So I started educating people on how to thrive or succeed in the Information Technology (IT) world and as a result this website (www.it-career-coach.net) was born.

Today, I have been giving another unique opportunity to help because a number of you are talking to me about their unemployment situations or asking for my advice or suggestions along those lines.

I want to say, thank you to everyone who has been talking to me about their unemployment situations.

I appreciate the trust you place in me and more importantly, your courage in talking about it!

I am dedicating the “FREE Survivors Guide To Overcoming Unemployment” below to those of you who are out of work..

Please download and read this career guide and learn how to survive unemployment or get productive by earning an income again.

I retain all the copyrights to this career guide. However, you have my permission to distribute it or share it with anyone (friends, strangers, colleagues, etc) or post it anywhere.

Download The Survivors Guide To Overcoming Unemployment Below


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/02/13/the-survivors-guide-to-overcoming-unemployment/feed/ 2 #3 Success Principle: When It Comes To Experience, Beggars Can’t Be Choosers http://www.it-career-coach.net/2010/01/07/3-success-principle-when-it-comes-to-experience-beggars-cant-be-choosers/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2010/01/07/3-success-principle-when-it-comes-to-experience-beggars-cant-be-choosers/#comments Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:17:52 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=2753

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

One of the bigger issues facing IT professionals is: “the challenge of building experience“.

This challenge exists because employers still require experience for hiring, even when you need their jobs to build experience!

It’s the classic Catch-22: “chicken or egg which came first challenge” that may be solved through internships or full-time jobs.

However, internships are getting increasingly competitive (Read More …) and employers are still insisting on handson experience before making job offers.

Why Internships Are Hard To Get

For a while, internships helped provide the missing handson experience to IT professionals learning new skills or transitioning careers.

Now internships are hard to come by because employers are refusing the burden of hiring or managing interns. And here is the reason why:

  1. Productivity: interns need to be managed by experienced employees meaning that productive time will be lost to employers.

    Productive time is lost when experienced workers have to show interns the ropes, supervise or assign work to them.

  2. Risk: employers are unwilling to invest in interns because they are more likely to fail at completing their assigned tasks or duties.

    There is also the added risk of redoing the work done by interns when it fails to meet expectations!

  3. Money: employers hesitate to pay interns because there aren’t sure of the immediate economic benefits and they refuse to hire unpaid interns because unpaid interns also cost money and time to supervise or train!

How To Build Experience From Scratch … Without A Job

The challenge facing those that fixate on getting experience through internship programs or full time jobs is that of becoming stumped … when they can’t get either.

Really, when it comes to getting experience, the key is to stay flexible, creative or open minded because full-time jobs and internship programs are getting harder to come by.

How To Build Experience From Scratch By Keeping An Open Mind

  • Focus on Smaller Projects: don’t fixate on finding big projects because you are more unlikely to get big project exposure with little or no experience.

    Start with smaller projects first, because that is where your current background, skills or experience is likely to be needed or appreciated.

  • Build Up Experience Gradually: don’t expect to get a ton of experience in a short time. Instead, spread your efforts at building experience over a longer period of time.

    Overtime, the cumulative effect of all your project based work will begin to show and you will be rewarded for your hard work.

  • Don’t Fixate on Money: don’t be too picky about your income when you’re still building up your experience because the ticket to getting paid more money is more experience!

    Start by building your experience first and then work towards a better compensation afterwards!

  • Don’t Think Too Highly of Yourself: don’t be looking down on smaller projects because you’re thinking they’re beneath you and don’t be fretting over the size of your role, task or opportunity either!

    Always put your best foot forward and build up your experience at every turn. Because that is how to ensure that you qualify for bigger projects or even a full time job!

  • Stay Flexible, Creative and Open Minded: be on the lookout for experience building opportunities that don’t fall under traditional internship or full-time jobs.

    For example, you may signup for unpaid, volunteer work or start your own consulting business (yes, you can consult on almost any subject) or register for Hands On IT Career Training (click here for more information)

Expect that you will always be learning new skills or transitioning careers because of the constantly changing face of technology.

Understand that staying open minded will help you discover more ways to build handson experience without a job or an internship program.


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2010/01/07/3-success-principle-when-it-comes-to-experience-beggars-cant-be-choosers/feed/ 1 Free E-Book On How To Stay Ahead of the Technology Curve http://www.it-career-coach.net/2009/09/21/free-e-book-on-how-to-stay-ahead-of-the-technology-curve/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2009/09/21/free-e-book-on-how-to-stay-ahead-of-the-technology-curve/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:03:59 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=2517

Stay Ahead of the Curve!

Stay Ahead of the Curve!

Have you ever wondered how some people stay ahead of rapidly changing technologies while others seem to let their skills become extinct like the Dodo?

Well, apparently, someone in Dubai, U.A.E. wants to know the answer so badly that he sent in his question by postal mail!

If you need help with a Question or Challenge, be sure to ask it as a comment on this page and I will answer it fully just as I am answering this reader’s question below!

NOTE: There is an e-book at the bottom of this post on “How To Stay Ahead of The Technology Curve”. Be sure to download and read it, ok?

Here is The Question on How To Stay Ahead of the Technology Learning Curve

Dear Kingsley,

Having come to be known about you as a pioneer IT Coach, I need some information from you if you can help me.

At present, I am reading a book Microsoft Office 2003 bible which includes all the basic and in depth functionalities of excel, word, powepoint, access, outlook, frontpage, etc.

It’s a huge book with 1200 pages. I’d like to know how I can memorize this book quickly and efficiently.

There are other books on programming to be memorized. in this age of information overload, everyday we are presented with lots of paperwork, reports and books to remember.

As an IT coach, could you please show me the techniques to remember this amount of information so as to get the job done on time and move along with the rapidly changing technologies.

Fahim, Dubai, U.A.E.

Don’t Underestimate The Effort Required To Keep Up With Information Technology Careers!

Years, ago, while considering a career transition, I was advised not to pursue Information Technology careers because of the rapidly changing technologies, literature, techniques and tools.

At that point in time, many IT professionals had shipwrecked their careers because they couldn’t transition from legacy skills in Cobol or Fortran or Mainframes to the smaller, more modern computers running windows.

My adviser pointed out to me that succeeding in an information technology career would be a tough challenge because many IT professionals with graduate computer science degrees from good schools had failed!

Some of the reasons why IT professionals fail in their career include:

  1. The Challenge of Rapidly Changing Technologies: keeping up with rapidly changing tools, processes and technologies is a hard job. Some vendors release multiple versions of their products within a year forcing users to upgrade their skills or become obsolete.

  2. The Challenge of Poorly Written Textbooks: many IT books are written by geeks for geeks. They’re difficult to understand, slow to read and intimidating in size. Many tech workers still find challenging, the effort required to keep up with technology by studying IT books.

  3. The Challenge of Information Overload: There are various skills, technologies, tools and processes that need to be mastered for every unique employer or job situation. IT workers end up buying and studying lots of reference books in a bid to stay ahead of all the problems they aim to solve!

I Transitioned My Career By Overcoming The Information Overload!

I transitioned my career by learning the skills required for my new career in six weeks! and by acing my first technical job interview

In six weeks, I navigated an amazing amount of technical literature and reference books … to discover the hidden path that leads to IT career success.

The lessons I learned in those six weeks have become some of the hallmarks of my career including:

  1. How to study new IT skills quickly, comprehensively and competently (I studied mine in under six weeks)

  2. How to ace IT job interviews (I scored above 90% in my first interview test)

  3. How to get hands-on experience without a job (I got the required hands-on experience before my first job)

A Free E-Book To Help You Stay Ahead Of Rapidly Changing Technologies!

Fahim, I understand where you’re coming from and the challenges you’re facing.

The challenges of succeeding in Information Technology (IT) Careers as pointed out in this blog post are real. However, I’ve solved them and I don’t see any reasons why you can’t after I share my success strategies with you!

I’m going to e-mail you a free e-book that details “how you can solve the same problem in your career” and in addition, you will also get any future updates to the e-book free!

I will also be giving away a free copy of the same e-book to the biggest users of my “Tell a Friend” Button or Link on any of my blog posts!

How To Get a Free Copy of My E-Book!

This post answers a question posted by Fahim on “how to study or keep ahead of rapidly changing technologies.“

if you have a question about your career, be sure to post it as a question on this discussion page and I will answer it for you!

If you’ll like to get a free copy of the e-book on how to stay ahead of the technology curve, go ahead and download it now


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2009/09/21/free-e-book-on-how-to-stay-ahead-of-the-technology-curve/feed/ 3 HOW TO BECOME A BETTER, MORE CONFIDENT, EXPERT PROGRAMMER (PART 1) http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/09/17/how-to-become-a-better-more-confident-expert-programmer-part-1/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/09/17/how-to-become-a-better-more-confident-expert-programmer-part-1/#comments Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:31:17 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/09/17/how-to-become-a-better-more-confident-expert-programmer-part-1/

One of the challenges I faced when I peeked inside my first programming book more than 15 years ago was the difficult of understanding the programming concepts taught in the textbooks I was reading. Think about it for a moment – if you walk into a store and buy a book on “how to master a programming language”, you should be able to read the book once or at most a couple of times and understand it correct?

Well, I’m afraid that’s not how it works in real life. Computer programming books are notoriously scary and difficult to read.

In my roles as a software developer coach and consultant, I come across a lot of folks who are close to giving up the ghost on their programming career because of the difficulty of understanding programming textbooks. I took this to heart some time ago and wrote an article titled “Why Are Computer Programming Books Hard to Study”.

However, this question has been coming up in my private software developer coaching sessions and I think it’s time to address it again.

HOW TO STUDY HARD-TO-UNDERSTAND OR DIFFICULT PROGRAMMING TEXTBOOKS

Software development and computer science textbooks are the primary means of learning new programming languages for beginner, intermediate or expert programmers. To become a better, confident or expert programmer in any programming language you have to read a lot of literature (books, magazines or articles) published on the programming language. What would you do then, if you can’t seem to get a grip on the textbooks written on the programming language you are learning?

What If?

1. You are unable to independently solve the exercises in your programming books

2. You always seem to be stumped whenever you try your hand at challenging programming exercises?

3. You lose confidence in yourself when you get stuck with a problem as you hear a voice in your head saying “as a good programmer, you should be able to solve this problem but you’re no good, that’s why you are failing”?

4. You seem to be able to understand programming theories and concepts but fail at solving real-world programming puzzles, challenges and exercises?

5. You are scared that the reason why you can’t seem to understand programming books is because you don’t have a technical background or your technical background is not as strong as it needs to be?

6. You are scared of technical job interviews because you’re afraid you will be found out to be an impostor?

7. Your commitment, courage and motivation towards software development wanes because of the challenges mentioned above?

8. Your tenacity and resilience at solving programming problems seems to be low and you want to build yourself up by improving your problem solving skills?

You and I both know that programming textbooks are notoriously difficult to study especially when need to master a new programming language. The good news is that there’s an answer waiting for you.

The solution is described in a downloadable book made instantly available to you when you order “The Street Smart Guide to Computer Programming Careers” titled “Effective Study Skills for Computer Programmers”.

WHAT COULD YOU ACHIEVE IF YOU COULD DIG INTO PROGRAMMING TEXTBOOKS EASILY OR SOLVE DIFFICULT PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS COMFORTABLY?

The Fastest Way To Learn Programming Guaranteed

1. For one, you will be able to study for and pass programming job interviews. You won’t be scared of failing or not sounding knowledgeable because you will actually know what you are talking about.

2. If you became competent at solving solve real-world programming challenges, your confidence level will increase and you will be able to apply for the top programming jobs knowing that you are better than other programmers applying for the positions you are interested in.

3. Your peers, managers and clients will notice your increased level of self-confidence and competence and increase their demand for your help and services.

To get started on the road to becoming a better, more confident, expert programmer, click here and order a copy of the book now and you will instantly begin to learn “how to study programming quickly and effectively” and “how to become an expert computer programmer“.


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/09/17/how-to-become-a-better-more-confident-expert-programmer-part-1/feed/ 2 Are Computer Programming Books Hard To Study? http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/03/04/are-computer-programming-books-hard-to-study/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/03/04/are-computer-programming-books-hard-to-study/#comments Sun, 04 Mar 2007 15:43:19 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/03/04/are-computer-programming-books-hard-to-study/

Kathy Sierra a Java Instructor says that some authors are making their programming books harder than necessary because they are too focused on themselves instead of their readers.

At Sun, Kathy discovered that some techie instructors who know their stuff were getting poorer evaluations compared to their less skilled colleages.

The reason? The experts focused on proving their smartness instead of helping their students get smarter assuming that students want their instructors to establich their credibility by proving that they are experts.

Kathy spent a year proving that students don’t care much about expert status only about learning. She succeeded, got a bonus from Sun and became one of the top four most highly rated java instructors in north America.

This goes to validate one of the guidelines I follow with my coaching.

I believe that when my students complain about programming books being difficult to read or understand, they are right. They are really the smart ones and it is the author or writer of a difficult technical book who is dumb for writing hard to understand books.

It is a serious misconception in programming that computer books have to be hard in order to impress readers. Actually excellent computer books should be the easiest to understand.

Computer books and their techie authors should be evaluated on “their ease of reading” and not on “how techie or difficult content is”.

Read the rest of Kathy’s post about computer instructors, authors and books here.


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