It is your choice: your future is in your hands

You are starting a multi-year journey, and at the end you will get a degree. There are many paths to this point.



On one path you will learn how to play the game, do the minimum to get a certain mark, deal with each course and term as it comes up, and graduate. You will know the basic methods and tools to use. You will be able to get a decent job when you graduate. You basically learn to deal with classes, what to memorize, how to create formula sheets, how to cram, and how to do all-nighters. On this path, you do not think about how you are doing things and do not consciously reflect on skills such as problem solving, time management, learning and how to improve them. You will get a degree and have some knowledge others do not have, but what we call in education as your intellectual abilities and skills will remain the same from the start of your journey. To get better on a cognitive or intellectual skill requires actual, conscious practice that is deliberate in nature. On these skills and abilities, you will be no ‘better’ than another graduating student or normal employee in the workforce. In the years to come, new graduates knowing the same basic knowledge will be your competition. If you did not start to nurture your cognitive skills during your undergraduate years, it will be harder to do it after graduation - you will learn stuff on the job, but your problem solving and thinking skills will not develop. In many cases, it is possible to have a good career for a number of years and then discover that things go downhill. A good question when you graduate is ‘What did you actually learn in the last 4 2/3 years?’ Or, ‘How have you improved?’ Or, ‘How has what you learned changed your future decision-making?’ You got a degree. Fine. Is that all you will be able to say? Will you be able to say more than just ‘I learned how to get the best mark by doing the least amount of work.’?

On another path you consciously think about skills, your beautiful failures, what you have learned, and how you can improve your cognitive skills, your intellectual abilities. You deal with the knowledge bits, but you are also aware of the ‘how’ and your skills - not just the what. You want to graduate thinking differently and better than when you started.

Your skills and abilities play a factor

It is your intellectual abilities that deal with comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (basic thinking and problem solving). You need these skills for managing time, assessing situations, figuring it out, etc. As the skills develop, you become more efficient and effective at these tasks - you become better than others who do not care or think about them. Think about problem solving - you can learn to pattern match text box questions to test questions, but that is not really problem solving, is it? In problem solving, you need to deal with things you have not seen before, you need to figure it out. Some people think that just by doing lots of projects you will learn project management, this is not the case. You do lots of problems, you learn problem solving, also not the case. We know this from cognitive science. If you do deliberate practice and receive and give feedback from and to yourself and others, then you will learn. If you just do - you will not.

So, the choice is yours - only you can really develop your skills beyond the novice or junior level. Your education is largely filled with knowledge courses - teaching you tools and methods, and the specific skills needed to use them to pass the typical course assessments. Few, if any, of the courses will focus on the skills needed for open-ended or ill-structured problem solving and real-world thinking. Even if they do, it is not possible for them to provide sufficient practice. The good news is that you can take responsibility for your own skill development and consciously work to improve yourself. Over the next five years you have the time and you can improve your skills!

Your choices will directly impact the outcome

It is not easy and it does not happen overnight. But it is worth it. And, you can do it. You do not need to over do it, but you need to do something - best to work on one or two aspects at time. Perhaps choose time management? Problem solving? Reading? Pretend that you are learning a musical instrument - you need to learn the basics and then deliberate practice with feedback (self-reflection based on listening to a professional’s recording, trained teacher). You progressively increase the difficulty. One day you will discover that WOW, you kick butt.

You can practice some of the skills every day. Observe and think about the how - not just what you are doing. You can practice the skills during courses. You can practice the skills on work terms.

You can team up with 2-3 others and work with each other. Pick one skill for a work term. Pick another skill for the next school term. Make it a little competition if you need to - for motivation. One strategy is to work a bit on each skill, bring each one up a little bit, and then repeat - maintaining ‘balance’ across the skills as you improve. Another is to find some good resources or examples to model and learn from.

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