Start here · Essential guide
The Importance of Continuous Learning in Technical Fields
Why technical people keep learning across a career, and how to build a modest, sustainable personal learning plan that fits around real work and real life.
Learning and New Tech
Lifelong Learning
Ways to keep skills current through study, courses and communities.
How to Learn a New Technical Skill Quickly
A practical routine for picking up a new tool or topic: set a concrete goal, learn the minimum, practise on a small project, get feedback and review what stuck.
Staying Current with Industry Developments: A Guide to Continuing Education
Formal routes to keeping technical skills current, from short structured courses to part-time degrees and credit-bearing study, and how to judge their value.
Staying Current with Industry Developments: A Guide to Professional Development
Informal and on-the-job ways to keep technical skills current: conferences, reading, mentoring, stretch assignments and professional bodies, and how to use each well.
The Benefits of Interdisciplinary Education in Technical Fields
What an engineer gains by studying beyond their core discipline, such as biology or economics: new mental models, a shared vocabulary and better framing of problems.
The Benefits of Online Communities for Technical Learning
How forums, Q and A sites and discussion groups help technical learning: asking good questions, judging the answers you receive and giving back to the community.
The Benefits of Online Courses for Technical Learning
How to choose and finish structured online courses: checking syllabus quality, setting a realistic pace and practising what you learn so it sticks.
The Benefits of Online Learning for Technical Professionals
How working engineers can fit self-directed online learning around a full-time job: flexibility, building a study routine, and its limits compared with in-person training.
The Benefits of Open-Source Software in Technical Fields
What open source means, how licences work in general terms, and how using and contributing to open projects can build practical technical skills.
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