Exposure Is Part of Learning

My mother asked me how work is going, I said good, she asked are you learning something, I sort of paused before answering. How does this sound:

1. Level 1 learning
   Getting acquainted and up to speed.
   This is learning the systems, new terms and vocabulary, how things are done and why they are done that way (we’ll come back to this later).

2. Level 2 learning
   A bit deeper.
   Your work gives you unique exposure to whatever it is you are working on. Simply being around this new environment, hearing conversations and discussions, seeing how they do things in a unique and hopefully better way… just being around them gives you something unique. I like Giffon’s podcast a lot and personally align with it heavily and he talks really elegantly about selection vs. treatment effects (here; I’ll write about this later). This is sort of a treatment effect. Just being there, you passively get better. A key example here is pattern recognition and the opportunity to work closely on problems.

   • I’ll use an example other than myself. A few friends I know are software engineers. Being exposed to how things are done at a tier 1 software company vs. tier 2 is going to be materially different. You “assume” the way things are done at a tier 1 are better (although this may be a bigger assumption than I’d like to think).

3. Level 3 learning
   The deeper part.
   You take what you gain from level 1 and 2 and actively think about refining your skills, judgment, pattern recognition, and you apply it to new situations. Taking an example from my math degree—you spend the first week learning the new terms and what they mean, you spend the next day going over a problem in class and the teacher explains it and you absorb it, and then eventually you attack new problems using what you have learned.

Think this is a better answer than “yes I am learning something.”

tl;dr just being around high quality vibes can be value add

Cheers,
Vish

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Published on September 27, 2023.