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72 lines
3.3 KiB
72 lines
3.3 KiB
4 years ago
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title: "Curiosity"
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layout: post
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---
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Curiosity is fundamental to a deep understanding of any subject.
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Masters, Ph.Ds, and other fancy name suffixes will never help you
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if you don't have the spirit of curiosity burning inside of you.
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I was speaking to someone from a journalism major at my school when the subject of hacking arose.
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I expected her to know nothing about it, being a journalism student and all, but surprisingly she had something to say about it:
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> "The best hackers are the ones who are curious."
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That struck a cord with me.
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It seems to me she has nailed down the difference between the students who care about grades,
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and those who want to learn.
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These are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but in my experience they often are due to the way education is structured.
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## My Anecdote
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In my second semester at SAIT Polytechnic, I took a class entitled *Emerging Trends In Technology*.
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This class was probably the best class I have ever taken.
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We had to combine two things:
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* **Hard skills**: learning a new hard skill like Angular, Django, or GPG encryption.
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* **Soft skills**: public speaking and presentation of our ideas.
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Soft skills are not usually my area, but I can do public speaking.
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I grew up quite religious, so public speaking was drilled into me young.
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I liked to go off script and talk about interesting things I found along the way to the actual point.
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My creativity was not usually encouraged.
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That said, going off script is useful when teaching and presenting ideas;
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it gives a natural air to your breath and an unquestionable confidence in your speech.
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This is how we learn: in relationships.
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Try explaining ancient Japanese history to a computer science major, or UNIX sockets to an English major and you'll see what I mean.
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If there is nothing for us to connect the knowledge to, it dissipates.
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So why did I do so well in this class?
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Our task for the semester was as follows:
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1. Learn a new subject (any *emerging trend in technology*) which you find fascinating.
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2. Give a one minute introduction by week three.
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3. Give a 10 minute non-technical overview by week 8.
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4. Give a 20 minute technical explaination and demo by week 13.
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This is the only course I have ever taken which lets students' imagination run wild.
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Their presentation, their rules.
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They treated the students like adults who know what they are doing.
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What happened? Everyone stopped coming because "Oh no! Presentations!"?
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No, exactly the opposite.
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There was never more than one student missing.
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Every single presentation was at least moderately interesting,
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and most students were excited to come to that class.
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You could see it in their faces, the way they carried themselves.
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Every student picked something unique to their tastes, leaving every student more educated than before.
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This class, unlike many others, encouraged the curiosity of the students.
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It rewarded those who had unique interests and an ability to sell others on their ideas.
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The curiosity and the grades were one.
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## Conclusion
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Although it's nice to have a course where these goals align here and there, anyone who has been to collage or university can tell you that is far from the norm.
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On the other hand, I never would have started this site if it wasn't for that class alone.
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So I thank you, Kitty Wong, for getting me started running my own "research blog" (?)
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