Ask HN: What skills would you invest in learning? I'm considering taking time off work (up to 6 months) to invest in learning some new skills. I'm 28, have a solid background in math, and my professional experience is mostly in finance (sigh). What are some useful (technical or non-technical) skills that it's worth investing into learning? |
1) I'm guessing more finance and math.
2) I second the CFAR recommendation.
3) Whatever you want!
Professionally, if you want a skill with a stupid amount of leverage, public speaking is pretty high up there for white collar workers.
If you're technical there are many, many options for adding one more arrow to the quiver. My specific recommendations would depend on your career goals, but for generic HNers, mastering the deployment story for your stack of choice (DevOps is more than a bit buzzwordy but some of the tools available now are just fantastic -- Ansible, Consul, Docker, the AWS stack, etc) would be up there. For people who are more comfortable on backends, learn React, which will take you through a nice swathe of modern front-end tools and practices. For folks who work more on the frontend, maybe Rails if you see CRUD/apps in your future or Go if you enjoy systems programming more.
"Data Scientist (n.): Person who is better at statistics than any software engineer and better at software engineering than any statistician."
[1] https://twitter.com/josh_wills/status/198093512149958656
You can pick many, many things here, though. Combining programming (any stack which lets you ship things) plus any other white collar profession works well, too. Try embedding in anybody's workday and just sit on your hands and watch the insanity as they do any data-processing work, for example. It's insane how much of day-to-day accounting work exists because of the lack of 50 lines of Ruby.
Everyone needs sales skills, whether it is to understand why people buy, or just to 'sell' ideas, whether pitching to investors or convincing a partner/superior or team to implement your idea.
Also, doing various sorts of hard selling (phone, on the street, for charity or selling products) would probably teach more than doing charity sales for 2 months. I'm too chicken to do something like this myself though...
>Ever made a mistake? Missed an opportunity? Of course; but what’s interesting is how cognitive scientists have found even highly educated and successful people to make predictable errors in judgement, and just knowing about these experiments often isn’t enough to prevent these mistakes. It actually takes practice to form new mental habits. At our workshops, you can learn about newly discovered failure patterns in human decision-making, and begin training to overcome them…
Think of it as martial arts for rationality. You know about things like the sunk cost fallacy, but they do workshops to make sure you recognize it when it's happening to you.
A great bunch of very skilled people. The personal advice helped me get over some hangups about procrastination.
I think it's a great foundation to help learn other skills, and asses what information will be valuable to you.
Current item 1 on my "to do once we exit" list.
It's a brilliant set of books by one of the most brilliant authors ever, and IMHO has a philosophy and structure that is rarely found in contemporary books or graphic novels. It would be a challenge to bring that vision to the paper well.
Not trying to dissuade you. If you love drawing, absolutely do as much of it as you can. Just don't stop after 6 months.
If you have a bit of talent and help, you could get fluent in a foreign language in 24 weeks.
But then, there are some talents, that you wanted to foster during the last years, but just did not have the time. Maybe it's easier to start from there.
Anyway, some suggestions into the blue:
- read books and travel
- learn excellent writing skills by writing a short book about what you learned so far in math/finance
- move to a foreign country where you do not speak the language and try to survive (two of my friends did this, and they did well)
I'd recommend some sort of dynamic web based language so you can launch your own startups in the future if you want.
1. Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman. If you're going to read one, read this. A lot of theory undergirding how people think. Decision making by people will make a lot more sense after this.
2. Influence - Robert Cialdani. Less theory and more pragmatic advice on how to influence people.
3. Drive - Daniel Pink, Switch - Chip Heath, Made to Stick - Chip Heath, Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely. Books on specific sub-categories. More pop-psych. Information density is less, but easier to read.
4. Poor Charlie's Almanac - Charlie Munger. Best known as Warren Buffett's partner, this book is a collection of his speeches, letters, etc... You get an idea of how he thinks but, but you have to dig through the repetitive ramble to get it. Think of it as Charlie observing a lot of the prior principles but putting it into a real life/business context.
I'm aware HN doesn't have the highest regard for the finance industry, but I'd like to hear your perspective: What makes you not so proud of your current skills?
The 'sigh' was almost reflexive: even writing the word 'finance' makes me feel bored.
This is one of the worst possible qualities to have in finance... well, unless you're on the sell-side.
If you have a solid background in maths perhaps look into picking up a semester in some theoretical maths. You might develop a few hunches that could turn into innovative ideas when you return to your job.
Work on an open problem in maths with a small prize. See if you can crack it[1]. You could end up with a proof, some pocket change, and your name in the history books. At the least you'll learn what it takes to get there.
Pick up a few online courses or books on machine learning and dig through the Kepler data archive[2]. You'll learn statistics and modelling and perhaps confirm valuable research results! Space!
Go plant some trees. It's a small favor for the environment. It's hard work and you'll get really dirty. This is its own reward.
Volunteer in a foreign country. You'll meet new people and introduce yourself to problems you would never have considered in your lifetime.
[0] http://www.projectoberon.com/ [1] http://www.numberphile.com/videos/happy_ending.html [2] http://kepler.nasa.gov/Science/ForScientists/dataarchive/
As for specific skills, sales and marketing are great ideas. If you want to be a very desirable coder, I'd say learning two technologies that don't normally go together but are both in demand at all times. For example, I have met very few people who have equal passion and skill for developing for iOS and Android. Add Windows Phone for completeness and most small companies would hire you on the spot because they can't afford a separate developer for each platform.
Another example of that might be front-end and backend work. Basically, if you can code up your own device drivers, then quickly create beautiful browser or mobile interfaces, you have become a truly full stack developer.
The ultimate triple threat would be: backend, front-end (web + mobile), and design. People that can quickly design beautiful things, then implement them are incredibly rare.
Any sport where girls are required to put bows in their hair. Ballet sure could use some carbon fiber thingy in those shoes. Same with figure skating. Gymnastics is a bit better, but I'm sure there is room for something.
Pipe and cigar smoking. The vaping trend hasn't hit them yet, but it will.
Road construction. It is terrible! Potholes everywhere!
But instead of chasing the latest trends in frameworks, I would recommend learning ruby on rails instead. It's a mature framework that is still very popular. Learning it instills good principles that you carry over when learning future frameworks.
The best way to learn rails is: https://www.railstutorial.org/book
It's written for absolute beginners. Work through the entire book, and you'll have a good foundation for web development.
It's probably best to try and learn something that you get excited about learning. You're going to be your own motivator, and if you give up half ways, it's probably not worth it.
Another tip is to try to get in touch with a community of people you can learn together with. After I moved away from London, I've learned a lot less, even though I have just as much time. I'm just not around as knowledge hungry people. This makes all the difference.
Another technique is to try and devote one week to a subject and check if you like it. I did it with machine learning: https://medium.com/@oslokommuneper/machine-learning-in-a-wee...
You can try coding, design, marketing etc. Whatever you like. Worst case, you waste a week. Best case, you discover a new passion.
While it appears to be an "activity" rather than a "skill", I believe it is a skill.
My recommendation is write on something which you know well; most probably in finance as you appear to be most experienced in this field. It will be even better if you can make it programming oriented, as there are a dearth of programming books specific to specialized domains.
1. Writing well is something which sets apart great technical people from the good technical people.
2. Writing is much more difficult than it sounds. It requires much more clarity of thought than when you are working. At work, some things may be obvious to you - only when you write about it do you think about the fundamentals of a domain.
3. Depending on your goals and the medium of publishing, it may teach you something else - like HTML or Latex, for example. It may also lead you to explore options for self-publishing a book, which can be a good skill later on.
If I had six months I'd deep dive into ML and AI. They're about where the Internet was in the late 70s/early 80s. A lot of people have a sense they're going to be very important in the future, but most of that future hasn't been invented yet.
Sales -------------
Steli Efti: his YouTube videos + blog posts at blog.close.io
Smart Calling by Art Sobczak
Question Your Way to Sales Success by Dave Kahle
Marketing -------------
Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
* Good regexp chops in a scripting language.
* Cooking, because it's a proxy for skills in procedures, taste and aesthetics, and makes you more able to keep a healthy diet.
* How to set up, maintain and use a commuting bicycle. Easier and more productive than the gym.
- Guitar
- Programming language in a paradigm I don't currently work in
- Join a hackerspace and build something small but new every few weeks
- Wildlife Photography
I spend a lot of time in the computer, and while I would not want to give that up, given the time, I'd like to pick up some skills which have bugger all to do with using a computer in a way that I'm used to. I'm already doing two of those things in my spare time, but if I had 6 months, I'd make those my primary focus, and add in the others as my "hobbies".
If you want a fun list of topics, here are some off the top of my head that i might look at in your situation:
- fully homomorphic encryption
- recurrent neural networks & machine learning
- proving computer programs correct & computer-aided mathematical proofs
Top-tier employers requires deep knowledge of algorithms and math rather than concrete technologies (in case of average employers it's quite opposite).
If you strong in math, it would be easy for you.
In general, if I had solid background in math, I would consider to join research team.
I think it's best to engage in domains of thinking that are worlds apart from where you currently are.
Not buying one and flying it.
Building one.
There are a lot of guides online. People online will help you. They are exciting. They teach you about a lot of skills from soldering to robotics to design to flying to rigging cameras.
They are exiting and you will end up with a nice product you can keep forever or give as a gift.
I would say whatever sparks your curiosity. In most cases and somehow it would fit in your daily tasks.