How to extend your skill

This article is excerpt from learn better,extend.     

   Nowadays, many people always strive hard to gain some skills. After they achieve it, they think that they are expertise enough because they can utilize their skills to make a living. Therefore, they may forget to enhance their skills and it becomes stagnant. Most of them believe that they can’t extend their expertise and remain in their comfort zone.  Is that true? No! It is not true. We can always extend our area of expertise. What is the secret to expanding it? We just need to know the appropriate techniques. Let me share with you how to expand your skill. 

          Firstly, try to remember SAT. SAT is the short form of Saturday. Bear in mind that we can enhance our skills during the weekend. SAT is the secret about how to extend your area of expertise. The first S is self-explanation. Try to explain to yourself after you have learned a new thing. They are a lot of things we should discover in life. There are investment, health, management, spiritual learning, and the list goes on. After you have gained new knowledge, you should have your understanding and thoughts. Use your voice to explain to yourself will help you understand it better.  For example, I am passionate to learn software programming. Recently I am learning object-oriented programming.  After I learn it, I try to explain it to myself. What is object-oriented programming? Object-oriented programming is a programming that creates an object that contains properties and methods. Properties mean the characteristics or behavior of an object. Properties can have a different form of variable and it can be declared inside the program. The method is an action of an object. It can describe how the object executes a task. For example, when you want the program to extract data from certain files and display, you can ask the object in the program to execute the specific method. Next, I use analogy techniques to explain to myself.  

          Programming has one topic call class and object. The class represents the category of an object. For instance, an animal is a class. The object is created from the class. Object likes the dog, cat, or bird can be created from the animal class. For instance, a cat object is built from the class. Cat has its characteristics and action. When I imagine the cat, it has different properties that can describe a cat such as fur color, body size, eye color, or eye size. The cat can perform different actions. The cat can jump, walk, and run. These are the methods of a cat. When I want the cat to run, I can throw a ball and the cat will run to catch a ball. It sounds easy to understand right? I have linked a programming concept to a cat. It makes me have a better understanding of object-oriented programming.   

             A from SAT means ask yourself a question when learning. We must have a question before we learn because we want to know it. We want to gain the knowledge that we don’t know. There is a way to expand your knowledge. I am an engineer and have a lot of questions in my mind. I want to clear my doubt and I start with a very simple question. 

Why motor moves? I am curious about it and go find out the answer. There are a lot of motors in this world. DC motor is the basic form of motor. The motor comprises of two main important parts, there are stator and rotor. The stator is a stationary part and the rotor is a rotary part. In a DC motor, Stator is a permanent magnet and the rotor is an armature which is a form of windings. When current is passed through the windings, it experiences a force because it is placed in a magnetic field. The direction of force is determined by Fleming's left-hand rule. So now I know why motor moves. 

                

After a certain period, I continue to ask myself questions. Why there is force? I go discover and I know the force is Lorentz force. A charged particle experiences a force when it is moving in the electric field and magnetic field.  Now I have expanded my knowledge! Although it is not much I have become better than yesterday! 

          T from SAT means teaching as learning. If we acquired knowledge and we didn’t share it with others, we feel that we know everything. We don’t know what we don't know. If you share your knowledge with your colleague, friends, or students, they will share their thoughts and feedback with you. After that, you can review it and identify the area of improvement.  It is an opportunity for you to upgrade your database and expand your area of expertise. Explain your ideas to others can help you master that area of expertise because it forces you to think about how to describe your ideas with your own words. 

          Lastly, the SAT means self-explanation, ask questions, and teaching as learning. SATs are useful techniques that can help us to expand our area of expertise during the weekend and free time. Life has no boundaries. Don’t limit yourself. Try to expand your knowledge and stretch yourself as much as you can!