Mindshift
Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential

Not OC. Made by Alex vermeer. Source.

I stumbled upon this in the MOOC Mindshift, the successor to Learning how to learn.

This is a really great course! Wish I found out about this before college. I learned a lot from this MOOC.

I'm currently finishing a related course, Mindshift. This is taught by the same people from Learning How to Learn (Dr. Oakley and Dr. Sejnowski). I just finished Week 1 and although the concepts are quite similar to Learning How to Learn, there are some new concepts introduced and expounded. You might want to check this out, too.

Coursera

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift

She also has a free course on Coursera called "Learning How to Learn": https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift

People condition themselves to perform differently on different environments

I'm following a MOOC about learning by Barbara Oakley and Terry Sejnowski (same people who made Learning how to learn, highly recommend the freely available Coursera MOOC).

I reached a part where Terry is talking about how people change behavior depending on the environment https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift/lecture/KBuYQ/1-9-your-environment-affects-who-you-are and I'm thinking "what if I trained myself to be scatterbrained and hard to focus on studying when I'm sitting on my computer, because of what I tend to do most of the time when I sit on the computer"?

To put it differently: The most common form of insomnia is learned. All it takes is a few nights of struggling to quiet your active brain, and suddenly it's a habit. At first you are tired, ready to sleep, 10 minutes in and you feel widely awake and baffled with where all the tiredness went. I know this because I suffered from it for 2 months. I solved it by getting up whenever I felt awake, do something else like reading a book until I feel tired again, then go back to bed.

What I'm saying is, there are things that we condition ourselves into and until we deliberately break the pattern systematically for a few days or weeks we will never be cured. And maybe this is why now that I'm trying to work from home I struggle with concentrating and be productive, because I'm used to mindlessly scroll through Reddit or hunt demons in video games. And to break this habit I won't need to uninstall games or Reddit but deliberately study when I can and if I have the urge to act out something I shouldn't (like staying awake in bed or play video games on PC) get up and do something else until the mood to play goes away, or rather the mood to study comes back.

Just throwing random thoughts on the floor.

My course is in English... Try this link?

UX Career Path Feedback?

Hi Reddit! I’m looking for some career advice. I’ll ramble a bit about myself, and towards the end I have some proposed career paths that I’d love feedback on. What sorts of paths have other UX people taken?

Right now, I’m pretty happy in my current role but I can see that I may be headed for a career plateau. I have been taking some coursera courses, particularly [Mindshift] (https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift) which I highly recommend. It has me thinking about the concept of “second skilling” where I backup my primary skillset with others (or dust off old ones in some cases). My current role is great, but I am starting to experience the first signs of friction as I try to move up from my senior position to something more advanced, and am trying to get out ahead of this. I’ve been at my current role about a decade, which I know is unusual, but up until this point I’ve been very satisfied with growth and salary (checking glassdoor every year and feeling quite good about the compensation). But I worry my skillset isn’t growing as fast right now and I don’t want to be caught unawares if/when I want to move somewhere else. I’m also getting a little bit bored! Sometimes I wish I had a job that was pure remote, which is harder to do with UX than other software jobs.

Current Role: About 13 years as a User Experience Designer/Specialist, mostly a a large software company in a major city. Lots of focus on sketching, mockups, usability testing. It is a very collaborate environment where we facilitate design with the development teams, who ultimately own the final designs. Lots of reviews with senior stakeholders (which is itself an important skill). UX people here do the usability testing, requirements gathering, customer interviews, and sketching. We don’t do the graphic design, nor do we make any html.

My Background: I started in computer science and math, with degrees in both, but did my graduate degree in computer science with a focus on human computer interaction. At one point I was a fairly skilled developer, but those skills have certainly started to wane.

Possible new career paths: I’m looking for the usual combination of a good salary, challenging, interesting, and with growth opportunities. I’m also excited about the possibility of remote work.

• UI Developer: I could brush off the technical skills by either taking some coursera courses, or sitting in on developer training that my company offers. Plenty of opportunities to surround myself with “extra credit” projects. One thing that’s appealing about returning to some development is that the prospect of remote work seems easier here than with UX.
• UX -> Focus on Interaction Design: I see the UX field getting specialized into two roles, Research and Design. Many jobs I see posted for UX seem to include an emphasis on the graphic design piece, sometimes even including a fair amount of HTML/CSS. I’m good with tools like Balsamiq, Fireworks, and HTML/CSS. I’m not as good at coming up with new visual designs using tools like Illustrator, nor am I currently familiar with some of the prototyping tools like Axure.
• UX -> Focus on User Research: The other half of the UX specialization seems to be the research. Digging into more skills around requirements gathering, testing, contextual interviewing. I already do most of these things but could find ways to improve.
• UX -> Focus on Data: Metrics seem to be getting ever more popular. Unfortunately we are not currently a data driven UX group, but that seems to be changing. There’s opportunities for me to explore in this area as well. This may be a good way to include some of the CS/Math skills I have as well?
• UX Manager: I’d love to work on my leadership, coaching, and mentorship skills. But I don’t have a strong desire to be a full time manager. However, sometimes this seems to be one of the best career moves, especially if I want to stay put at the same company.
• UX Design: Just stay in UX with my current trajectory but try to really hone everything. Try to present at local UX conferences, volunteer with organizations, etc. Just because there’s a plateau doesn’t mean I can’t push through it!
• Product Management: I just found another post in this subreddit that linked to this article. I wouldn't mind having a little more influence over the product! Getting more exposure to different parts of the software business would be great. At my current job, the development managers are the real product owners, but other places that's not the case.

Thoughts, feedback, similar experiences? I’d love to hear people’s ideas! Thank you so much!

I read "a mind for numbers" and "learning how to learn" didn't add anything new. Now I'm thinking of taking their next course mindshift but there's also a book about it. I'm noticing a trend here.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift

I'd strongly suggest learning to learn. It covers how long, how to combine different subjects, best study practices, etc.. There is a follow on course that I have yet to take that I think covers more precisely your questions. See mindshift, I believe they suggest you take learning to learn first.

I am interested to hear how your progress is coming along. I too am feeling a bit paralyzed with organizing my learning. I know what subjects I am interested in pursuing but haven't done the best of late of prioritizing and focusing on specific goals.

Then I'd say Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects
and Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential

First: notice that you're shaming yourself. You are not bad at learning languages because speaking a language is about learning a skillset which takes effort, not inherently being good at it - you need to reframe your thinking. Start with "beginner brain", the knowledge that you're just starting out and don't know much yet but you're curious to learn more.

Second: learn about learning. I particularly liked Barbara Oakley's free course about learning. You might want to start there to understand how learning works: https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift
Humans don't learn by passively watching, we learn by doing. It sounds like you've taken a passive approach to study and that's why you've seen poor results. Learning happens through active effort so get a tutor or join a language club. Define some goals for your learning journey and create some strategies to achieve them. There are tons of posts on this sub (and other places) about different strategies to learn most effectively.

It's ok to be in a funk but you'll have to put some effort in to pull yourself out of it. Just remember that you aren't bad at languages, that's simply not true. Good luck!

This field is open for everyone.Research shown that only 25% of your success depends on your IQ.
I think first you need to change your mindset I highly recommend you to do this course https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift.
And then set your goal why you want to learn programming and work towards it.If you face trouble just ask Reddit has a great community.

There are two good courses. Learning How to Learn and Mindshift

Feed the hungry mind. A great place to start is Coursera's Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift

Terrific course, brilliant design, helps you set goals.

I highly recommend it!

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being

https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindshift

I cannot recommend them highly enough.