Reading the chapter “Expose your Ignorance”, there were mainly four words that stood out to me: Ignorance, Pretending and Learning ability. This chapter is telling us how important it is in the professional field to embrace our ignorance which is our vulnerability and transform it into our strength by embracing the learning process.
I have been going to school since I was two years old. Even though school is meant to be a place where we all must learn and support each other, exposing our ignorance is not quite something that makes us comfortable. We feel behind everyone and sometimes, asking questions can give a sense of “nonbelonging “or “not having the appropriate level yet” for the class and it is frustrating. This frustration gets worse in the professional world where we are expected to know a lot of things and sometimes, don’t. We are driven to believe that the knowledge of everything is what allows us to keep a job or impress the employers or recruiters.
The other word that stood out to me is “Pretending”. This is actually very interesting because pretending is a temporary mask that sooner or later ends up falling and revealing your true face. However, I wonder if “pretending” can be used by someone to gain time for example, to boost someone’s confidence level and allow the person to learn/ improve while not necessarily exposing his/her ignorance and be uncomfortable.
The third thing that stood out to me was “Learning ability”. I believe that we are never done learning no matter what stage we are in life. Leaning is what keep us going and growing, learning demonstrates a sense of modesty. We put aside what we know, and we learn something new to add to what we knew already. The world is everlastingly growing. New technologies, new improvements, developments happen every day and that should always motivate us to seek more, to want to feed our intellect more on any subject.
In conclusion, I definitely gained confidence about trusting the learning process and not being afraid to expose my ignorance. I personally never worked in my field yet and I anticipate it to be a challenge to get hired in a tech company and meet all the specifications as a freshly graduate. I am planning to be honest with myself and with my team, managers, and clients. That way I am confident to deliver quality and not under deliver because I didn’t have the courage to be myself and allow myself to grow in the process.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Software Intellect by rkitenge91 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.