The best MOOC I've ever finished

In this post, I want to post something that usually not posted in a technical community like us, programmer and engineer. In this post, I want to share my experience in the Massive Open Online Course I've finished. It is the Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential. It is the follow up of Dr. Barbara Oakley's Learning How to Learn MOOC. I've finished both MOOCs and I feel like this is a prerequisite for you who want to thrive in this information era where a change in the industry is happening faster compare to the previous industrial era. For example, the adoption in AI leads to a new type of jobs arisen and old jobs being outsourced to machines. In this era, we're expected to continuously learn and adapt.

Top 3 Key Takeaways from the MOOC

In the MOOC there is a lot of message and lessons I learned, however, I want to emphasis 3 key takeaways that I think very valuable because not only this lesson is taught in the MOOC, this lesson is also resonated to my own experience.

Focused and diffuse modes of thinking bring very different insights into your learning.

I have a story, when I was in high-school I love math, although my math score is not always top in my cohort, I always love math. Someday I encountered a difficult puzzle, and I spent hours solving the puzzle and I still didn't get it. After taking a break, my mom asks me to buy some groceries in a nearby warung (a small shop). After I bought all the items and I go back home, on the way, the solution to the puzzle immediately appears in my mind almost magically. Since then I know that my mind works amazingly after I focus on something and I let them wander around.

Years later, around 2018, I enrolled to the Dr. Barbara Oakley's Learning How to Learn MOOC and I learn that this phenomenon is called the diffused mode of thinking where compare to the other mode of thinking (the focused mode), the diffused mode let your brain connect thing together and help you find a pattern of something you're working or learning on. Since then, this is my dirty little secret.

The value of your past.

I've been working as a software engineer, for about 4 years now, and I'm very grateful that despite my lack of formal background in computer science, I still survived and in fact contribute a major part in the various companies I've worked with.

I go to engineering school in college and took Engineering Physics as my major, there I learn a lot of physical systems and we taught to be able to zoom-in and zoom-out through multiple physical models. For example model of fluid in pipes can be very similar to what model of electricity running in DC electric circuit. Extrapolating this mental model I've learned that my job in Software Engineering benefited a lot from a lot of concepts I learned in Engineering Physics major. For example, I realized that when I load test a software system, the response is very similar to what I learned in the control system and signal and system where a system if given an impulse, will give an impulse response where it shows us their natural response.

Kubernetes is the other example. How Kubernetes maintain a number of replica of the pod is similar to what control system engineers taught about maintaining the state of a system using a controller. Here's the diagram that I never forget from my control system engineering course.

Turned out the same idea is taught in the Mindshift MOOC, what a coincidence.

Don’t just follow your passion—also work to broaden your passions.

This is also something I learn from the MOOC, but I also learn this the hard way. When I'm about graduating from high school, I faced an option to pursue a Computer Science study or this random field called Engineering Physics. I follow my Dad advice to not take Computer Science because he thinks there's a lot of people already learned it. Turned out the idea is not bad as it sounds. While my main passion is on Computer Science, I managed to graduate from the Engineering Physics with almost Cumlaude GPA 🙈. Even though after I graduate, I directly took a job as an entry-level Software Engineer considering my internship experiences in IT and Software Engineering.

This story is things that taught in the MOOC that really resonated with me because I experienced first hand and I feel a really good thing to keep an open mind and looking for opportunities. If you're a linguist, you might be surprised how programming is very similar to communication and to write properly.

Conclusion

We've covered three takeaways from Mindshift MOOC that I really recommend. Those are

• Focused and diffuse modes of thinking bring very different insights into your learning.
• The value of your past. Seemingly unconnected knowledge from your past can bring unexpected assets to your work in the present. Remember—it's typical to feel incompetent when you first try to change.
• Don’t just follow your passion—also work to broaden your passions.

About Me 😄

I'm Abdurrachman and currently, I'm managing a software development agency called Kulkul.tech. We're a web and mobile software development company providing excellent software for business. We're working with companies all over the world from a single-person business to large corporates. We are a solid remote-first firm with a high emphasis on people and clear communication.

We begin each project with understanding the client's business and problem then provide a contextual solution and applicable technology. We make sure that cooperation with us develops the business of our client.

We provide excellent engineers and designers to deliver a complete product from spec gathering, product road mapping, UI/UX design, development, QA, and DevOps.
We're experts in the following technologies:

• JavaScript and Node.js
• Python and Django
• Ruby on Rails,
• Mobile (iOS and Android) especially Flutter
• DB: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB,
• Frontend: Elm, React, Angular

We working in Codementor too, please reach me in Codementor if you're interested.