The Experience of MDD410
Nearing the end of my college career I am filled with excitement and if I am going to be honest a lot of trepidation as well. The feeling that there are still things that I do not yet know that employers will expect. I have a technique of putting my knowledge into three categories.
Category 1: Things I know I know. Category 2: Things I know I do not know. Category 3: things that I do not know I do not know.
This is a technique that was taught to me by a mentor at a previous job and has helped me develop learning plans to move more knowledge from category two to category 1.
The most dangerous category, however, is the third, and this is because I would be unable to even recognize a lack of knowledge in a given situation. I realized early in the class that the knowledge I was learning covered that the third category of knowledge. I was expecting about the same as many of my other classes, and that was to move knowledge from the category two to category one knowledge.
This class has been amazing at moving a lot of knowledge from category three to category two. It was apparent after about the third week that there was not enough time in the course to learn each emergent technology thoroughly, but enough to recognize what I need to learn more about to move the information safely into category two and prepare over time to learn and expand on the information in order to move it into category three.
I learned a lot about 3D printing and I have done plenty of self-exploration since we started learning about it in class. 3D printing has been touted as a breakthrough that will simplify the world, but it turns out, there are many more complexities to 3D printing then are advertised.
When I was working on my final I started my final on working on a social media interface design, but after a few hours of work I found myself wanting to work on a 3D printing sample in my spare time. I wanted to create punch out text 3D wall hangings for cubicles.
I found that if the fonts were too small or there were too many flourishes in the typeface I was required to print at high quality in order to ensure the text came out right and didn’t have some of the gaps “auto-corrected” before forming the final 3D model. This increased the cost of printing greatly.
So, I was forced to simplify the text and use larger fonts and in turn less text. This exercise alone has taught me that even though 3D printing will change the future of manufacturing there is still a long way to go before it will replace things like plastic injection molding and water pressure and laser cutting in mass production cheap products.
I learned a lot in this class and I will continue to expand my knowledge throughout my life. If this class has taught me anything it’s that if you want to be in the IT industry you need to be willing to accept change and take the helm for your own education if you do not want to fall behind the trends.
You must network and through networking you will be able to add things into the third category, then under your own terms move knowledge from the second category to the first. This is a constant cycle and will need to be maintained because what is emergent today, is standard tomorrow. What is science fiction today is going to be emergent a year from now…and the cycle will continue, so if you are interested in the field hop on start running.
