Why do people engage in 100days of Code? Why do I see tweets of code snippets or tweets of other developers sharing their experience or learning process, how does it even help them?
In this article, I will be sharing what Public learning is, how it helps your career as a techie and how to engage in Public Learning.
What is Public Learning?
Public Learning is a learning pattern that involves transparency of your progress, personal growth, work, and sharing information with a public audience.
How Public Learning impacts your career?
Personally, a crucial part of my growth in the tech ecosystem in less than a year is linked to the network and knowledge I have gotten by sharing my experience with the tech community on Twitter. You can check out my achievements in my 2020-in-review.
There are so many benefits public learning can add to your career and help fast-track it. Let's discuss these benefits!
- A way to learn better
How is this even possible? Yes, it is! Sharing your progress and knowledge publicly helps you learn better cause most times you get constructive feedback on how to improve the content. Subconsciously because you are giving out to others, you tend to research well and go in-depth, which happens a lot when you write articles. Over time, this improves your knowledge.
- Opportunities
Yes, opportunities! Sharing your content publicly opens up opportunities for you because you never know who is watching. From a single blog post, you could be recommended for a writing gig, sharing a project you built could get you a job or even potential investors, earn you public speaking gigs, etc. Let me share a screenshot of a tweet I saw over the weekend of someone that played around Clubhouse with Swift. VP of Shopify responded and asked if he would love to join Shopify, he should send a DM!
- Network
This works like magic! Definitely, when you put out content publicly, others see it and engage, it might not be obvious from the start but over time you'd realize how much network and audience you have engaging and appreciating in your content. The network also brings you opportunities.
- Visibility
Popularity yeah! I'm sure if I ask you your favorite content creators, there are chances we could share the same or at least one. Public learning can give you visibility in your chosen niche in your career.
- Impact by helping others
Publicly sharing your content and knowledge, learning methods, projects, etc. is beneficial to others too, helps them learn too which is a medium to give back to the community. Your article can help others understand concepts that are difficult to grasp, smoothen tasks, or even as far as land them a job because of the knowledgeable information you shared.
Now how do you start?
Different ways to learn publicly
- Writing in form of blogs, tutorials, and cheatsheets
- Engage in public challenges like 100 Days of code
- Curating short information or threads about a concept and sharing across your social media.
- Speaking at meetups, groups, webinars, and conferences sharing knowledge in your expertise
- Ask and answer questions on Stack Overflow, Reddit, or Quora
- Record and Start YouTube Videos or Twitch Streams
- Publish and send newsletters
- Conduct and teach workshops
So many things right! Don't be scared or put pressure on yourself, you must not do all, go at your own pace. Additionally, when you public learn, you can experience trolling, ugly comments, and reviews but do not let it make you stop giving content. Please ignore or soft block them.
While it is not compulsory you should engage in public learning, it is important as it will help you speed up your career growth process.
Thanks for reading! If this article was helpful to you, kindly share and comment too!