The Emotional Side of Learning Data Science
Robert Joseph
Cofounder and President at Team MindShift | LinkedIn Learning Instructor | Educator | Father
In my 15 years of teaching advanced technical topics to adult learners the biggest impedance to learning is emotional mindset. I know this from teaching at several Universities as well as from getting my BS and MS from MIT in Electrical Engineering and then going on to get my MS and Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon in Computer Science.
Currently as a Professor and a practicing Data Scientist I understand both internally and observationally how emotions can negatively and positively affect the learning process. Let’s take a look at some of these emotional barriers.
The two most common barriers that I have seen are:
- Emotional feeling (e.g. fear, doubtful, worry, etc.), and
- Internal conversations (e.g. This topic is hard, I’m not good with technology, etc.)
Each one of these emotional or internal practices slows the learning process and are self induced. Fortunately these impedances can be overcome quite easily. It all boils down to perspective. Two people can be in the same situation dealing with the same set of circumstances and have different feelings and internal conversations.
Just saying to yourself, “I am getting better at this” instead of “I don’t know what I am doing” can have an profound impact on your performance. The internal conversation or feelings only have one source and that is you. So you can actually decide what to say or feel about any situation you. You are in control.
“Whether you think you can, oryou think you can't – you're right.”
- Henry Ford
The same is true for emotions.
“The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity Kitai. Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”
So the next time you are feeling an unsupportive emotion or telling yourself a negative story then simply make a more powerful choice. Can this be easily done maybe or maybe not, it is all about choices, give it a try and see how it works.
What do you think? Are your emotion and internal conversations controlled by you?
Business Management Instructor at Oglethorpe University and Steering Committee Member/Consultant at DFM Data Corp., Inc.
5 年We do have control of our thoughts but they need to be trained to eliminate unproductive patterns like fear and anxiety.? Starting your lectures at Emory with some of these same subjects was an effective way to reduce apprehension and facilitate learning.? Thanks for the thought leadership.
Head of Data Science, IT, and AI Recruiting at Hudson Gate Partners
5 年Very good article.? And likely the only Data Science piece you or I will EVER read that references both Will Smith and the movie After Earth...
Technician, Project Manager
5 年Great article. Thanks for the coaching Robert Joseph, Ph.D.
Nice post Robert. It's so true - your mindset dictates so much of both how you manage challenges as well as how people experience you. My son and I had this exact conversation earlier in the week and it applies to all phases of our life. Thank you for sharing.?