This is the only thing school should have taught

I started with coding a long time ago, and I think the biggest reasons why I got good at it was because I didn't go to a university or institute to learn it.

Craft your own education

Institutions do not build career. They don't even educate you much. All they do for most people is put them in an environment where their most important priority becomes learning.

If you can do that for yourself without needing an institution, you'll accelerate your life.

I created my first commercial application within 1 year of starting my programming career. I go to making money before most people get to coding their first app, and that happened because I didn't have set expectations.

There was no curriculum, no courseware, no exam at the end of the term. It was just me a pile of books, and a decision that I would do my best each day.

I sped through the things I could speed through, and I crawled through the concepts that I couldn't. I took MY time with everything. Sometimes it was fast, sometimes it was slow, but it was all me.

It wasn't defined by an institution or dictated by a professor, and that enabled me to get the end-goal faster than I would have if I had gone to a university to learn what I did.

Later when I started hiring for different roles and watched young, hard-working people struggle with getting real results I realized that the biggest roadblock before them was their education and not the lack of it.

They spent 3 or 5 years memorizing theories they'd never use, doing assignments that were not in touch with reality and learning technologies that were outdated even before they started learning them.

When they got out they discovered nobody needed anything they had learnt.

Does this sound familiar?

You could take more courses and industry classes to get there, and that might help but only in getting started.

The more you know, the more you will discover that it is harder to find someone to teach you what comes next.

No, there's no lack of experts. There's no lack of educational material, but you will learn only if you teach yourself.

How to learn - that's the only skill you need to master in the new knowledge economy, and you will need it every day. Learn to learn, and you will never need to worry about your career again.

Let me give you 3 things you can do today to start on this journey.

• Make a list of blogs in your field and subscribe to them. Check them at least 2 times a week.
• Find the best 15 YouTube channels in your field and subscribe. Turn on the notifications. Spend 15-20 minutes everyday watching those videos.
• Your work is your craft. It's not your burden. Develop a passion for it, or do what you can develop a passion for.

Learning is incremental, but it adds up pretty fast. Get started with learning something today and keep at it.

That is all there is to it.