E is For Eskwelabs Issue 018 - The Heart of a Lifelong Learner ❤️🌱
In our eighteenth issue, we get excited for 2021 by talking about the things on our to-learn list. We invite you to do the same and reflect on your learning goals for this coming year.
We created this newsletter to keep our alums, partners, and anyone interested in learning skills for the future of work updated and connected to our ever-growing family. If you want to read our previous issues, you can check them out here.
Hello and happy new year, Francine here! 👋 If we've spent the last few weeks feeling sentimental, today we're all about looking forward to 2021. For this special edition of our newsletter, we're inviting you to reflect on your learning goals, sharing with you what's on Team Eskwelabs' to-learn list, and giving you an opportunity to share your thoughts on the future of education and the future of work. Happy reading! ❤️
What's in this newsletter:
🤔 A free workbook to get you in a reflective mood for 2021
📚 A collection of topics and skills on our team’s to-learn list
💬 A call to contribute to the conversation about the future of education and work
✨ What are your biggest takeaways from 2020 and what are your learning goals for 2021? 🤔
An essential part of preparing for the new year involves taking stock of what has happened so far. These events will have a profound effect on the way you view the world, the way you make decisions moving forward, and the way you select which goals you’ll aspire to achieve—whether you’re conscious about it or not. But it’s important to note that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to introspect. So we’re balancing this mood of “looking back” and “looking forward” by sharing a mix of downloadable worksheets that will encourage the reader to do both.
We invite you to treat this Lifelong Learner’s Reflection Workbook as your own personal silent retreat. In here are some of our favorite exercises from experts whom we greatly admire:
Current Me to Future Me - An inspiring goal-setting exercise shared by Aileen Xu (Lavendaire) that members of the Eskwelabs team have tried and now recommend.
Work View vs. Life View and the Good Time Journal - Both exercises are credited to the incredible minds of Bill Burnett and Dave Evans (Designing Your Life). We’re big fans!
The final worksheet we added is what we call “2021 Year of Learning.” This one’s a simple template that you can fill up with your learning goals. You can also use the same worksheet to keep track of any realizations and progress updates you have as you go through the year.
👉 Download the free Eskwelabs Lifelong Learner Reflection Workbook to clarify your learning and career goals for 2021 and beyond!
✨ What’s on the Eskwelabs Team’s 2021 To-Learn list? 📚
A core mindset and attitude that is ingrained in the foundations of each of our programs and initiatives is “lifelong learning.” Whether you are a Fellow in our Data Science Fellowship or a Data Barkada member in Analytics SkillsCourse, you will have gone through exercises that promote growth mindset, grit, and love for learning.
But lifelong learning is more than just a principle we use to link all our programs together, it’s also a philosophy that members of our team subscribe to. Yes, we’re big fans of learning, and there are many reasons why. We believe learning is a means for social mobility, a tool for levelling up personally and professionally, a bridge to connect communities and cultures, a way for people to follow their curiosities, and an opportunity to explore new hobbies and bring joy into our daily lives.
In all our newsletter issues so far, we have never really zoomed in on the individual members that make up our team. Since this is our last issue of 2020/first issue of 2021, we thought of introducing to you—in the most Eskwelabs way possible—both current and former teammates and the items on their 2021 To-Learn list.
Our learning goals in 2021:
Angela: My foremost goal is scaling Eskwelabs in 2021 and in a startup setting, we find ourselves often trying to create something new for the first time. So a lot of my learning goals are preceded by finding out what are the right things we have to learn to succeed as an organization. At this point in time, we have a strong why and built a culture, so the things I want to learn revolves around how we can expand into a solid team that can execute with better focus and intensity.
Thea: UX design principles and Project Management
Edward: Creating materials (articles and slides) using Business Intelligence knowledge and skills
Kayla: Python and Photoshop
Albert: Augmented reality, taking an AWS certification, reviewing robotics and the internet of things, reviewing code parallelisation and quantum computing, active investing, transcendental meditation, moving object photography, ‘flirting online’ 101, digital painting, flying a drone, knitting and sewing textiles, podcasting and vlogging, video editing, baking, and playing guitar
Aurelien: Agile, Education Science, Decision Science, TensorFlow, Chinese language, Philippine History, Spanish/Latin American Literature and poetry
David: Reading fast and retaining information, SQL, PyTorch, Machine Learning computation and theory, Deep Learning, web development
Lance: Marketing, leadership and resilience, trying to be more resilient as a person
Francine: Mastering Figma, Product Management, developing leadership skills, Instructional Design, basic web development, and learning more recipes that are not pasta or rice dishes
Gerard: Cloud Computing, creating social impact, time management, and work-life balance
Caleb: Functional programming design patterns, Unity 3D, keeping up to date with Kubernetes, learning about creating GANs with TF v2, brushing up on D3.js and data storytelling on the web, design thinking and human centered design, Bahasa Indonesian, and South East Asian History
Lemuel: Improving my skills in programming, learning other programming languages other than Python
Caitlin: Getting crafty and learning how to crochet or embroider (“It would be nice to give handmade gifts to my friends and family”), gardening skills and learning more about plant care and propagation, spreadsheet skills for organizing and analyzing data, learning how to free dive
Ian: DevOps, Advanced TypeScript, Cypress, Advanced React
Lex: Mastering more PowerBI functionalities like DAX; mastering SQL; mastering different pedagogies and class activities to make the class not just a place of learning, but also a place of fun
Julia: Being a better leader and more data science skills
Ric: R for data science and learning more vegan recipes in pursuit of a healthier diet
Janica: Community-building and Marketing
Conner: Web development frameworks, working in a small team environment, time management, and work-life balance
Bela: UX design, vector art for human design storytelling, knitting, gouache painting, digital scrapbooking/collage
Richmond: Using Django/Flask for a dashboard web app that is connected to SAP Hana Database and how to use Django/Flask in general
👉 How about you? We’d love to know what’s on your To-Learn list for 2021! Feel free to comment or reply to this newsletter.
✨ What are your thoughts on the future of education and the future of work? 💬
In just one year, we’ve left so much of our old way of living behind. We’ve left physical spaces and migrated to online ones. (Hello to the united residents of Zoom and permanent citizens of Google Meets!) We’ve seen social media abuzz with passionate thoughts of students going through a mix of synchronous and asynchronous classes. At the same time, we were also hit by a wave of articles and resources on remote work in the New Normal.
But one thing has stayed the same despite all these changes. In fact, the pandemic this year highlighted what has been on our minds from the very beginning (back to when we started Eskwelabs in May 2019)—there is a need to level up with in-demand skills.
The Learner Life Chat is a casual yet deeply personal initiative from our team wherein we invite members from our Eskwelabs community to share their learning goals, career aspirations, ideas for the future of education, and thoughts on the future of work. These 30-minute 1-on-1 chats are open to Eskweloves who want to be co-designers of future Eskwelabs learning experiences.
👉 Find a time slot here and let’s chat soon!
That’s it for our eighteenth issue of the newsletter! Thank you so much for reading. ♥️
Have something to share? We encourage you to give us feedback and ideas (you may do so here) and if you like it, please share it with a friend!
Have a good Sunday! See you again in your inbox on January 10, 2021!
💌 Cheering you on always (and feeling excited for the new year),
Francine
Community Producer at Eskwelabs