E is for Eskwelabs Issue 055 - Mindset of a beginner 🌱, Heart of a lifelong learner 💖
In our fifty-fifth issue, we immerse ourselves in our July theme of “Joy” by focusing on lifelong learning, having a beginner’s mindset, and the fun times you can have in an online Zoom class.
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.
What are the little things that bring you joy?
🎶 Happy songs that match the vibe of today’s issue: 🎶
Hi everyone, it’s Francine here! 👋 I’m starting this issue off by sharing a team photo from our company shoot last June. It was the first time that more than ⅔ of these people met each other face-to-face! So much joy! How fitting it is to start the next month with JOY as our theme. Today we’ll zoom in on the ways we can make learning filled with fun, warmth, and passion. Happy reading, everyone!
What we’re joyfully gushing about in this issue:
🍎 Lifelong learning
🌱 The Beginner’s Mindset
🎉 Making Zoom classes fun
READING TIME: 11 minutes
🍎 Lifelong learning
E IS FOR ESKWELABS CHALLENGE #1: If you can reply to this email with the number of times we used the term “lifelong learning” in today’s issue, then we’ll give you a promo code to Aral-Aral+.
What is lifelong learning?
Why is lifelong learning important?
In 2017, The Economist reported that lifelong learning has become an economic imperative. Later on in 2020, the World Economic Forum shared that possibly 133 million new jobs would get created to meet the Fourth Industrial Revolution's demands. New jobs means that the workforce has some major upskilling to do. We know that learning new things isn’t always easy. But having a joyful attitude about it and cultivating the heart of a lifelong learner—aka someone who’s curious and inspired to continuously expand their mind—definitely makes upskilling less difficult.
Aside from reading reports from The Economist and the World Economic Forum, you know we love a good Harvard Business Review article! This one titled, “Identify — and Hire — Lifelong Learners” from 2021 speaks directly to decision makers, managers, applicants, and HR professionals about how crucial of a skill it is to know how to learn.
📑 Why do we recommend this article? It contains: 📑
Thought-provoking statements like “How do you learn?” or “What were you learning 6 months ago?”
Interview questions you can ask about lifelong learning so that managers and candidates can find that beautiful company-employee fit right away.
Suggested activities like a “learned” and “to-learn” list, as well as a 2x2 matrix, for anyone to get better at skills adoption
How can we be lifelong learners?
6 doable actions to cultivate the lifelong learning spirit:
1.🎨 Identify the best way you learn (Solo, in a group, visually, etc.)
The idea of visual learners, auditory learners, etc. has been an ongoing debate in the world of education. But the core of this question (and this action step) is about honesty. At Eskwelabs, we believe and honor the beauty of diversity; each of our learners is unique. What works for one may not work for another. It’s best to be honest with yourself, because these two are one of the keys to joy: your internal compass and metrics.
2.🖼️ Explore a subject you're curious about
Growing up, “school” was not typically synonymous with “fun” or “excitement.” But we want to break free from this mold and infuse joy into the learning process right here, right now by declaring that people have the agency to follow their curiosities. It should not be a pressuring 50/50 decision between choosing art and science. You can choose to be a science major and pursue arts education via online learning or mentoring. You can choose to have architecture as your main focus, but you can always dabble into your interests, perhaps drawing or data analytics? There are a multitude of combinations, because we are multifaceted human beings. How incredible!
3.📱Curate a fun media list for that subject
The amount of resources available to us in this generation can be overwhelming, but it’s good to remember that we have the power to curate what we want to consume. You know what’s fun for you. Maybe it’s just learning via podcasts. Maybe it’s mixing and matching Youtube videos and joining a bootcamp. Or maybe it’s joining a quick but insightful learning sprint!
4.🌊 Choose a skill to learn for the year and dive deep into it
In January, there are people who proclaim a “word of the year” to be their guiding theme for the next 12 months. Words or themes like “peace,” “abundance,” “flow,” or “joy.” But instead of a “word of the year,” try choosing a “skill of the year” and dive deep into that.
5.👋 Pick accountability buddies to help you dive into that skill
Feel free to go into this as seriously or as casually as you want. You make the rules. Maybe you want your accountability buddy to keep you in check monthly or quarterly. Maybe you want daily texts or weekly emails!
6.☕ Plan learning dates with your colleagues, friends, family, or community
This session can be loud and chatter-filled or it can mimic a library session where you soak in the comfortable silence with a trusted learning buddy. The choice, once again, is yours.
Celebrating Eskwelabs lifelong learners
📊 Data Analytics Bootcamp
Last July 2, our 31 learners from Cohort 6 wrapped up their 8-week Data Analytics Bootcamp journey. Thank you to our mentors and instructors. CONGRATULATIONS to all! 🎉
Dearest learners—and now alumni—we will never grow tired of celebrating your successes, failures, and everything in between. We will cheer you on as you empower others, especially since at the core of data analytics is problem-solving. 💪
📊 Cohort 8 of the Bootcamp starts on October 10, 2022
Assessment exam coverage: View here
Deadline of assessment exam: September 23, 2022 (Multiple choice)
🖥️ Data Science Fellowship
Sprint 3 in our Data Science Fellowship is about analyzing credit card fraud using big data. 💳 How did our Fellows deploy a credit card fraud detection model in just 2 weeks? 💯
Topic sneak peek: Tree-based models, Classification algorithms, Model validation, Cloud Computing, and more
Tools reveal: Pandas, Scikit Learn, SQL with Spark, SQL with BigQuery, APIs, and more
Soft skills acquired: Teamwork, perseverance, time management, and project management++
Proud of you all. Great work, Fellows!
🖥️ Cohort 10 of the Fellowship starts on September 12, 2022
Assessment exam coverage: View here
Deadline of assessment exam: August 21, 2022 (Multiple choice)
🌱 The Beginner’s Mindset
E IS FOR ESKWELABS CHALLENGE #2: If you’ve finished the book we’ll be recommending in this issue, then reply to this email so I can book an interview with you—I would like to interview you for our Learner Life Stories!
What is the Beginner’s Mindset?
The concept of the “beginner’s mind” or “shoshin” originated from Zen Buddhism. It’s about taking a fresh, humble, open-minded and energized approach towards anything new. Your level of experience is not the focus here. It’s all in your attitude and perspective.
Are you easily disheartened when you don’t get it right the first time?
Are you immoveable in your ways of doing things?
Do you feel weak in the knees—to the point that it’s crippling—when trying something new?
Someone who lives with a beginner’s mindset is okay with failing at first and even failing multiple times down the road, because failure is one way to learn. This person is flexible in their methods and is welcoming towards any experimental ideas of others, no matter how different it is from theirs. And while this person isn’t brave 24/7 of the time (after all, who is?), he or she has enough grit to give new things a try.
How did Eskwelabs begin?
📰 Co-founder & CEO Angela Chen shares her story in She Talks Asia’s “Women in Tech” feature: 📰
“I believe the equivalent of language skills today is in data literacy or the ability to read, understand, create, and communicate data as information. We are in the midst of a data explosion – almost everything we touch and work with today generates data. So that means data skills are not just for technologists but for anyone working in an organization that wants to move from gut-based to data-informed decisions.”
Eskwelabs Book Recommendation
📖 Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning by Tom Vanderbilt 📖
As of writing this issue, there is 1 copy left of the paperback edition on the Fully Booked website. But here’s a link to Amazon in case you’d like to buy a digital version! Tom talks about how it’s never too late to learn new things, how practice makes a skill automatic, and how you can feel young forever with a beginner’s mindset and a lifelong learner’s heart.
Book summary from Amazon (shortened):
“Inspired by his young daughter’s insatiable curiosity, Tom Vanderbilt embarks on a yearlong quest of learning—purely for the sake of learning. Rapturously singing Spice Girls songs in an amateur choir, losing games of chess to eight-year-olds, and dodging scorpions at a surf camp in Costa Rica, Vanderbilt tackles five main skills but learns so much more.”
Book club question for all of us:
What have you always wanted to learn but felt afraid to try and learn it? Why?
🎉 Making Zoom classes fun
E IS FOR ESKWELABS CHALLENGE #3: If you share this newsletter issue with one of your colleagues, then let me know and we’ll email you a slide deck that contains an art-related activity you can conduct with your remote work team.
How do we form authentic connections despite having our classes fully online?
The advice of the Eskwelabs team would be to try the activities we’ve listed in these two blog posts below. They are applicable for online classes, remote work socials, and even family and friend Zoom dates. Through these two blog posts alone you will already get a sneak peek into the sometimes wacky, oftentimes sentimental, and always caring heart of the Eskwelabs team! 💖
📚 A to Zoom - 26 activities for your "Work from Home" team (Eskwelabs blog post)
Here are suggestions on how to keep your teammates engaged, energized, and connected
📚 Four Ideas for a Meaningful Virtual Graduation (Eskwelabs blog post)
How do you make a traditionally onsite event more personal when done totally online?
That’s it for our fifty-fifth issue of the newsletter! Was it a joyful one? ☀️
What did you think of this format? Let us know here. We appreciate you so much for reading!
💌 Cheering you on always,
Francine
Learning Community Manager at Eskwelabs