Why most IT courses are a waste of time, and how to make them work for you
Learning is good, and investing in courses is excellent. But some courses are just a waste of time and money. After several experiences (good and bad ones), I learned to identify the best ones for me. This is what I consider.
I believe that investing in our knowledge is among the best things we can do, but I’m unhappy with our current methods.
Courses and training are highly accessible for us. They are cheap, and we can take them from home at “our own pace.” However, after completing a course, we rarely apply and quickly forget what we have learned.
In the end, courses represent lots of wasted hours (and money) that brought us no benefits other than a temporary ego boost.
What are the courses’ problems?
My first experience with IT courses happened 20 years ago.
I wanted a career as an SAP consultant, but I had no knowledge or experience. Unexpectedly, the perfect opportunity presented itself: A big company offered to hire me for their trainee program, giving me 6 weeks of full-time training on SAP ABAP. I was going to be paid to learn what I desired so much.
Of course, I accepted.
The day after finishing the course, I joined the software factory. After such intensive training, nothing could go wrong. Except it went.
My leader asked me:
Do you know anything about forms?
No
Have you learned the purchasing-related tables?
No
Did they cover interfaces?
No
Ok… You wasted 6 weeks learning useless stuff. Before touching anything, let’s spend 2 weeks dealing with real-life scenarios.
And that’s how it was. Even after completing an overpriced training, I had to begin from scratch.
Similar situations repeated during my career. The issues I identified are:
- Broad content: Most courses are generic enough to meet different needs. That means a big part of the content doesn’t apply to you. Another problem with the broad content is that you can’t go deep. If you don’t go deep, instead of acquiring valuable skills, you just get an idea of it.
- Too much input and too little output: Even when the courses are hands-on, the balance between input and output is insufficient. The consequence is that we attend the course nodding with our heads (because we understand), but we can’t do it alone.
- Short period: We need time to digest what we learn. If we squeeze 30 hours of theory into 2 weeks, we don’t have enough time to figure things out, incorporate the concepts, question them, and find answers. We can capitalize the 30 hours better during 5 weeks instead of 2.
- It’s not the hard way: We usually join a course as the first contact with a specific topic. So, we go to learn about it. The problem is that the professor gives us answers to questions we have never asked. So, we can’t fully understand the potential of what we learn and can’t relate it to any experience yet. Therefore, forgetting that lesson is easier, and it won’t be accessible in our toolbox when needed.
However, courses aren’t always a waste of time, and we can control it.
How do we make them work?
We can get the most out of a course by overcoming the difficulties described in the previous section.
Pay attention to:
- Content: Generic courses are OK if we want an overview of an unknown topic to decide whether to invest more time in it or identify sub-areas that appeal more to us. But they won’t be game changers in our careers. So, it’s better to choose a course about a specific topic we are already interested in and willing to spend time learning.
- Course type: There is no doubt about it. Hands-on training is the best. We learn by doing. A course will only change us by pushing us to face and solve problems. Additionally, we must practice on our own. I had a tennis professor who suggested I spend 3 hours playing matches for each hour I spent in lessons.
- Timing: This is a personal opinion, but the best moment to enroll in a course is when you have already worked and know about the topic. You will use the course to connect the dots, get some foundational knowledge (lots of aha moments), and go a step further to cross that plateau. You will find lots of answers to questions and difficulties you already experienced.
Conclusion
Courses are an excellent alternative for learning but always pay attention to their content, type, and the moment of your journey before spending time and money on them.