Interviewing people who have been there done that is extremely helpful in verifying whether resources and methods are indeed the best and most appropriate ways in learning a skill or subject during metalearning. This is especially true when a learning project is instrumental in achieving a bigger goal.
It is best to conduct these interviews after you articulate your motivation to focus your learning. Set these interviews using the following steps:
- Look for people who have the career you want.
- Send them an email.
- Search online in relevant forums.
- Look for frequent posters who seem to have the knowledge you are looking for.
- Email these posters.
- These are the things you need to consider when writing the email:
- Be direct about why you are reaching out to them.
- Ask if they could spare 15 minutes to answer some of your questions.
- Don’t ask for too much (more time, continuous mentorship, etc.)
- Try to set an in-person meeting or future calls.
- These are the things you need to consider when writing the email:
To do
- How do you connect the interview with the supposed next step to understand the knowledge structure of a subject
References
Young, S. (2019). Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career (Illustrated edition). Harper Business.
If you’re pursuing a project for mostly instrumental reasons, it’s often a good idea to do an additional step of research: determining whether learning the skill or topic in question will actually help you achieve your goal.
To do this, interview an expert. Talk to people who have already achieved what you want to achieve. If someone who has already accomplished the goal you want to achieve doesn’t think your learning project will help reach it or thinks it’s less important than mastering some other skill, that’s a good sign that your motivation and the project are misaligned.