SMARTCUT #6: Training

I will freely admit that I may have a conflict of interest towards Smartcut #6—TRAINING— because it’s a core part of what I do.

In many ways, training is simply another tool (Smartcut #4) to help you get ahead by learning from others (Smartcut #7). What skills do you really want to master: Writing a journal paper or grant proposal? Presenting? Delivering research via television or radio? Whatever it is, there is bound to be a training course available that will give you the foundation you need.

However, these types of skills tend to be overlooked or undervalued in academia. Instead, researchers are considered to be very clever people who can pick up everything they need to know by osmosis. Yet only half of that statement is accurate.

Think about how you learned anything early in life: reading, writing, mathematics … fundamental life skills typically involve someone guiding you through them, the opportunity to build on your learning step by step, time to reflect and make connections between topics, and practice. Lots and lots of practice.

All of the programmes we run incorporate this necessary foundation for long-term learning because we want our course participants to succeed … not just tick a box that they’ve attended.

And do you want to supercharge the learning you do after participating in a training programme?

This is the real smartcut: make sure you have a plan in place to implement what you learned. This means continuing to practice the skill, teach it to others if possible, and take action to integrate it into your behaviours and workflow. By continue to build upon the lessons imparted by your instructors, your skills will develop much quicker (and with less stress!) than trying to rely on osmosis alone.