learning new skill essay

Essay on Skill Development

Students are often asked to write an essay on Skill Development in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

100 Words Essay on Skill Development

Introduction.

Skill development is a vital part of personal growth. It involves learning new abilities or improving existing ones to enhance performance.

Importance of Skill Development

Types of skills.

There are many types of skills, such as communication, problem-solving, creativity, and teamwork. Each skill can be developed with practice.

In conclusion, skill development is a lifelong process. It equips us with the capabilities needed to navigate life effectively.

250 Words Essay on Skill Development

Introduction to skill development, the importance of skill development.

Skill development is a tool to enhance both productivity and employability. It fosters adaptability, paving the way for lifelong learning and continuous improvement. In the professional sphere, developing skills can lead to career advancement and job security. On a macro level, it contributes to the economic development of a nation by improving the quality of its workforce.

Methods of Skill Development

Skill development can be achieved through various methods like education, training, and practical experience. Modern methods include e-learning platforms, which offer flexibility and a wide array of courses. Internships and on-the-job training are practical ways of acquiring industry-specific skills.

Challenges and Solutions

Despite its importance, skill development faces challenges like the rapid pace of technological change and a lack of awareness about the need for continuous learning. To overcome these, a mindset shift is required where learning is seen as a lifelong process. Governments and educational institutions need to promote skill development programs and provide access to quality training.

In conclusion, skill development is a vital aspect of personal and professional growth. By embracing lifelong learning and leveraging available resources, individuals can enhance their skills, adapt to changing environments, and contribute to societal progress. It is a shared responsibility between individuals, educational institutions, and governments to promote and support skill development.

500 Words Essay on Skill Development

Skill development refers to the process of identifying one’s skill gaps and developing and honing these skills. It is vital because the development of skills fosters employability and will help you navigate the rapidly changing work environment. In today’s age of digital disruption and constant innovation, skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and complex problem-solving are more valuable than ever.

Role of Education in Skill Development

Education plays a pivotal role in skill development. Traditional education systems, however, often fail to equip students with the necessary skills to navigate the modern workplace. It’s important for educational institutions to integrate skill development into their curriculums, focusing on skills like critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, and digital literacy. It’s equally important for students to take charge of their own skill development, seeking out opportunities for learning beyond the classroom.

Skills for the Future

The future of work is uncertain and unpredictable due to rapid technological advancements. According to the World Economic Forum, the top skills for the future include complex problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, people management, coordinating with others, emotional intelligence, judgement and decision making, service orientation, negotiation, and cognitive flexibility. These are the skills that will drive the future economy and determine individual success in the job market.

The Role of Governments and Corporations

Governments and corporations also have a significant role to play in skill development. Governments need to invest in education and training programs that equip citizens with the skills needed for the future. Corporations, on the other hand, need to invest in training and development programs for their employees, helping them stay relevant in their roles and adapt to changing job requirements.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Is It Really Too Late to Learn New Skills?

By Margaret Talbot

Among the things I have not missed since entering middle age is the sensation of being an absolute beginner. It has been decades since I’ve sat in a classroom in a gathering cloud of incomprehension (Algebra 2, tenth grade) or sincerely tried, lesson after lesson, to acquire a skill that was clearly not destined to play a large role in my life (modern dance, twelfth grade). Learning to ride a bicycle in my early thirties was an exception—a little mortifying when my husband had to run alongside the bike, as you would with a child—but ultimately rewarding. Less so was the time when a group of Japanese schoolchildren tried to teach me origami at a public event where I was the guest of honor—I’ll never forget their sombre puzzlement as my clumsy fingers mutilated yet another paper crane.

Like Tom Vanderbilt, a journalist and the author of “Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning” (Knopf), I learn new facts all the time but new skills seldom. Journalists regularly drop into unfamiliar subcultures and domains of expertise, learning enough at least to ask the right questions. The distinction he draws between his energetic stockpiling of declarative knowledge, or knowing that , and his scant attention to procedural knowledge, or knowing how , is familiar to me. The prospect of reinventing myself as, say, a late-blooming skier or ceramicist or marathon runner sparks only an idle interest, something like wondering what it might be like to live in some small town you pass on the highway.

There is certainly a way to put a positive spin on that reluctance. If you love your job and find it intellectually and creatively fulfilling, you may not feel the urge to discover other rooms in the house of your mind, whatever hidden talents and lost callings may repose there. But there are less happy forces at work, too. There’s the fear of being bad at something you think is worthwhile—and, maybe even more so, being seen to be bad at it—when you have accustomed yourself to knowing, more or less, what you’re doing. What’s the point of starting something new when you know you’ll never be much good at it? Middle age, to go by my experience—and plenty of research—brings greater emotional equanimity, an unspectacular advantage but a relief. (The lows aren’t as low, the highs not as high.) Starting all over at something would seem to put you right back into that emotional churn—exhilaration, self-doubt, but without the open-ended possibilities and renewable energy of youth. Parties mean something different and far more exciting when you’re younger and you might meet a person who will change your life; so does learning something new—it might be fun, but it’s less likely to transform your destiny at forty or fifty.

In “Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over,” Nell Painter, as distinguished a historian as they come—legions of honors, seven books, a Princeton professorship—recounts her experience earning first a B.F.A. at Rutgers and then an M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design while in her sixties. As a Black woman used to feeling either uncomfortably singled out or ignored in public spaces where Black women were few, she was taken aback in art school to find that “old” was such an overwhelming signifier: “It wasn’t that I stopped being my individual self or stopped being black or stopped being female, but that old , now linked to my sex, obscured everything else beyond old lady .” Painter finds herself periodically undone by the overt discouragement of some of her teachers or the silence of her fellow-students during group crits of her work—wondering if they were “critiquing me, old-black-woman-totally-out-of-place,” or her work. Reading her book, I was full of admiration for Painter’s willingness to take herself out of a world in which her currency—scholarly accomplishment—commanded respect and put herself into a different one where that coin often went unrecognized altogether, all out of exultation in the art-making itself. But her quest also induced some anxiety in me.

Painter is no dilettante: she’s clear about not wanting to be a “Sunday Painter”; she is determined to be an Artist, and recognized as such. But “dilettante” is one of those words which deter people from taking up new pursuits as adults. Many of us are wary of being dismissed as dabblers, people who have a little too much leisure, who are a little too cute and privileged in our pastimes. This seems a narrative worth pushing back against. We might remember, as Vanderbilt points out, that the word “dilettante” comes from the Italian for “to delight.” In the eighteenth century, a group of aristocratic Englishmen popularized the term, founding the Society of the Dilettanti to undertake tours of the Continent, promote the art of knowledgeable conversation, collect art, and subsidize archeological expeditions. Frederick II of Prussia dissed the dilettanti as “lovers of the arts and sciences” who “understand them only superficially but who however are ranked in superior class to those who are totally ignorant.” (They were, of course, wealthy, with oodles of time on their hands.) The term turned more pejorative in modern times, with the rise of professions and of licensed expertise. But if you think of dilettantism as an endorsement of learning for learning’s sake—not for remuneration or career advancement but merely because it delights the mind—what’s not to love?

Maybe it could be an antidote to the self-reported perfectionism that has grown steadily more prevalent among college students in the past three decades. Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill, the authors of a 2019 study on perfectionism among American, British, and Canadian college students, have written that “increasingly, young people hold irrational ideals for themselves, ideals that manifest in unrealistic expectations for academic and professional achievement, how they should look, and what they should own,” and are worried that others will judge them harshly for their perceived failings. This is not, the researchers point out, good for mental health. In the U.S., we’ll be living, for the foreseeable future, in a competitive, individualistic, allegedly meritocratic society, where we can inspect and troll and post humiliating videos of one another all the live-long day. Being willing to involve yourself in something you’re mediocre at but intrinsically enjoy, to give yourself over to the imperfect pursuit of something you’d like to know how to do for no particular reason, seems like a small form of resistance.

Tom Vanderbilt got motivated to start learning again during the time he spent waiting about while his young daughter did her round of lessons and activities. Many of us have been there, “on some windowless lower level of a school huddled near an electrical outlet to keep your device alive,” as he nicely puts it—waiting, avoiding the parents who want to talk scores and rankings, trying to shoehorn a bit of work into a stranded hour or two. But not many of us are inspired to wonder, in such moments, why we ourselves aren’t in there practicing our embouchure on the trumpet or our Salchow on the ice. This may speak to my essential laziness, but I have fond memories of curling up on the child-size couch in the musty, overheated basement of our local community center reading a book for a stolen hour, while my kids took drum lessons and fencing classes. Vanderbilt, on the other hand, asks himself whether “we, in our constant chaperoning of these lessons, were imparting a subtle lesson: that learning was for the young.” Rather than molder on the sidelines, he decides to throw himself into acquiring five new skills. (That’s his term, though I started to think of these skills as “accomplishments” in the way that marriageable Jane Austen heroines have them, talents that make a long evening pass more agreeably, that can turn a person into more engaging company, for herself as much as for others.) Vanderbilt’s search is for “the naïve optimism, the hypervigilant alertness that comes with novelty and insecurity, the willingness to look foolish, and the permission to ask obvious questions—the unencumbered beginner’s mind. ” And so he tries to achieve competence, not mastery, in chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and making. (He learns to weld a wedding ring to replace two he lost surfing.) He adds juggling, not because he’s so interested in it but because—with its steep and obvious learning curve (most people, starting from scratch, can learn to juggle three balls in a few days) and its fun factor—juggling is an oft-used task for laboratory studies of how people learn. These accomplishments aren’t likely to help his job performance as a journalist, or to be marketable in any way, except insofar as the learning of them forms the idea for the book.

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Vanderbilt is good on the specific joys and embarrassments of being a late-blooming novice, or “kook,” as surfers sometimes call gauche beginners. How you think you know how to sing a song but actually know only how to sing along with one, so that, when you hear your own voice, stripped of the merciful camouflage the recorded version provides, “you’re not only hearing the song as you’ve never quite heard it, you are hearing your voice as you’ve never quite heard it.” The particular, democratic pleasure of making that voice coalesce with others’ in a choir, coupled with the way, when friends and family come to see your adult group perform, “the parental smile of eternal indulgence gives way to a more complicated expression.” The fact that feedback, especially the positive kind stressing what you’re doing right, delivered by an actual human teacher or coach watching what you do, is crucial for a beginner—which might seem obvious except that, in an age when so many instructional videos of every sort are available online, you might get lulled into thinking you could learn just as well without it. The weirdness of the phenomenon that, for many of us, our drawing skills are frozen forever as they were when we were kids. Children tend to draw better, Vanderbilt explains, when they are around five years old and rendering what they feel; later, they fall into what the psychologist Howard Gardner calls “the doldrums of literalism ”—trying to draw exactly what they see but without the technical skill or instruction that would allow them to do so effectively. Many of us never progress beyond that stage. Personally, I’m stuck at about age eight, when I filled notebooks with ungainly, scampering horses. Yet I was entranced by how both Vanderbilt and, in her far more ambitious way, Painter describe drawing as an unusually absorbing, almost meditative task—one that makes you look at the world differently even when you’re not actually doing it and pours you into undistracted flow when you are.

One problem with teaching an old dog new tricks is that certain cognitive abilities decline with age, and by “age” I mean starting as early as one’s twenties. Mental-processing speed is the big one. Maybe that’s one reason that air-traffic controllers have to retire at age fifty-six, while English professors can stay at it indefinitely. Vanderbilt cites the work of Neil Charness, a psychology professor at Florida State University, who has shown that the older a chess player is the slower she is to perceive a threatened check, no matter what her skill level. Processing speed is why I invariably lose against my daughter (pretty good-naturedly, if you ask me) at a game that I continue to play: Anomia. In this game, players flip cards bearing the names of categories (dog breeds, Olympic athletes, talk-show hosts, whatever), and, if your card displays the same small symbol as one of your opponents’ does, you try to be the first to call out something belonging to the other person’s category. If my daughter and I each had ten minutes to list as many talk-show hosts as we could, I’d probably triumph—after all, I have several decades of late-night-TV viewing over her. But, with speed the essence, a second’s lag in my response speed cooks my goose every game.

Still, as Rich Karlgaard notes in his reassuring book “Late Bloomers: The Hidden Strengths of Learning and Succeeding at Your Own Pace,” there are cognitive compensations. “Our brains are constantly forming neural networks and pattern-recognition capabilities that we didn’t have in our youth when we had blazing synaptic horsepower,” he writes. Fluid intelligence, which encompasses the capacity to suss out novel challenges and think on one’s feet, favors the young. But crystallized intelligence—the ability to draw on one’s accumulated store of knowledge, expertise, and Fingerspitzengefühl —is often enriched by advancing age. And there’s more to it than that: particular cognitive skills rise and fall at different rates across the life span, as Joshua K. Hartshorne, now a professor of psychology at Boston College, and Laura T. Germine, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, show in a 2015 paper on the subject. Processing speed peaks in the late teens, short-term memory for names at around twenty-two, short-term memory for faces at around thirty, vocabulary at around fifty (in some studies, even at around sixty-five), while social understanding, including the ability to recognize and interpret other people’s emotions, rises at around forty and tends to remain high. “Not only is there no age at which humans are performing at peak at all cognitive tasks,” Hartshorne and Germine conclude, “there may not be an age at which humans are at peak on most cognitive tasks.” This helps Karlgaard’s case that we need a “kinder clock for human development”—societal pressure on young adults to specialize and succeed right out of college is as wrongheaded and oppressive on the one end of life as patronizing attitudes toward the old are on the other.

The gift of crystallized intelligence explains why some people can bloom spectacularly when they’re older—especially, perhaps, in a field like literature, where a rich vein of life experience can be a writerly asset. Annie Proulx published her first novel at the age of fifty-six, Raymond Chandler at fifty-one. Frank McCourt, who had been a high-school teacher in New York City for much of his career, published his first book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir “Angela’s Ashes,” at sixty-six. Edith Wharton, who had been a society matron prone to neurasthenia and trapped in a gilded cage of a marriage, produced no novels until she was forty. Publishing fiction awakened her from what she described as “a kind of torpor,” a familiar feeling for the true later bloomer. “I had groped my way through to my vocation,” Wharton wrote, “and thereafter I never questioned that story-telling was my job.”

In science and technology, we often think of the people who make precocious breakthroughs as the true geniuses—Einstein developing his special theory of relativity at twenty-six. Einstein himself once said that “a person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of thirty will never do so.” A classic paper on the relationship between age and scientific creativity showed that American Nobel winners tended to have done their prize-winning work at thirty-six in physics, thirty-nine in chemistry, and forty-one in medicine—that creativity rose in the twenties and thirties and began a gradual decline in the forties.

That picture has been complicated by more recent research. According to a 2014 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, which undertook a broad review of the research on age and scientific breakthroughs, the average age at which people make significant contributions to science has been rising during the twentieth century—notably to forty-eight, for physicists. (One explanation might be that the “burden of knowledge” that people have to take on in many scientific disciplines has increased.) Meanwhile, a 2016 paper in Science that considered a wider range of scientists than Nobelists concluded that “the highest-impact work in a scientist’s career is randomly distributed within her body of work. That is, the highest-impact work can be, with the same probability, anywhere in the sequence of papers published by a scientist—it could be the first publication, could appear mid-career, or could be a scientist’s last publication.”

When it comes to more garden-variety late blooming, the kind of new competencies that Vanderbilt is seeking, he seems to have gone about it in the most promising way. For one thing, it appears that people may learn better when they are learning multiple skills at once, as Vanderbilt did. A recent study that looked at the experiences of adults over fifty-five who learned three new skills at once—for example, Spanish, drawing, and music composition—found that they not only acquired proficiency in these areas but improved their cognitive functioning over all, including working and episodic memory. In a 2017 paper, Rachel Wu, a neuroscientist at U.C. Riverside, and her co-authors, George W. Rebok and Feng Vankee Lin, propose six factors that they think are needed to sustain cognitive development, factors that tend to be less present in people’s lives as they enter young adulthood and certainly as they grow old. These include what the Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset,” the belief that abilities are not fixed but can improve with effort; a commitment to serious rather than “hobby learning” (in which “the learner casually picks up skills for a short period and then quits due to difficulty, disinterest, or other time commitments”); a forgiving environment that promotes what Dweck calls a “not yet” rather than a “cannot” approach; and a habit of learning multiple skills simultaneously, which may help by encouraging the application of capacities acquired in one domain to another. What these elements have in common, Wu and her co-authors point out, is that they tend to replicate how children learn.

So eager have I been all my life to leave behind the subjects I was bad at and hunker down with the ones I was good at—a balm in many ways—that, until reading these books, I’d sort of forgotten the youthful pleasure of moving our little tokens ahead on a bunch of winding pathways of aptitude, lagging behind here, surging ahead there. I’d been out of touch with that sense of life as something that might encompass multiple possibilities for skill and artistry. But now I’ve been thinking about taking up singing in a serious way again, learning some of the jazz standards my mom, a professional singer, used to croon to me at bedtime. If learning like a child sounds a little airy-fairy, whatever the neuroscience research says, try recalling what it felt like to learn how to do something new when you didn’t really care what your performance of it said about your place in the world, when you didn’t know what you didn’t know. It might feel like a whole new beginning. ♦

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• Dear Life Kit
• Life Skills

Learning a new skill can be hard. Here's how to set yourself up for success

Rommel Wood

Andee Tagle

This is one of my favorite questions to ask people: What was the last thing you taught yourself how to do?

I (Rommel) like it because the answers are usually less about the actual skill and more about the motivation behind learning it. It's a question I leaned on a lot when I was booking contestants on the NPR game show Ask Me Another .

But I don't really get to ask it anymore. Maybe it's because I'm in my 30s and I'm not meeting as many new people these days. The pandemic might also be a factor. Plus, Ask Me Anothe r recently ended, and it got me thinking about my time on the show and "the question" that so often cracked people open in a really interesting way.

A Knitter, A Rock Climber And A Mixologist Teach Us How To Find A Hobby

So I reached out to some former contestants to see if they remembered their answers. Sam Cappoli learned how to drive a car with a manual transmission, AKA "a stick." Amy Paull was training herself to do a pull-up. Cappoli's motivation was to finally learn how to do something his mom tried to teach him as a teenager. Paull's motivation was to gain strength so she could become a better escape room teammate. But there is more to both of their stories. Sam realized that he couldn't learn how to drive from just watching a few youtube videos and a shoulder condition made Amy re-evaluate her goal of pullup dominance.

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This story comes from Life Kit , NPR's family of podcasts to help make life better — covering everything from exercise to raising kids to making friends. For more, sign up for the newsletter and follow @NPRLifeKit on Twitter

It can be incredibly gratifying to harness mastery of a skill. But, why is learning new things so hard?

Maybe it's because we need to rethink how we go about learning. Here are some tips! Figure out what it is that you want to learn. Then...

Set yourself up for success

In addition to asking former Ask Me Another contestants "the question" I also turned to my 3-year-old daughter and asked her what was the last thing she learned how to do? She was quick to tell me she can turn on the lights all by herself. After a couple of years of attempts, she is now tall enough to reach a switch and has mastered the fine motor skills it takes to grip a switch and flip it on and off. It's a skill relevant to her but also to everyone — we just don't necessarily think of it as a skill anymore.

Rachel Wu is an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. She studies how we learn over the course of our lives. Wu says it's easier for kids and babies to learn new things because their whole lives are centered on learning. Babies are incredibly open-minded. They want to learn everything because everything is relevant to them.

Sewing your own clothes can be empowering. Here's how to get started

Wu says we can learn from that by asking, "is the thing I'm trying to learn relevant to my life?" Next, find yourself an instructor — someone who is really good at breaking up the things you want to learn in approachable ways.

Then, give yourself a realistic timeline to learn something new. Using babies as an example — we don't expect newborns to be able to communicate the second they are born. It often takes a baby at least a year to start accumulating a pen of recognizable words in their vocabulary. Give yourself the same amount of time to learn something as you'd give a child to learn it too.

Keep tinkering with the challenge at hand

If you're struggling to stay motivated, or feel like you're hitting a wall in your progress, stop and adjust your process. Play around with your method by introducing a new path to learning.

Take Wu, for example. She's learning how to speak German. She takes classes on the campus where she works, but she also started watching one of her favorite TV shows, The Nanny, dubbed in German and slowed down to 50%.

" The Nann y was nice because it teaches you more everyday language, and phrases that you would encounter on a daily basis," Wu says.

Yes, you can lift weights! Here's how to overcome gym intimidation and start training

She uses this handy trick with Pixar films and with listening to German audiobooks for kids.

Tinkering is part of it but so is accepting that you'll need to be open to possibly starting over.

Shots - Health News

Feeling artsy here's how making art helps your brain.

Take Nell Painter. Painter is a retired professor at Princeton. She wrote a book called, Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over . When she was in her 60s she earned a bachelor's degree and an MFA in painting. She says an exercise she learned during an early art class really helped her adjust her relationship with her work and mistakes.

She would draw and draw, look at the model, and draw some more trying to get it right, Painter says. Then the teacher would come and tell her to "rub it out and draw it again, 10 inches to the right." Once again, Painter would draw and work to get it right, and then the teacher would say rub it out and draw it 10% smaller.

"The lesson is you can rub out your work," Painter says. "It doesn't all have to be a [masterpiece.] It doesn't all have to be right, and it doesn't all have to be saved. ... You can rub that sucker out."

Don't be afraid to make mistakes

We don't like making mistakes. But when you're learning something, mistakes are an important part of the process.

Manu Kapur is a professor of learning sciences and higher education at ETH in Zurich Switzerland, where he writes and teaches about the benefits of renormalizing failure and the idea of productive failure. He says the struggle to let yourself make mistakes is really hard.

A Field Guide for Fledgling Birders

"It's a constant effort to tell yourself that 'This is something I do not know. I cannot possibly expect myself to get it immediately,'" Kapur says. "when I'm struggling, I just need to tell myself that this is exactly the right zone to be in and then to do it again and again and again. And until such time, you just become comfortable with being uncomfortable because you're learning something."

So, if you're worried it's too late to start that new language class or the fear of failure has stopped you from picking up that instrument, this is your sign to put your caution aside and just get started. Failure will likely be a part of the process, and that's okay. It's the trying — and the learning — that counts most.

The audio portion of this episode was produced by Andee Tagle, with engineering support from Stuart Rushfield.

We'd love to hear from you. If you have a good life hack, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at [email protected]. Your tip could appear in an upcoming episode.

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• Life Kit: Life Skills

Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

The Importance Of Practice – And Our Reluctance To Do It

As leaders, we’re accustomed to being good at what we do. Learning something new is hard, especially at the beginning when we’re likely to struggle and make mistakes.  The reality is, the only way to learn something new is to practice. In his book,  Outliers , Malcolm Gladwell suggests that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become  expert  at something. Perhaps more of a realist, Josh Kaufman, author of  The Personal MBA , writes that to go from “knowing nothing to being pretty good” actually takes about 20 hours of practice – that’s 45 minutes every day for a month. So whether you aspire to “pretty good” or “expert,” practice is essential. Yet practicing can be difficult and painful when we’re used to having a high degree of competence.

Perhaps this is why most leaders are resistant to the idea of practice – often, the more senior the leader, the more reluctant they are to practice something new.  Many leaders believe that intellectual  understanding  is enough, that all they need to do is read about something or discuss it in order to be able to do it well. But we know that skill development is vital.

Swimming is my favorite analogy. Two of my teenage children are competitive swimmers, which means I have been volunteering at swim meets for over a decade. My volunteer job is to monitor races and ensure that swimmers follow legal stroke technique. I have received hours and hours of training – lecture, video, discussion, observation –  on what constitutes proper, legal technique. I can tell you exactly what the butterfly should look like: the kick and the pull, and how the arms have to be synchronous, and how the touch and turn need to work.  I  know  all about how to  swim  butterfly.  But I can’t swim the butterfly at all. Not even 25 yards. That’s the difference between intellectual understanding and the skill development.

As leaders, we generally have the intellectual capacity to quickly grasp concepts and ideas, which can lead us to mistakenly believe we also know how to execute on them right away. The reality is that we don’t – not until we practice, get feedback, refine our approach, and practice again – for somewhere between 20 and 10,000 hours. This is hard to do. Learning something new means being clumsy at it initially, making mistakes, course-correcting, and trying again. It’s uncomfortable. And even when we know the skill is valuable, it often makes our work more difficult at first, causing many leaders to stop trying new things and revert to old habits.

Knowing the importance of practice, how do we build it into our training experiences? And how do we hold ourselves and others accountable for the hard work of practice?

• Acknowledge the Challenge Be honest about the difficulty of learning something new, especially when you’re in a leadership role. Expect mistakes. Celebrate effort and risk-taking rather than expertise and skill level. Create a culture where leaders are rewarded for trying new things and building new skills, even when their early attempts are less-than-perfect.
• Limit the Scope Training often includes information on many different behaviors, approaches, skills, and techniques.  It isn’t possible to practice and master all of them at one time. Encourage leaders to choose one or two things that have a high potential for enhancing their work, and focus their practice on just those things – at least to start.
• Commit Time Commit time every week – ideally every day – for practice. Block time on the calendar.  Minimize distractions, and work on skill development as seriously as you would on any other project. You might even create a project plan with deadlines and deliverables.
• Leverage Tools and Materials in the Program Most training programs include opportunities for practice – action learning projects, individual action planning guides, cases, role plays, etc. Use them as much as you can – individually or in study groups or with partners. These can be extremely helpful for practice, even outside of the program.
• Create Practice Partnerships Work with colleagues to hold each other accountable for practice. Practice partnerships are also a great way to get feedback on your development.
• Consider Coaching Sometimes leaders need more support than can be offered by practice partners. In these cases, a coach can be extremely useful. Coaching may be available through HR or L&D, or you may decide to invest in coaching on your own. A good coach will help you create a plan, offer feedback, and help you stay accountable to your own goals.

Making a commitment to practice is essential to maximize the impact of training. After all, practice is the only way to become proficient in a new skill or behavior. As leaders, we need to embrace the discomfort of being beginners in order to continue to grow and improve.

What new skill should you be practicing?

Jennifer Long is senior manager, programs, at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at  [email protected] .

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The Best Way to Learn New Things

• Categories: Philosophy of Education

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Published: Sep 5, 2023

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The power of curiosity, active engagement and practical application, diversified learning methods, continuous feedback and iteration, lifelong learning as a mindset.

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How to Learn New Things

Last Updated: April 29, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jai Flicker and by wikiHow staff writer, Glenn Carreau . Jai Flicker is an Academic Tutor and the CEO and Founder of Lifeworks Learning Center, a San Francisco Bay Area-based business focused on providing tutoring, parental support, test preparation, college essay writing help, and psychoeducational evaluations to help students transform their attitude toward learning. Jai has over 20 years of experience in the education management industry. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego. There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 199,416 times.

Is it ever too late to learn a new skill? Absolutely not! Learning new things is beneficial at any age, and it can change your life in many ways—from giving you a career boost to helping you discover a new passion. All you need is enthusiasm, focus, and some helpful learning strategies. From cooking to learning a new language, here’s a list of tips and techniques that will help you learn any new skill you desire.

Things You Should Know

• There are lots of ways to learn! Take a class, find a mentor, or self-teach. Use lots of different learning materials from books to online videos.
• Learn by doing and use experts' work as a guide. Try teaching someone else to hone your understanding of the subject, and give yourself tests.
• Make a practice schedule. Work in short bursts, practice often, and get rid of distractions. Challenge yourself, and reward yourself for progress.

Teach yourself using many sources.

• For example, there are plenty of available resources if you want to master drawing. Find books on drawing techniques at the library, look up video tutorials, and read a variety of how-to blogs online.
• Any and every new source of information can help! Don't read a single how-to guide; using different learning styles to practice a skill can be even more helpful than using one method.
• Don't worry about sticking to a particular learning style (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic). Engaging with the information you learn is far more important than studying a particular way.

Learn through practical experience.

• Let's say you want to learn a programming language like C#. Try it out rather than spending all your time in a textbook! Learn by coding a small program and working out the bugs yourself.

Take a class or online course.

• If you're already a student enrolled in college, this should be an easy task! Just search your school's course list for a subject that interests you.
• Ask people you know if they can recommend a teacher or tutor to you.
• Many colleges and research institutions also have free online courses you can take, called "Massive Open Online Courses" (MOOC).
• Make incremental goals small and manageable, so they build on each other. When learning to play guitar, start by learning scales and chords and then graduate to a basic song, and reward yourself after each.

Find a mentor.

• For example: “I’m a news journalist with plans to venture into columns and feature writing. I’d love to learn more about your journey pursuing a similar path and hone my proofreading and editing skills with your help.”
• Reach out to a potential mentor through their contact information or a professional site like LinkedIn.
• Once they express interest in being your mentor, set up an initial meeting for the two of you to discuss the mentorship further. Meet up in person if you can, or do a video call otherwise.
• You could also propose a skill exchange! Teach someone in exchange for them teaching you, too. As a result, you'll both benefit and learn something new.

Compare your work with an expert's.

• For example, read work from famous poets if you want to write poetry but are unsure how to start. Pick a style of poetry you like, analyze that poet's style, and try replicating it in a work of your own.
• Eventually, you’ll develop your own style and technique. Until then, borrowing from an expert can help you gain a better understanding of the skill and improve your abilities overall.

Teach someone else.

• Say you’re learning how to decorate cakes . Craft a lesson plan for a friend! What techniques should they learn? In simplest terms, how would you explain working with fondant, or making a frosting flower?
• However you decide to teach others about your chosen skill, practice explaining each concept with easy-to-follow steps. The better you can explain something, the better you understand it.

Set a study or practice schedule.

• For instance: if you're a morning person, schedule your learning period in the morning. You’ll be more alert and absorb more information that way.
• Write the schedule in a planner, journal, or calendar. Putting your plan down in writing will help keep you accountable going forward.

Practice the hardest things first.

• For example, if you’re learning to play the violin and understand major scales but struggle with minor scales, focus on learning a new minor scale with each practice instead of sticking solely to major scales.
• Work on going out of your comfort zone and trying new things, even if they're difficult initially. You'll better understand the discipline by focusing on the most difficult concepts.
• You might be confused and uncomfortable when practicing something unfamiliar. You might even fail at first. That's okay! Embrace each failure as a learning experience that teaches you what not to do in the future.

Get rid of distractions.

• Avoid multitasking too, which makes you less productive overall. Dedicate all of your focus to learning that skill or concept for the entire study period.

Work in short bursts and take breaks.

• Mental fatigue can make it more difficult to absorb information and stick with a new skill. By taking frequent breaks, you're improving your productivity and preserving your motivation to learn.

Test yourself.

• You can also test skills that wouldn’t require a traditional exam, like skateboarding or drawing. Each time you learn a concept—like a skateboarding trick or a drawing technique—try it and then grade your performance.
• Say you learned about the drawing technique cross hatching . Test yourself by creating a work of art shaded only with cross hatching. Then, evaluate the finished product. What did you do well? What could be improved?
• The goal of testing is never to criticize yourself or your abilities—it’s to figure out where you can make progress and become the best that you can be.

Reward yourself at important milestones.

• For instance, you might aim to learn a new Mandarin character every day for a month. Celebrate at the end of the month by getting a treat from your favorite bakery or buying that game you want.

Master a skill you’re passionate about.

• For example, you might be hesitant to study guitar because you don't plan to be a musician, but that's no reason not to learn! Music is a great creative outlet and source of fun, no matter what.
• There are lots of other fun skills you could learn. Consider drawing , learning a new language , singing , or dancing .
• You could also learn practical skills that can help you with everyday life, like organization techniques , basic car repair , or making a budget.

Improve job-related skills to give yourself an edge.

• Other skills that could make you an even more desirable employee include proficiency in search engine optimization, Photoshop, Microsoft Excel, and even typing.
• Your company may even have funding available for certain skills you want to learn—then you can hone your abilities courtesy of your employer!
• You could also learn a skill that allows you to start a side business. Many artists and creators take commissions while working other jobs; one day, you could even transition to being self-employed full-time.

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You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/10-ways-improve-transfer-learning/
• ↑ https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/experiential-learning.shtml
• ↑ https://careerwise.minnstate.edu/exoffenders/expand-skills/gain-skills.html
• ↑ https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/773158390/how-to-find-a-mentor-and-make-it-work
• ↑ https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/effective-educational-videos/
• ↑ https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/5-study-skills-and-techniques-for-students-who-want-to-succeed-in-college/
• ↑ https://ideas.ted.com/dont-have-10000-hours-to-learn-something-new-thats-fine-all-you-need-is-20-hours/
• ↑ https://www.npr.org/2021/10/30/1049098913/learning-new-skills-tips
• ↑ https://success.oregonstate.edu/learning/concentration
• ↑ https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-short-breaks-help-brain-learn-new-skills
• ↑ https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-research-backed-studying-techniques
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201912/9-key-principles-learning-new-skill
• ↑ https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/guides-tools-and-activities/five-steps-to-mental-wellbeing/
• ↑ https://nextsteps.idaho.gov/resources/upskilling-career-advancement

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the complete guide to the princeton supplement.

College Info , College Essays

Got your heart set on Princeton—the #1 ranked university in the US ? Then you'll need to learn how to write amazing Princeton essays for your Princeton Supplement, a key part of your application for admission.

In this detailed guide, we go over the different types of essays you'll be required to write for your Princeton application and provide you with some expert tips on how to write your most effective and unique essay possible.

Feature Image: James Loesch /Flickr

What Are the Princeton Essays?

The Princeton application requires five essays and three short answers from all applicants. One of these essays must answer a prompt provided by the Common Application , Coalition Application , or QuestBridge Application (depending on which system you choose to submit your Princeton application through).

The other four essay prompts , as well as the three short answer prompts, are part of the Princeton Supplement . The Princeton Supplement also requires an Engineering Essay from applicants who have indicated on their applications an interest in pursuing a BS in Engineering (B.S.E.). Students applying to the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree program and those who are undecided must submit a supplemental essay as well.

Below, we'll look at each prompt in the Princeton Supplement. So let's get started!

While the Princeton supplement is submitted electronically, you might find that brainstorming the old fashioned way (with pen and paper!) helps you get your ideas organized.

The Bachelor of Arts/Undecided and the Bachelor of Science and Engineering Essays

Your first long essay is 250 words long and is assigned based on what you plan to major in. You will only need to answer one of these prompts .

The first prompt is for Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree and undecided applicants to respond to. If you are applying for the A.B. degree program or if you put undecided on your application, you must respond to this essay prompt in the first section of the supplement.

The second prompt is for Bachelor of Science and Engineering (B.S.E.) applicants to respond to. All applicants who indicate they'd like to pursue a bachelor of science in engineering degree must respond to this prompt. Next, we'll break down what each prompt is asking you to do and how to respond to it.

The good news is that both prompts are versions of the "Why This College?" essay, which is a pretty common essay to encounter on college applications. If you want more info on how to answer this type of question more generally, be sure to check out this article .

The A.B. Degree and Undecided Applicants Prompt

For A.B. Degree Applicants or Those Who are Undecided:

As a research institution that also prides itself on its liberal arts curriculum, Princeton allows students to explore areas across the humanities and the arts, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. What academic areas most pique your curiosity, and how do the programs offered at Princeton suit your particular interests? (Please respond in 250 words or fewer.)

This question is asking you to make a case for why you'll be an excellent fit as a liberal arts student at Princeton . You can make your case in your response to this prompt by showing that you understand the value of the liberal arts education that Princeton offers, and that you've thought about how Princeton's programs fit your academic and future goals.

In addition to asking you to show how Princeton is a good fit for you, this prompt is really asking you to highlight why you are a good fit for Princeton. Everyone knows that Princeton is highly competitive, so your response to this prompt is your chance to show that you'll bring valuable intellectual interests and perspectives to the Princeton community as well.

What Makes A Good Answer?

#1: Show how you're unique. Are you excited to geek out about the connections between critical human geography and twenty-first century Arabic literature? To explore the relationships between psychology and social media? If you've got a weird, quirky, or unique set of academic interests, this is the place to go into detail about them. A good answer to this question will nail down one or more specific academic areas that you get genuinely pumped about and why you're interested in them. This is your chance to show the thought processes behind your choice to pursue an A.B. degree at Princeton...or why you put "undecided" on your application.

#2: Connect to Princeton's program offerings. You could name specific professors you hope to work with who share your interests, courses you'd be thrilled to take, or special program offerings you hope to participate in (like study abroad or research opportunities). In order to make your response to this part of the question genuine, you'll have to do your research on the programs you're interested in and really know your stuff. This will show admissions counselors that you're interested in going to Princeton because it's a good fit for you, not because it's ranked #1 on college lists.

#3: Be honest . Your response should make it clear that you've spent a lot of time thinking about your academic interests. Make sure you're telling the truth: don't pick an academic area just because you think it's impressive. To show your sincerity, make sure you're being specific about why you're interested in the area you're writing about. This will help your passion come across on the page.

What Should You Avoid?

#1: Avoid generalities. You don't want to respond to this question with general fields of study or disciplines. For instance, saying that "history" or "art" piques your curiosity won't be specific enough. Instead of "history," you could say, "I'm curious about how war monuments and memorials in the U.S. impact the communities they 're located in." Above all, you want to describe specific issues, questions, or perspectives in your areas of academic interest that you hope to explore when you become a student at Princeton.

#2: Don't focus on past achievements. This question isn't the place to talk about your academic achievements and awards from high school. Here's why: Princeton admissions isn't necessarily looking to learn about why you're good at the subjects you're interested in. They want to understand why you're curious about those areas and why you want to study them at Princeton.

3 Tips For Answering This Prompt

#1: Start with your interests. Start by brainstorming which academic interests you want to talk about. You might have to think for a little while! If you know you want to major in African American Studies, take some time to write out the historical, political, and economic issues and questions that get you excited about majoring in this field. Let the specific aspects of the fields of study you're considering be the foundation for your answer.

#2: Do your research. Once you've brainstormed the specific aspects of your major or possible majors that you're most curious about, head over to Princeton's website to search for more information. If it's African American Studies, comb through every sentence on that major's website. Look into the interests of professors in this department, courses they teach, and events hosted by the department. You can even talk about your interest in working with specific professors or taking specific courses in your response.

#3: Be specific. The more specific you can be about your academic interests, the more likely your answer is to appeal to Princeton admissions. You don’t have to have your entire degree plan mapped out, but you do need to show that you're already thinking carefully about how you'll forge your path forward as an independent thinker and intellectual citizen once you start at Princeton.

The B.S.E. Degree Applicant Prompt

For B.S.E Degree Applicants:

Please describe why you are interested in studying engineering at Princeton. Include any of your experiences in, or exposure to engineering, and how you think the programs offered at the University suit your particular interests. (Please respond in 250 words or fewer.)

This prompt is specific for applicants who want to major in engineering at Princeton. Essentially, this prompt is asking you to highlight the factors in your background and experiences that have influenced you to pursue engineering.

More specifically , this prompt wants you to explain why Princeton engineering is the program for you.

#1: Showcase your background. A good answer to this question will explain why you're interested in engineering. For instance, maybe you grew up in a city that experiences earthquakes, so you want to study civil engineering to make buildings safer. Or maybe your parents and grandparents are engineers and you're passionate about carrying on the family legacy. Whatever your story, telling some of it will provide important context for your interest in engineering.

#2: Connect your interest to Princeton. Admissions counselors want to know why Princeton engineering is the only program for you. For example, say you want to focus on engineering for health professions. During your research, you read that Princeton students are developing new personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. This essay is a perfect place for you to explain that you want to join this research project! Making connections to real people, courses, and proj ects wi ll show that you're excited about the unique opportunities provided by Princeto n engineering .

#3: Share your research interests. In addition to stating a specific subfield of engineering that you're interested in (if possible), a good response to this prompt will describe your interest in key issues or questions pertaining to the subfield of engineering you want to stud y. For example, if you hope to become a chemical engineer who works with cruelty-free cosmetics, describe that research interest here. While it's important to be flexible, and it's okay if you don't have your whole future with engineering planned out, being able to describe some of your vision for your future in Princeton Engineering is a crucial part of a good response.

#1: Avoid discussing awards and achievements. Avoid talking about awards, competitions, or other academic achievements if possible. Princeton admissions can find out those details from other parts of your application. Instead, showcase the passion behind your interest in engineering. Instead of describing achievements, describe moments of inspiration in your story that have led you to pursue engineering at Princeton.

#2: Don't skip the context. You don't want to describe your specific interests in engineering without connecting them to what Princeton has to offer. Make sure you describe specific courses, professors, or research projects. Do your research and make sure your interests coincide with the possibilities Princeton provides.

Tip #1: Start with the research. It will be tough to write a meaningful response to this prompt if you haven't done some serious research about the B.S.E. program at Princeton. Get really acquainted with the B.S.E. program's website. Gather the info you need to incorporate information about professors you want to work with, research projects you'd like to work on, and courses you're eager to take.

Tip #2: Focus on your experiences. Incorporating your background with engineering is important to a good response here, but you need to be strategic about what details you include. Describe the moment your interest in engineering began, the most exciting experience you've had with engineering, or what gets you pumped about studying engineering at Princeton. Revealing where your interest in engineering comes from can help prove that the B.S.E. program is a good fit for you.

Tip #3: Be specific. State the subfield of engineering that you're interested in and/or what engineering issues pique your curiosity. Princeton wants to know that you already have a vision for how you'll be an active engineering student!

The Your Voice Supplement

The "Your Voice" supplement section consists of two required, approximately 250 word essays. The prompts for these essays (below) are asking you to give Princeton admissions a sense of how your past and ongoing experiences shape the kind of student you will be at Princeton.

In other words, the "Your Voice" supplement is asking you to show evidence that you live out values that fit with Princeton's values. So, to answer these two required questions, start thinking about points in your ongoing story that reflect your commitment to having hard conversations and serving others. We'll get into the specifics of how to write about your story in response to each prompt next.

Prompt #1: The Difficult Conversation Prompt

Princeton values community and encourages students, faculty, staff and leadership to engage in respectful conversations that can expand their perspectives and challenge their ideas and beliefs. As a prospective member of this community, reflect on how your lived experiences will impact the conversations you will have in the classroom, the dining hall or other campus spaces. What lessons have you learned in life thus far? What will your classmates learn from you? In short, how has your lived experience shaped you? (500 words or fewer)

The first of the required "Your Voice" supplements is asking you to show that you're capable of engaging in civil discourse with others on campus —even when the topic of conversation is tough to talk about or goes against your own beliefs and values. For this essay, you’ll need to pick an experience or two from your life that has helped shape the way you interact with all sorts of people, even those you disagree with on things.

Describing these experiences and the lessons you’ve learned from them will help show that you’re prepared to respect and listen to others on campus who don’t have the exact same perspectives on things as you. A good response to this prompt will also show that you can push through uncomfortable situations and learn new things from others, and that you can help others around you do the same. 

#1: Share a real experience. Thinking of a challenging experience that seems meaningful enough to include in an application essay might feel...well, challenging. Nevertheless, you want your story to be as truthful as possible .

Princeton Admissions knows that you probably didn't change the world from one difficult conversation or situation. What they want to know is that you're willing to have tough conversations and listen to others with different viewpoints than your own. So, pick a memory of an experience that challenged you, taught you a lesson, or helped you grow. More specifically, make sure it’s an experience that has helped prepare you for the different perspectives and challenges you’ll encounter from others on campus. Try and recall as many details about what happened as you can, and draft a description of the situation that’s as true to real events as possible. 

#2: Be thoughtful. Did you learn something new during the experience(s) or lesson(s) you're writing about? Explain what you learned from it in your response! For instance, perhaps you learned that being a nonjudgmental listener can help others feel more comfortable with listening to what you have to say. Whatever you learned, make sure you describe it in your response. This will show Princeton Admissions that you're open to learning and growing.

#3: Show you're forward thinking. How will the knowledge you gained from this experience (or experiences, if you choose to write about more than one) shape your behavior as a Princeton student? Think about what college is like: you'll encounter students, faculty, and staff from all over the world. This means you'll be in constant contact with different values, cultures, and ways of thinking about the world. Princeton wants to know that you're prepared to participate in this environment in positive ways!

#1: Don't disparage anyone. Even if the conversation or experience you're describing was incredibly frustrating, don't insult the other people who were involved. Instead, show empathy toward the people you interacted with. Princeton Admissions wants to know that you're a person who can extend empathy to many different kinds of people to be a good student and citizen.

#2: Don't brag. Don't brag about what you accomplished. Instead, focus on what you learned from the conversation --even if you think that the other people involved were totally wrong and you were totally right. Admissions counselors want to know that you learned from your experience.

2 Tips For Answering This Prompt

Tip #1: Pick an experience or lesson that impacted you. You should definitely write about an experience that was meaningful to you, rather than one that you think is impressive or controversial. This is your chance to show how you’ve made the most of your unique experiences—you’re giving Princeton an idea of who you are, what you’re capable of, and how this all came to be. Take time to reflect on tough situations you’ve encountered and lessons you’ve learned before drafting your response. 

Tip #2: Connect the topic to college life. While you obviously need to describe the topic of your experience, how you handled it, and what you learned from it, a crucial part of your response is how it prepared you to be an engaged, ethical member of the Princeton community. Be sure to focus part of your response on explaining how what you learned will guide your life as a Princeton student. Whichever experiences or lessons you choose, you’ll need to explain how you can use what you’ve learned to have respectful and insightful conversations with people across Princeton’s campus. 

This is a chance to tell your story and show how committed you are to being a good citizen.

Prompt #2: The Service and Your Story Prompt

Princeton has a longstanding commitment to understanding our responsibility to society through service and civic engagement. How does your own story intersect with these ideals? (250 words or fewer)

This supplement prompt is asking you to show your commitment to serving others and/or being an engaged citizen —and you'll need to describe a specific experience or idea that demonstrates this commitment.

When the prompt asks "how does your own story intersect with these ideals," it means that you should think of real things you've done or real values you hold that motivate your civic engagement. This is a key part of the story you'll have to share in your response.

#1: Tell a story. Basically, the prompt is assuming that who you are and what you value will motivate how you serve others and participate as an engaged citizen. To answer this prompt effectively, then, think about telling the story behind your decision to serve or fulfill your civic responsibilities in a specific way.

#2: Connect it to your local life. The decisions we make about our community involvement are often personal. For instance, maybe someone in your family recovered from cancer as a child, so your story with service involves gathering donations for a pediatric cancer care center in the region where you live. Think about the personal connections that you've made, then include them in your response.

#3: Consider the future. Maybe you don't have much experience with service or civic engagement yet, but you have a big vision for how you'll serve and engage in the Princeton community. This prompt is a chance to describe the details of that vision. Alternatively, if you have existing experience with service and civic engagement and want to continue serving in similar ways at Princeton, share your ideas about how you'll accomplish that. Service and civic engagement are lifelong commitments—describing your ideas about how you'll serve in the future will show that you're prepared for that commitment.

#1: Don't be condescending. While it's likely that the people you've served in the past learned things from you, don't focus your response on describing how wonderful you are . Instead, focus on how your service and civic engagement experiences have refined your values and helped you become a better human, which is what Princeton admissions wants to hear about.

#2: Avoid delusions of grandeur. If you decide to include a description of how you hope to serve once you get to Princeton, don't get too carried away. For example, you probably aren't going to get every single Princeton student registered to vote...but you can probably make some progress. Be realistic about your ideas for how you'll serve in the future. Princeton admissions just wants you to show dedication to service and civic engagement. They don't expect you to solve all of the world's problems.

Tip #1: Tell a story. It's important to coach your answer in the form of a story. Describe who you served, what the service looked like, and why you decided to serve in this way. If possible, connect it to your background, your identity, or your values. Turning your service experience into a story for Princeton admissions will make it more memorable.

Tip #2: Describe the impact. Princeton Admissions doesn't just want to know the story of your past experience with service—they also want to know how the experience continues to impact you today. Describe what you learned from the experience, how it changed you, and how it shapes your current actions and values.

Tip #3: Connect it to your future. Connect your story about your service to your vision for your life as a student at Princeton. This will let admissions know that you'll also be an exceptional student outside of the classroom in the Princeton community.

The "More About You" Short Answer Supplements

The "More About You" short answer section of the Princeton Supplement is your last chance to show who you are: the real person behind all of the stats, scores, and successes that the rest of your application showcases. In fact, the instructions for this required portion of the supplement are clear: "There are no right or wrong answers. Be yourself!"

This means that, in 50 words or fewer, you'll need to give admissions counselors a clearer picture of the "you" behind the application. All three of the "More About You" short answer questions are required, and each one gives you a chance to provide a little more context for your desire to be a student at Princeton.

#1: The New Skill Prompt

What is a new skill you would like to learn in college? (50 words)

To answer this question, all you need to do is describe a skill that you want to learn in college! There are a couple of different ways that you could interpret this prompt. Just remember: answer honestly.

For starters, you could think of the prompt as asking about a skill that you want to learn from your actual college courses . If this is the path you choose, you could write about how you want to learn to produce a podcast, to lead a Socratic Seminar, or to write a winning elevator pitch. Connecting the skill you want to learn to your areas of academic interests is a solid strategy.

Alternatively, you could think more generally about any skill you want to learn during your time in college ! For example, maybe you struggle with public speaking, and you want to learn to share your ideas more clearly in your classes and your extracurriculars. Writing about skills that are more oriented towards exploring your identity, background, or interests outside of academics is perfectly fine here too.

Whatever skill you decide to write about, it's important to briefly explain why you want to learn that skill. For instance, if you were writing about learning to bake like your grandmother, you might explain that this skill has been passed down in your family for generations, and you'd like to pass it down as well. If you want to learn how to produce a podcast, maybe you'd explain that you were searching for an interesting podcast on Marxist economics, but couldn't find one that had good production quality, so you want to learn how to produce one yourself.

#2: The Joy Prompt

What brings you joy? (50 words)

The same principles go for this prompt: write your response about something that genuinely brings you joy. It could be an activity, a person or relationship, or an experience you've had. To answer this question, simply describe the thing that brings you joy.

A good answer to this question will identify one specific thing that brings you joy, then describe it with gusto. For example, if the thing that brings you joy is building model planes with your little brother, briefly tell the story of why that experience brings you joy. Maybe you like the challenge of focusing on small details, or perhaps your joy comes from building something with your hands.

Briefly giving these specific details will show how the thing that brings you joy reflects your values and identity --both of which will give more clues as to the kind of person you'll be as a student at Princeton.

#3: The Soundtrack of Your Life Prompt

What song represents the soundtrack of your life at this moment? (50 words)

This short answer is fun! Keep your song selection relatively clean, of course, but otherwise, just think of a song that you're literally listening to on repeat right now , or pick a song that symbolizes your current experience. Then explain why!

For example, maybe you'll write about "Inner Child" by BTS because getting ready to leave home for college in the midst of so much has made you reflect on your younger years. Or, if you've literally listened to "my future" by Billie Eilish one thousand times since its release, briefly write about why you can't stop hitting repeat.

Don't overthink this prompt: the music we love reveals things about our personality and how we cope with the realities of our lives. Just be real, and you'll show Princeton admissions another facet of your genuine personality and how you process the world.

How to Write a Great Princeton Essay: 4 Key Tips

To wrap up, here are some final tips to keep in mind as you write your Princeton essays and any other essays for college applications.

#1: Be Specific

A vague essay is certain to squelch your chances of getting into Princeton, so make sure you're being as specific as possible in your writing.

For example, if you're writing about somebody who inspired you, touch on the little quirks or traits they have to help the admissions committee more easily visualize this person, such as their subtle mannerisms, the way they handled stress, or their perseverance in a difficult situation.

Remember that you're writing about something real, whether that's a person, event, object, or experience. Your aim should be to make the subject of your essay feel as real to your readers as it did and does for you.

Other ways to ensure that you're being specific enough in your essay are to use common literary devices such as anecdotes, dialogue (an actual conversation you had with someone), imagery, and onomatopoeia. These not only add color to your writing but also paint the subject of your essay in a more effective, relatable way.

Lastly, I recommend getting somebody else to read over your essay (which I talk about more in tip 4); this person can let you know if your writing isn't specific enough and if too much is left to be implied.

#2: Be Honest and Use Your Voice

The whole point of writing an essay for a college application is to show the admissions committee who you are. In short, what makes you you ? This is why it's so critical to use an authentic voice in your Princeton essays.

For example, if you love making people laugh (and think humor is one of your defining traits), then it might be a good idea to include a joke or two in your personal essay.

However, don't exaggerate anything that happened to you or any feelings you might have —the admissions committee will more than likely be able to see through it. Remember that you want your voice and feelings to come across strongly but also (and more importantly) authentically.

Don't claim in your engineering essay that you've liked engineering since you were 3 years old if you only recently developed an interest in it. Lying about or exaggerating anything in your essay will simply make you seem insincere and, yes, even immature. So avoid it!

#3: Write Well and Avoid Clichés

You'll need to be a decent writer if you're hoping to get into Princeton—one of the most selective universities in the US ! On the technical side, this means that your Princeton essays should have no grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors.

If you're unsure about a certain grammar rule, such as how to use a semicolon correctly, feel free to consult our SAT grammar guide for a quick refresher.

Writing well also means varying up your sentence lengths and styles (in other words, don't start every sentence with "I," even though you're likely talking about yourself).

On the more stylistic side, your essays should really grab your audience's attention—and keep it throughout. Therefore, you'll need to come up with a unique way to hook your readers from the beginning. For example, you could start with a piece of dialogue that someone said to you once (I'd avoid famous quotations, though, since these can come across really clichéd).

Alternatively, you could start with a memory, opening a description with a strong emotion you had, a sound you heard (using onomatopoeia would be a good idea here), or powerful, sensory images of the setting.

As a final tip, make a conscious effort to avoid clichés. These include quotations that have been quoted to death and phrases or idioms that are often overused. Using clichés indicates laziness to the reader and a lack of authenticity in your voice and storytelling.

For example, instead of writing, "I woke up at the crack of dawn," you could write something like "I woke up as soon as the sun began to peek over the horizon" (if you're the poetic type) or even just "I woke up at dawn" (if you're more like Hemingway).

Here is a lengthy but useful list of clichés to avoid in your writing .

Remember that you're ultimately telling a story with your essays, so don't be afraid to get creative and use a variety of literary techniques!

#4: Proofread, Proofread, Proofread!

The final step before you submit each of your Princeton essays is to edit and proofread it.

Editing isn't a one-step process. After you finish your rough draft, put your essay away and take it out again a few days or even weeks later to get a fresh perspective on what sounds good and what comes across awkward, unclear, or irrelevant. Do this step numerous times. At this time, you should also be checking for any typos, grammar errors, etc.

Once you've done a few editing sessions on your own, give your essay to someone you trust, such as a teacher, counselor, or parent, and have that person look it over and offer any feedback or corrections. Getting another set of eyes to look at your essay can help you catch smaller mistakes you might've failed to notice; it also gives a clearer sense as to what kind of impression your essay will likely leave on the Princeton admissions committee.

What's Next?

If you're applying to Princeton through the Common Application, you'll need to write an essay that answers one of the Common App prompts . Our in-depth guide goes over all the current prompts and gives you expert tips on how to answer them.

You can also check out our guide on how to choose a Common App prompt if you're struggling with deciding on the best one for your college application.

Not sure what your chances are of actually getting into Princeton? Calculate them with our own college acceptance calculator , and read up on how to submit a versatile college application .

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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The mind-body benefits of learning a new skill

Whether you’re bored, have extra time on your hands or want to get out of a rut, learning a new skill can give you the mental and physical boost you need.

“We’re meant to grow, stretch, extend and expand,” Dennis Buttimer, M.Ed, CEAP, RYT, CHC, a life and wellness coach at Cancer Wellness at Piedmont. “As you learn new skills, you’ll discover more gifts about yourself and improve your confidence and sense of well-being . You can also positively affect others with your new skills .”

Reasons to learn a new skill

It gives you motivation. A new hobby or skill can give you the motivation you need to get out of bed in the morning. During this pandemic, most of us are spending more time at home and are physically isolated from many loved ones . This can take a toll on our mental health. Learning a new language, practicing an instrument or tending to an herb garden can give you energy, joy and a sense of purpose.

It helps beat boredom. Doing the same thing every day can get boring and sap your zest for life. While trying something new requires more effort than turning on the TV, the benefits are numerous.

It boosts confidence. “If you engage in a new skill, you’re going to thicken the brain’s prefrontal cortex,” says Buttimer. “As you develop a new skill, you’ll gain courage and confidence, which helps you override fear and anxiety. You’ll feel more empowered.”

It keeps you healthy. “ Learning is great for your brain at every age,” he says. “As you take on a new skill, the mind begins to reshape itself because the physical brain is malleable. Previously, it was thought that it was only malleable until adolescence. However, now the research shows it can keep changing throughout our lives and for the better, so you have fewer fear responses and a more positive mindset.”

It helps you be flexible. By consistently educating yourself and trying new things, you’ll learn you’re capable of change and growth, which keeps you open to new opportunities in life. “Learning a new skill can get you out of a rut. If you don’t learn new skills, you can start to wither a bit mentally and physically because you’re falling victim to the same habits and mindsets again and again,” Buttimer explains.

It can benefit others. Think about how your new hobby or skill can help others at work, at home or in your community.

It can boost your happiness. “When you learn a new skill, you increase your level of happiness ," he says. “It was thought for a long time that a person’s baseline happiness couldn’t be lifted. It turns out that you can keep influencing your level of happiness. As you learn a new skill, you can boost it. You won’t be euphoric all the time, but you’ll lift your sense of well-being.”

How to make the most of learning a new skill

Consider your “why.” It doesn’t matter if a new skill is for work or play – you’ll get benefits either way. Think about what you hope to gain from learning a new skill. Do you want to pass the time, reduce stress, improve your career or boost your health? Once you know what you hope to gain, you can determine which skill you’d like to learn.

Explore possible subjects. Once you know your “why,” start exploring potential topics. If you want to improve your health, maybe you want to learn how to practice meditation or yoga or grow a vegetable garden.

If you want to pass the time by doing something other than watching TV, think about something that you’ve always secretly wanted to do, suggests Buttimer. Maybe you’re not a musical person, but you’ve always wanted to play the piano. Why not start now?

If you know you want to do something, but aren’t sure where to start, look at what’s trending right now, such as knitting, studying a new language, bread-making, coding, calligraphy or graphic design.

Consider your learning style. If you’re a visual learner, sign up for a video-based class. If you want to take a deep dive into a subject, look for a course instead of a one-time class. If you learn best by reading, stock up on books at the library. If you learn best by listening, download some podcasts or an audiobook. Do what works for you.

Take a compassionate approach. Learning a new skill is supposed to be something positive in your life. While it may feel challenging, especially at the beginning, it’s important to take a compassionate approach . You don’t have to do it perfectly; just be open and receptive.

“You could affirm to yourself, ‘I’m being open and receptive to learning this new skill while holding it loosely. This will be fun and positive. Some setbacks are normal when learning something new, but all is well,’” suggests Buttimer. “Depressurizing the situation is important.”

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Learning Skills Enhancement Essay

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• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Types of learning skills

Tools to enhance learning skills, how to incorporate new learning skills, time management, how adult learners differ from the rest of the society, why learning is the foundation to life.

As an adult, there are some basic leaning skills that one should be aware of in the learning process. The first learning skill that can be valuable for adults is lectures. In this case, the learner would be expected to be in a classroom setting with the teacher. This learning concept is very popular when learning about new concepts. Tutorials are also popularly used in some of the cases. When using the tutorials, the learner will be expected to make notes based on the personal understanding of the concepts presented in the tutorials.

Group work is another popular approach that is common among adults. In this case, learners would sit and share their views about a given topic in order to enhance their knowledge. A learner can also engage in private readings in the library. These skills can be used together in order to enhance the ability of the learner to grasp what is being taught.

There are some tools that are always used to enhance learning skills. One of the widely used tools in the current society is the internet. The internet has valuable information that can be used by a leaner to enhance his or her knowledge on a certain topic. Books and tutorials in the library also form an important tool for learners. Some advanced schools use video-conferencing for distant learners or in cases where the lecturer is unable to travel to the physical classroom (Boulay, 2009).

Sometimes it may be necessary to incorporate new learning skills. A learner must determine the best approach of incorporating these new skills. The best way of doing this would be to determine how the skills are related to the current learning skills. This way, it will be easy to come up with a way in which they can be integrated in order to come up with a superior approach of learning (Seo, 2012).

Basic skills to use time properly

Time management is a critical issue for an adult learner. The learner must have a strategy that explains when it is appropriate to conduct private studies, engage in group work, or take time to rest in between the studies. The best way of doing this is to develop a timetable. The timetable will define all the activities that a learner needs to engage in so that he or she can balance class work and other chores.

How to combat stress

Sometimes stress may affect a learner. It is necessary to come up with strategies that are helpful in combating stress. The best way that a learner can use to combat stress is to plan all the activities. The learner will also need to break the assignments into smaller manageable and less stressing tasks.

Procrastination

Procrastination is one of the worst mistakes that some learners make in their academic life. Every task should be completed in time, and the temptation to procrastinate any academic work should be avoided by all means possible.

Age is one of the fundamental factors that differentiate adult learners from other learners in the society. Most of the adult learners always find themselves in class with much younger people, some as young as their own children. However, they are expected to ignore the age factor in order to be academically successful.

In most of the cases, the priority of an adult learner is not academics. They always have families to care for which is their top priority. This always affects their academic performance as they try to balance between family life and academic work (Reischmann, 2004).

The mind set of an adult learner is also different from the young learners. While the young learners may have undefined ambition that they want to achieve through their academic life, the adult learners always have specific reasons that make them go back to class at advanced ages.

Learning is the foundation to life, and this is one of the main reasons why some adults always go back to class. Through learning, research into new fields is made possible. All the fields in education require research in order to sustain the changes taking place in the society.

Intelligence

Through the learning processes, one is able to enhance his or her intelligence, making it easy to survive in the current society that has become very challenging.

Credibility

Learning also enhances the credibility of a person to hold certain positions in life. For instance, if one is a leader, having the right education makes him credible for the position, and earns him some respect among the followers.

Learning like an adult is different from other forms of learning in the society. The age factor and the responsibilities that an adult has pose serious challenges that a normal learner may not experience. This may affect the performance of the adult learner if corrective measures are not taken.

Boulay, D. (2009). Study Skills for dummies . Web.

Reischmann, J. (2004). Andragogy: History, Meaning, Context, Function . Web.

Seo, H. (2012). Social Behavior & Personality. International Journal of Management , 40 (8), 1333-1340.

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IvyPanda. (2020, March 30). Learning Skills Enhancement. https://ivypanda.com/essays/basic-study-skills/

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IvyPanda . (2020) 'Learning Skills Enhancement'. 30 March.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Learning Skills Enhancement." March 30, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/basic-study-skills/.

1. IvyPanda . "Learning Skills Enhancement." March 30, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/basic-study-skills/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Learning Skills Enhancement." March 30, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/basic-study-skills/.

Want to learn a new skill? These two essays might inspire you to get started

Learning a new skill is a great way to bolster your personal development. And it doesn't hurt your professional marketability. A new skill or even a new hobby could also just be something you want to do, for yourself, and no one else. But, sometimes getting started can be tough. Check out these two essays for some inspiration

True Grit: How One Designer Taught Himself to Draw and Became an International Artist

In this piece , we look at the journey of  Alán Ramiro Manning  and his personal goal to learn how to draw. Readers will get to see how the young designer applied himself and went from a complete novice to a prolific illustrator through sheer determination and grit. If you've ever wanted to embark on a crazy path to do something new in your life, this is the story for you.

Career Evolution Through Autodidacticism and Accelerated Learning

This essay looks at the world of accelerated learning and autodidacticism, or the art of self-learning. You'll read about two friends who learned four languages in a year, the psychology of the self-learner, and there is also an awesome scene from an awesome movie.

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Why You Should Learn a Second Language and Gain New Skills

May 12, 2020

In The News

One of the most practical ways to make use of your spare time nowadays is to start learning a new skill. 

People who always succeed are those who are keen to learn something new every day - be it learning about other cultures or learning a second language.

At Middlebury Language Schools, we are strong advocates for the importance of mastering a second language. Both personally and professionally, being bilingual can bring you several advantages.

In this article, we will break down some of the benefits of learning a second language and why this skill is one of the most overlooked skills in the world.

LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE !

Why is it important to know more than one language

We live in a multilingual world, where connections are now more important than ever. The world is becoming increasingly globalized and knowing a second language can always give you an unfair advantage.

There are tangible benefits to being bilingual:

• It can help you in your career;
• It can improve your memory and brain functions;
• It can help increase your understanding of the languages you already speak.

A second language can drastically change your career. Living in an interconnected world means that more and more jobs are advertising positions where knowing more than one language is essential. 

As more companies trade internationally and create relationships with other countries, employees are often asked to travel for work, enhance these relationships, or be relocated abroad. 

Besides having more chances of landing a good job or advancing in your career, learning a second language can also give you an insight into other cultures. You will be more prepared and confident to travel the world and explore other people’s ways of living.

Lack of integration is a real problem for most countries. More often than not, this is due to the language barrier. People outside of their home countries end up being isolated, hanging out only with people from similar communities where their language is spoken. 

Learning a second language opens up the opportunity for being part of a community with a different culture, and learning more about the world around us. 

Did you know that being bilingual can also help you master your own language? For example, learning a new language with similar roots can help you learn other languages as well. Take Spanish , Italian , and French from one summer to the next!

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR LANGUAGE PROGRAMS !

What are the benefits of learning a second language

As mentioned before, learning a new language is a wonderful benefit in a globalized world. Let’s have a look at some of the benefits of learning a second language.

1. It improves your memory

The more you use your brain to learn new skills, the more your brain’s functions work. Learning a new language pushes your brain to get familiar with new grammar and vocabulary rules. It allows you to train your memory to remember new words, make connections between them, and use them in contextual situations.

2. Enhances your ability to multitask

Time management and multitasking are two skills that will always help you. Multilingual people have the ability to switch between languages. Their ability to think in different languages and be able to communicate in more than one language helps with multitasking.

3. Improves your performance in other academic areas 

Fully immersing yourself in a language learning environment means not only learning the basics of that language. It means learning how to communicate in another language with your peers or participating in extracurricular activities in that specific language. 

What languages are the most useful to learn? Middlebury Language Schools recommends 3 of our 13 languages

Since 1915, Middlebury Language Schools has been one of the nation’s preeminent language learning programs. 

Whether you’re a beginning language learner or working toward an advanced degree, our time-tested programs offer a range of options and opportunities.

Taking the Language Pledge at Middlebury Language Schools means committing to communicate only in the language of your choice for the duration of the program. You will live, play, and learn in a 24/7 environment. 

We offer a wide range of languages you can choose from. Here are just a few of the languages we offer.

Due to many geopolitical reasons, the Russian language is not very closely related to English. It is a very challenging language to learn, with complex grammar and syntax rules. However, it is an extremely culturally and politically relevant language. 

At the School of Russian , you can experience the most effective method for rapid language acquisition. An immersion environment is a promise that you will read, write, speak, and listen only in Russian throughout the duration of the program. Some of the benefits of learning Russian at Middlebury Language Schools include interpreting poetry, learning about the culture, and mastering the Russian etiquette.

LEARN RUSSIAN !

Arabic has been one of our most popular languages. It is a high demand language because it can get you ahead in a government career, but also give you endless opportunities in business and international relations. 

Arabic is spoken by more than 300 million people and is one of the top 5 most spoken languages in the world. Learning Arabic as a second language can help you learn about the Arabic culture and religion. It not only gives you opportunities to expand your connections, but also offers great travel opportunities. 

A summer at the Arabic School will help you experience the immersive environment on campus. At Middlebury Language Schools, the focus is on Modern Standard Arabic, with optional Arabic language classes in dialects such as Egyptian, Syrian and Moroccan.

Check out our Arabic graduate programs and Arabic 8-week immersion program for more information.

LEARN ARABIC !

A lot of people agree that Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn, due to the fact that you read words as they are written. Spanish is the most spoken language in the world after English and is used by more than 400 million people. 

Spanish skills can be a strong asset for communicating and creating relationships not only in Spain, but also in Latin America. 

At the Middlebury School of Spanish , you can engage your mind with topics of interest, from Spanish history to arts and cooking. 

Ready to learn Spanish? Check out Middlebury Language Schools’ 7-week immersion program or the graduate programs .

LEARN SPANISH !

Reminders on why you should learn a second language now

We have broken down the benefits of learning a second language and becoming bilingual in a highly globalized world. 

The truth is, learning new skills every day enhances all aspects of your life. By learning new skills, you can increase your career opportunities, find out more about the world around you, and be a better person overall.

We highly encourage you to start learning a new language as early in your life as possible. However, you are never too old to learn! The world moves fast, and we must keep up with the changes - by developing new skills, learning more about ourselves, and also, learning a new language!

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What Are Soft Skills at Work?

What are soft skills examples, why are soft skills important, what soft skills do employers look for, how to improve your soft skills, including soft skills on a resume, what careers are right for you, based on your soft skills quiz, what are soft skills definition and examples.

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Forage puts students first. Our blog articles are written independently by our editorial team. They have not been paid for or sponsored by our partners. See our full  editorial guidelines .

Table of Contents

Soft skills are non-technical skills that describe how you work and interact with others. Unlike hard skills , they’re not necessarily something you’ll learn in a course, like data analytics or programming skills . Instead, they’re something you often build through experience. Soft skills reflect your communication style, work ethic , and work style. 

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Soft skills are interpersonal skills that describe how you work and interact with other people. These skills apply to all kinds of jobs and careers. For example, a professor and an investment manager can both be great communicators and have exceptional leadership skills, although how those skills translate into their professions can look quite different. No matter what field you’re interested in, these skills won’t just come in handy — they’ll be integral to your success at a company.

These skills generally fall into a few different categories:

• Communication skills
• Leadership skills
• Teamwork skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Time management skills

Communication Skills

Communication skills describe how you interact with the people you work with — from your boss to your friendly colleague to an important client. These skills are vital in getting your ideas across in a meeting, sharing status updates on a project, or effectively negotiating with a coworker about how to move forward. Some soft communication skills include:

• Public speaking
• Negotiation
• Conflict resolution
• Verbal communication
• Friendliness
• Empathetic listening

Teaming@BCG

Practice effective communication skills to collaborate with team members and a client.

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Skills you’ll build: Communication, project management, prioritization, cross-functional collaboration

Leadership Skills

Leadership skills are essential in all types of roles, even if you’re not directly managing someone. Adding these skills to a resume shows your potential employer that you’re confident in taking charge and leading by example. Some soft leadership skills include:

• Decision-making
• Adaptability
• Team-building
• Reliability

Teamwork Skills

No one works in a silo, even if they’re on a team of one. Teamwork skills are critical in any job to work harmoniously with stakeholders across projects, teams, and departments. These skills aren’t just about getting along, though. It’s also essential to know when to disagree and push back to get the best result. Some soft teamwork skills include:

• Rapport-building
• Respectfulness

Problem-Solving Skills

Companies hire people to help them solve problems and find the best solutions. No matter what role you’re taking on, you’ll need to think creatively, analytically, and logically to understand why problems are happening and how to solve the issue.

Whether it’s understanding why there’s not enough traffic to a website or how to raise students’ test scores, problems in the workplace are everywhere, and companies want new hires to bring fresh and innovative ways to solve them. Problem-solving skills include:

• Communication
• Creative thinking

Critical Thinking Skills

These skills help people identify the root cause of an issue. Critical thinkers analyze, research, identify, and think outside the box to make sense of information. At work, critical thinking helps people solve problems and challenge preconceived notions to help create the best path forward. Some soft critical thinking skills include:

• Analytical skills
• Questioning

Time Management Skills

Time management skills ensure employees perform their jobs efficiently and productively. While time management is essential to any role, these skills are critical in hybrid and remote work environments. Employers want to know they can trust employees to get things done even if they’re not physically in an office with them. Some time management skills include:

• Prioritization
• Detail-oriented

“We all have soft skills because they are part of who we are,” Sabrina Cortes, resume writer, says. “Top soft skills are teamwork, attention to detail , time management, organization, verbal and written communication, leadership, emotional intelligence, adaptability/flexibility, problem-solving/conflict resolution, and interpersonal skills. … Unfortunately, all too often, these personality traits are overlooked [by applicants]. But they play a role in each job out there.”

Of course, some skills are more applicable to specific jobs than others. Here are some examples of how soft skills can be applied to specific industries:

Soft skills are important because they make you a successful employee and a helpful team member — and they’re a crucial part of helping you land a job. 

“Employers want to see how well [potential employees] work with people and can think beyond their learning,” Joanne Rosen, Chief Operations Officer at Write Choice Resumes, explains.

Employers look for soft skills because these skills are helpful indicators of how successful a new hire will be. According to a Leadership IQ study, 89% of new hire failures were a result of poor soft skills, not a lack of technical failures. New hires were more likely to fail because they lacked soft skills like coachability, emotional intelligence, and motivation. Only 11% of new hire failures were a result of technical incompetence. 

This trend especially rings true for entry-level hires. Because entry-level applicants don’t have advanced technical skills yet, having good soft skills can set you apart from the competition.

>>MORE: Learn what careers are right for you based on your skillset with our career aptitude test .

Not all soft skills are created equal in employers’ eyes. According to a 2023 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the top skills employers look for are problem-solving skills and the ability to work in a team.  

“In my experience, it’s valuable [for students] to convey these three key soft skills: time management, communications, and customer service,” 5X Certified Resume Writer Virginia Franco says. “They are most relevant to entry-level success across diverse industries and job functions.”

Now you know — soft skills are a major way to stand out in the job search when you’re just starting out. But how do you start to improve yours?

Go Out of Your Way to Work With Others

If you’re like me, group projects are the bane of your academic career. Yet they’re a valuable way to build soft skills and experience that you can talk about in interviews. Proactively seek out group settings when working on projects, whether you’re in the classroom or for an extracurricular. Even if the project takes a little longer than it would have on your own, you’ll practice skills like problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and feedback. If you’re lucky, you’ll even build conflict resolution skills !

Practice Responsive Soft Skills

Soft skills aren’t just what you bring to the working world, but how you respond to it. Start with how you communicate with others. It’s not just about what you’re saying to another person, but how you listen and process what they’re saying back to you. 

Instead of just hearing the words someone is saying, make a conscious effort to truly understand their perspective, emotions, and underlying needs. Give them your full attention, maintain eye contact, and provide verbal and non-verbal cues to show that you are engaged in the conversation. By actively listening , you can develop a deeper understanding of others, build trust, and respond in a more thoughtful and empathetic manner.

Self-Reflect

Finally, the best way to work on your soft skills is to reflect on your progress. Soft skills can be a lot harder to measure than hard skills because they’re often unquantifiable. Instead, you can track your progress by thinking of examples of when you have (or haven’t!) used your soft skills when working on a school project, or in an internship , volunteer opportunity, part-time job, extracurricular, or any other experience you might talk about in an interview. Where are your gaps? Could you have been a more effective communicator? Were you a great negotiator? What can you do differently next time?

Because employers are looking for soft skills in the entry-level hiring process, it’s crucial for you not only to include them, but to know the right ones to include.

What Soft Skills Should I Include on My Resume?

One of the best ways to know what skills to include on your resume is to look at the job description. Just as you’d include hard skills based on a job description’s requirements, reading what a company is looking for can help determine what soft skills to include. 

>>Forage find: Unlike hard skills, the exact soft skills an employer is looking for might not be as spelled out. Look for clues on what kinds of workers they’re looking for — Team players? Independent? Self-motivated? — to understand what skills to include.

Is the company looking for someone who can handle communicating big ideas with customers and clients? Demonstrate those communication skills. Does it want someone strategic who can tackle big issues? Show that you’re an excellent problem-solver.

How to Include Soft Skills on a Resume

Resume experts agree that you don’t necessarily need a dedicated skills section to flaunt your soft skills on a resume.

“Soft skills need to be demonstrated, not listed,” Rosen says. “Example: Rescued at-risk account by communicating with the client about needs and creating innovative customer-facing solutions.”

By using the phrases “communicating” and” “creating innovative, customer-facing solutions,” the candidate shows off their communication skills and problem-solving skills.

>>MORE: How to Write a Resume

You can also use a professional summary to flex these skills.

“I like to mix soft skills with hard skills,” Wendi Weiner , attorney and resume expert, says. “You can include a sentence in your professional summary that speaks to some of your soft skills. Example: ‘Record of leading projects from concept to completion through strong problem solving, team building, and solid time management.’ The hard skill in this sentence is project management, and it’s leveraged by the soft skills of problem-solving, team building, and time management.”

If you do include a skills section on your resume, you can use the same section to list both hard and soft skills . It’s a great way to save on space while sharing a well-rounded picture of your abilities.

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Skills you’ll build: Professional branding, showcasing outcomes of your contributions, illustrating team impact

What careers are right for you based on your skills? Take this quiz to find out. It’s completely free — you’ll just need to sign up to get your results!

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How to find your dream job (plus, a free quiz), what is my purpose in life quiz, what is work-based learning definition, examples, and how to start, upskill with forage.

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5 Devs on Upskilling: What They’re Learning About & How They Make Time

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In tech, every day is a school day. Part of the challenge (and joy) of working in an industry that shifts and grows constantly is that you never stop being a student. Upskilling isn’t just important when you’re vying for a promotion or looking for new opportunities — learning and developing helps you add more value in your current role and makes work more interesting. 

Not sure where to start? With a Codecademy Plus membership , you get unlimited access to over 300 courses on topics from AI to game development and more. This plan is great for people who want to learn a specialized skill or build their own roadmap. 

Ahead, professional devs from Codecademy and beyond share their tips for making time for upskilling, choosing the technologies to learn next, and staying ahead of emerging tech trends.

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How to make time for upskilling at work

Most companies explicitly support continuous development, whether that’s through access to online courses , peer-led learning sessions, or allocating some percentage of your working hours to side projects (such as Google’s famous “ 20% Time ”). 

“I encourage my reports to continually invest in their ‘knowledge portfolio’ so that they will continue to have relevant skills,” says Judah Anthony , Director of Product Engineering at Codecademy. That said, some engineers still find it difficult to make space for upskilling during the busy work week. Here are some smart ways engineers are carving out time to learn.

Seek your team leader’s support

“I recently started working with my manager to set up one learning goal per month. I’m hoping that having that accountability will help me with setting aside that time.” – Sylvana Santos , Senior Software Engineer, Codecademy

“We’re encouraged to write up a personal development plan every quarter, which we go through with our managers on a fortnightly basis to check what progress we have made.” – Jennifer Chan , Software Engineer, OVO

Nothing beats the kind of growth that comes with working on a team with other seasoned developers.

Try pair programming  

“Nothing beats the kind of growth that comes with working on a team with other seasoned developers. When I joined Codecademy, I had already started the Learn Go course. It gave me a good foundation for Go, but it was spending a few weeks pairing with another seasoned Go developer that really started to make me feel fluent in writing Go code.” – John Rood , Senior Software Engineer, Codecademy

Get involved in open source 

“I recently joined as an open source maintainer on a library that we use extensively at my work. I’ve been learning a lot about its internals, writing documentation, reviewing pull requests , and discussing advanced use cases with the community. I’ve learned a ton from it and it’s really valuable to my company since we use it so heavily — making it easy to justify the time spent.” – Tyler Williams , Lead Software Engineer, WalterPicks

What should you learn about?

With the entire internet at your disposal and new technologies launching all the time, it can be overwhelming to narrow down what to spend your time on. There are two tracks you can take: fill in gaps you encounter in your work, or follow your interests. 

Explore your company’s stack

“​​We have meetings where engineers can share in-flight projects and learnings. If an engineer talks about a technology, language, or concept that I haven’t worked with (for example, GraphQL federation), I’ll jot it down as a potential learning topic for myself. I’ll spend some time learning the basics of that topic and then connect with the team working on the project to learn even more. Sometimes we can get so caught up in meeting deadlines and shipping quickly, it can be hard to slow down and really take the time to understand the technologies that we work with, so I like to revisit topics every once in a while and dive deeper.” – Sylvana

Go where your hobbies lead you

“I recently started building a web app for budgeting. It’s been a chance for me to try using banking APIs like Plaid and Teller, authorization technologies like the Twilio Verify API and the Web Crypto API, and new frontend frameworks like Deno Fresh and SolidJS. While I’m doing yard work I’ll often listen to podcasts like JavaScript Jabber or just the audio from YouTube channels like Theo – t3․gg , to get new perspectives on the web development industry and inspiration about which tools I want to try in both hobby and work projects.” – John

What devs are learning about right now

Still looking for inspiration? We asked some engineers at all levels about what they’re learning about right now.

Monitoring and analytics

“My team’s goal is to maximize and retain our customer base. I’m currently learning more about Datadog, which my company uses for monitoring our cloud infrastructure to help them understand how our app is performing (for example, by monitoring failed requests, completed actions by users, and so on). I’m working on building a dashboard for our customer account management area, and adding further queries, metrics, and widgets which will inform us on how the app is performing and highlight any potential areas where it can improve.” – Jennifer

AI, language models, and machine learning

Apart from using AI to learn a new programming language or round out your skill set in general, it’s worth exploring AI, language models, and machine learning technology . It’s no surprise that professional devs are keeping an eye on developments here and figuring out how to integrate AI tools into their work . This is a particular area of focus for those in leadership roles, even if it’s not immediately clear what role these technologies will play in their work. In fact, a recent LinkedIn report found that 44% of US executives plan to increase their organization’s use of AI in the next year.

“Early on I explored things like attribution models, recommendation engines , and behavior analysis/prediction. Of late, content generation and semantic analysis with plain-text feedback seem very promising. OpenAI is super interesting, but even things like translations can have huge potential.” – Judah

Frameworks: React and Next.js

“One technology that I’ve been learning about recently — related to both work and hobbies — is React Server Components. It’s a major paradigm shift, not just about reducing code that we send to the browser, but also about how we load and cache data. JavaScript Jabber has a great interview with Dan Abramov and Joe Savona that really helped that concept click for me.” – John

“I’m doing a deeper dive into data fetching in Next.js and exploring more advanced Next.js concepts. We started moving our pages to Next.js a while ago and I did a little bit of learning on the subject back then, but I recently stumbled upon a pull request that used incremental static generation (ISR) and it felt so foreign to me. So I decided that I want to revisit the framework and understand what else is possible with it.” – Sylvana

Cybersecurity

“I’ve studied application security , especially the OWASP Top 10 , so I can keep an eye out for common application vulnerabilities. I’ve also studied various topics in cryptography, so I can better understand how to apply them, and what the various guarantees are. For example, I did a code review on some code that was trying to pass some sensitive user state in the query string. They thought they were safe because they were encrypting the data with AES-CBC , but I was able to demonstrate that that mode offers privacy but not integrity, so if someone knew the content of the plain text, they could alter the cipher text to unencrypt to whatever value they want (i.e. swapping role:"user" with role:"admin" ). I recommended using a mode that includes a signature .” – Judah

These are just a few examples of areas you can explore. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, getting advice about what to focus on from a more senior engineer can help, or check out our free course, Choosing a Programming Language .

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More From Forbes

8 high-income skills to learn in 2024.

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Propel your career and salary potential this year by developing on-demand, high-income skills

Seeking to propel your career this year and boost your earning potential? Start by being proactive with acquiring new skills. The job market and your industry is always changing, and as demand for fresh talent to fill critical roles increases and industries evolve, some skills you currently have may become outdated or in need of a refresh.

To maintain a competitive edge in 2024 so you can command the best salaries and secure promotions, try developing any of these ten high-income, in-demand skills:

1. Data Analysis

Data analytical skills come handy in a variety of situations and careers, including within leadership and management roles. However, you may choose to specialize in this field and become a data analyst. This skill entails being able to visualize, extract, model, clean and interpret complex data to make is accessible for use by key decision-makers. This enables organizations to devise well-informed strategies.

2. Project Management

Project management is another skill set demanded across multiple industries globally. The demand for project managers is increasing by 6% for the next eight years until 2032, and encompasses thorough organizational and methodical skills, risk management, relationship-building skills, and strong team management, collaboration, and communication skills.

3. UX/UI Design

In our tech-driven and tech-enabled society, designing the user experience and user interfaces of mobile and web apps and products plays a critical role for ensuring smooth customer engagements. With nearly 5.3 billion people using the internet as of October 2023 according to Statista, this skill set will ensure customer satisfaction for the clients and users of public and private sector organizations, educational institutions, and businesses in general.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, 4. digital marketing.

Digital marketing, just like UX/UI skills, focus on the online experience and captures the attention of potential customers to ensure they engage with a business's product or service. If you find that you love video editing, graphic design, social media engagement, influencer marketing, or have a hobby in content writing and creation for your blog, you have digital marketing skills. Continue to hone your skills by undertaking digital marketing courses, especially those specific to your niche.

Digital marketing skills require creativity and a focus on customer engagement

5. AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Now of course, a good list of in-demand, high-income skills would not be complete without a mention of AI. Artificial intelligence is a powerful technology that has been woven into the fabric of almost every industry and organization, and carries enormous potential, with a forecasted economic boost from $2.6 trillion to $4.6 trillion according to a McKinsey & Company report .

Learning AI skills doesn't necessarily mean you must spend years studying to be a machine learning engineer or AI scientist; rather, it's essential that you upskill yourself and modern uses of AI within your specific work context so you can increase the quality and output of your work, reduce excess time, and apply it in contexts that enable to unveil industry insights to help you achieve business and career goals.

6. Leadership

The term, "leadership skills" is a broad, umbrella term that encompasses a variety of competencies such as analytical thinking, curiosity and lifelong learning, people management, resilience, motivation, and self-awareness, amongst other skills. These skills ranked highly in the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report in 2023, in which it listed these qualities as "skills on the rise," being prioritized by organizations.

7. Web Development

Web development skills are needed by employers in tandem with other "online" focused skills, with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics outlook for this job projecting a 16% increase in demand over the next few years. You can learn web development through undertaking online course, bootcamps, and studying a degree in computer science.

If you consider yourself to have strong interpersonal and relationship-building skills, have an outgoing personality, are resilient and tenacious, and are driven by the thrill of meeting targets and deadlines, developing your sales skills for a career in sales would be a great idea for you. The earning potential from developing your sales skills is unlimited, as many sales professionals not only earn uncapped commissions, but go on to progress into high-salaried roles within sales leadership and management of a sales division.

There are many online platforms that offer a wide range of sales skills courses, to help you sharpen your negotiation, Salesforce, and cold calling skills.

Skills development is a never-ending journey

Remember that skills development is a never-ending journey. Most of the above skills, such as data analysis, project management, and UX/UI design are offered on various sites including Coursera, General Assembly, and LinkedIn Learning. Take time to polish your skills so you can maximize your earnings this year.

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Myelination in the brain may be key to ‘learning’ opioid addiction

New research in mice by Stanford Medicine scientists has found that the process of adaptive myelination, which helps the brain learn new skills, can also promote addiction to opioids.

June 5, 2024 - By Nina Bai

Stanford Medicine research has found that adaptive myelination, the neuronal process by which we improve our skills, can lead to morphine addiction in mice.  Sherry Young and Alex Mit - stock.adobe.com

Our brains, even in adulthood, continually adapt to what we do, strengthening or weakening neural pathways as we practice new skills or abandon old habits. Now, research by Stanford Medicine scientists has found that a particular type of neuroplasticity, known as adaptive myelination, can also contribute to drug addiction.

In adaptive myelination, more active brain circuits gain more myelin — the fatty insulation that allows electrical signals to travel faster and more efficiently through nerve fibers. Learning to juggle or practicing the piano, for example, gradually increases myelination in the brain circuits involved, optimizing for these abilities.

But the same adaptive myelination that is essential to learning, attention and memory has a dark side. In the new study in mice, researchers found that a single dose of morphine was enough to trigger the steps leading to myelination of dopamine-producing neurons — part of the brain’s reward circuitry — spurring the mice to seek out more of the drug. When myelination was blocked, the mice made no effort to find more morphine.

The new findings , published June 5 in  Nature , show how using addictive drugs can drive maladaptive myelination of the brain’s reward circuitry, which in turn reinforces drug-seeking behavior.

Myelin matters

“Myelin development does not complete until we’re in our late 20s or early 30s, which is kind of fascinating,” said  Michelle Monje , MD, PhD, the Milan Gambhir Professor in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology and senior author of the study.

Even after such a protracted developmental period, special cells in the brain called oligodendrocytes continue to generate new myelin in some brain regions.

“What we’ve come to understand over the last decade or so is that myelin, in some parts of the nervous system, is actually plastic and adaptable to experience,” Monje said. “The activity of a neuron can regulate the extent to which its axon is myelinated.”

Michelle Monje

Research in neuroplasticity has mostly focused on changes that occur at synapses — where neurons meet and communicate with each other. Adaptive myelination adds a new layer to how our brains learn from experience.

Much of the foundational knowledge about adaptive myelination has come from Monje’s lab. In 2014, her team reported that stimulating the premotor cortex of mice increased the myelination of neurons there and improved limb movement. Subsequent studies by her lab and collaborators have found that mice need adaptive myelination for spatial learning — to navigate a maze, for example, or to remember a threatening situation.

Reward learning

In the new study, Monje’s team wondered whether adaptive myelination was involved in reward learning. The researchers generated a rewarding experience in mice by giving them cocaine or morphine, or by directly stimulating their dopamine-producing neurons using optogenetic techniques.

Within three hours of a single injection of cocaine or morphine or 30 minutes of stimulation, the researchers were surprised to see a proliferation of the specialized stem cells that are destined to become myelin-producing oligodendrocytes. The proliferation was isolated to a brain region known as the ventral tegmental area, which is involved in reward learning and addiction.

“We didn’t think one dose of morphine or cocaine would do anything,” said  Belgin Yalcin , PhD, lead author of the new study and an instructor in neurology and neurological sciences. “But within three hours there was a change. A very mild change, but still a change.”

Both the speed and specificity of the changes were unexpected, the researchers said.

When researchers repeated the drug injections or brain stimulation for several days, then examined the mice a month later, they indeed found more oligodendrocytes and more myelinated dopamine-producing cells, with thicker myelin around their axons, again only in the ventral tegmental area.

Even a slight thickening of myelin — in this case, by several hundred nanometers — can affect brain function and behavior.

“Details matter in terms of myelin plasticity,” Yalcin said. “So little can make such a big difference in conduction velocity and the synchronicity of the circuit.”

Potent rewards

To see how the myelination translated into behavior, the researchers placed each mouse in a box where it could move freely between two chambers. In one chamber, the mice received a daily injection of morphine. (The researchers decided to focus on morphine because of its relevance to the opioid epidemic.) After five days, the mice strongly preferred the chamber where they had received the drug and would linger there, hoping for another hit.

Belgin Yalcin

The morphine stimulated the mice’s reward circuitry (specifically, the dopamine-producing neurons in the ventral tegmental area), increased the myelination of these neurons and tuned their brains for further reward-seeking behavior.

Curiously, when the researchers tested a food reward instead of morphine, the mice did not develop more food-seeking behavior, perhaps because the reward was less potent, the researchers said.

“You might not want your reward circuits to be modified by everyday kinds of rewards,” Monje said.

From mice to men

“In the healthy nervous system, adaptive myelination tunes circuit dynamics in a way that supports healthy cognitive functions like learning, memory and attention,” Monje said.

But as the new study demonstrates, the process can go awry, enhancing circuits that drive unhealthy behaviors or failing to enhance circuits required for healthy brain function.

In 2022, Monje’s lab reported that adaptive myelination could explain why some epileptic seizures  worsen  over time. The experience of seizures drives more myelination of the circuits involved, allowing faster and more synchronized signaling, which become more frequent and severe seizures. Her team also has found that reduced myelin plasticity  contributes  to “chemo-fog,” the cognitive impairments that often follow cancer treatment.

In the new study, the precise biochemical steps by which a drug reward leads to myelination are not completely clear. The researchers tried bathing oligodendrocyte precursor cells in dishes of morphine or dopamine and determined that neither chemical directly causes proliferation of these cells.

“A future direction would be to understand what exactly these myelin-forming cells are responding to that comes from the activity of dopaminergic neurons,” Yalcin said.

They found that a pathway known as BDNF-TrkB signaling is part of the story. When they blocked this pathway, the mice did not generate new oligodendrocytes and did not acquire a preference for the chamber where they received the drug. 

“The mice just couldn’t learn where they received their morphine reward,” Monje said.

Ultimately, a better understanding of adaptive myelination might reveal new strategies to help people recover from opioid addiction. Perhaps the process can be reversed and an addiction unlearned.

“We don’t know whether these changes are permanent, but there’s reason to believe that they would not be,” Monje said. “We think that myelin plasticity is bidirectional — you can both increase myelination of a circuit and decrease myelination of a circuit.”

The study was supported by funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute NeuroChoice Initiative, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (grant R01NS092597), the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (DP1NS111132), the National Institute for Drug Abuse (P50DA042012, T32DA035165 and K99DA056573), the National Cancer Institute (P50CA165962, R01CA258384 and U19CA264504), the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation, Cancer Grand Challenges and Cancer Research UK, a Maternal and Child Health Research Institute at Stanford University Postdoctoral Award, and a Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University.

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu .

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