3 Tips to Improve Tech & STEM Skills
by David H. N., PhD
Students are often wowed by the final product of a science project that makes headlines in their community. These stories can be inspiring, but they can also be discouraging to other students.
The misconception that leads to discouragement is that you don’t realize that every successful STEM practitioner started as a beginner, with challenges of a journey that must happen before the final project.
What are 3 tips that students can get started with on their own to build tech skills, which may eventually lead to something impressive?
Tip 1. Start by Learning to Replicate a Technical Skill
The easiest way to start learning tech skills is to read or watch tutorials and then replicate something simple. For engineering-oriented students, there are many robotics and electronics kits that you can buy. For biology-oriented students, there are portable microscopes and specimen slides to test and play with.
Your goal at this stage is not to create something new or unique, but to replicate something that someone else has done while understanding the concepts of what makes it work.
Tip 2. Know the Concepts and Theory Behind the Skill
In the age of YouTube and Google searches, it has become much easier to learn more than what a book or instructional manual contains. Every science kit that you buy will explain key concepts or key terms that make the kit work.
Seek to understand the concepts behind the kit that you are using. Search on Google or YouTube the phrase Intro to [blank], but replace [blank] with the topic of interest, such as electronic circuits.
Another great search phrase is types of [blank]. These key search phrases will help you find the introductory information on any topic, so that you can go deeper than the instruction manual of your science kit.
Tip 3. Learn to Explain How Your Skill Connects to the Difficulty of a Currently Unsolved Problem
Another way to deepen your knowledge is to seek to understand how your experience connects to why a major unsolved problem is still unsolved. The technology required to solve major scientific problems are complicated, but they are still based on simple concepts of science.
Being able to explain why your experience with a project or skill connects to a challenge that professional STEM practitioners face will help convince people that you have the makings of a future professional.
Every STEM practitioner starts as a beginner, so just start feeding your curiosity by learning and doing with these 3 tips.
