I am in a microprocessor class right now; a course setup for the new employees that got into Sony to learn a little about microprocessor programming. The class level is more introductory than I was expecting so I am ending up having a lot of free time. As a result, I've brought a spare laptop and currently surfing the web and doing some misc reading while the teacher blabbers on about the fundamentals of electronics and microprocessor programming.
The interesting thing about this experience is that I fare better than the rest of the student that pay attention. I'm really just half listening to the teacher, just catching the main points about what he's talking about and then when it comes to doing an assignment, I just look at what needs to be done and go about doing it on my own. The good thing about not paying attention to everything is that it forces me to think on my own to solve the assignment instead of following some contrived program the teacher has setup to solve the problem. The fun part about thinking on my own is that I'm usually thinking a few steps ahead of the class and finding some bugs in the example code (which I've caught the teacher on).
The other good thing about thinking on my own in class is that I tend to be more creative than just listening to what the teacher has to say. I've been plugging the outputs of the microprocessor to a LED light display while making the lights dance around instead of just at the data through an oscilloscope. Apparently, I've gained some notoriety for not paying attention and going my own way at doing my own things.
On an interesting side note, I do believe that people become more creative when they do more thinking on their own instead of being told what to do, as that shuts down the creative process and hence I think the idea of managers telling employees to be "more creative" to be somewhat paradoxical in this sense. My 2 cents. I'd elaborate on it more but the lecturer just gave us a new circuit to build and I'm off to go build it.
No comments:
Post a Comment