Learn Tech or Learn to Adopt Tech? Which is more appropriate for Students and Budding Professionals?

Dear Friends and Students

A couple of days back one of our alumni sent a message. In fact, it is revealing for me as well.

He says, “There are 9000+ coding languages in the IT world. Out, 250+ are known, 50+ are popular like Java, Python, C, C++, etc. On top, we have 65+ popular software development frameworks like Django, Flask, Spring, ReactJS, Flutter, etc. There are minimum 500+ popular custom products, packages, and databases! I am working for a company. I always feel insecure. If I learn another language/package other than what I am currently working on, it makes my career better”. Very loaded question! Let me attempt this. Of course, this is my personal view and subjective to error.

Technology is rapidly changing. 127 new devices are connected to the internet every second! To reach first 50 million users, airlines took 68 years, Automobiles took 62Y, Telephone 50Y, Credit Cards 28Y, Television 28Y, Computer 14Y, Mobile 12Y, Internet 7Y, Facebook 3Y, WeChat 1Y and Pokemon Go game reached in 19 days!

Now I don’t need to explain how much time a new technology takes. Now tell me do you learn every new technology or learn to adopt new technology? There is a subtle difference between learn tech vs learn to adopt tech! This is a hard skill today. I see a lot of students and professionals working hard to learn every small syntax! That is not going to help in this disruptive world. You need to learn only the critical pieces of a particular technology. On the fly, you should able to pick the rest based on the demand. Going forward IT career would be like this only!

25 years back, I used to write a postcard or inland letters to my parents and friends! The first time I created my yahoo mail was in 1997. We used to book a slot to check our emails! We used to think that there is no replacement for a postcard as our heart writes when we pen! Can you imagine postcards now?

Did we use to stand in a railway queue at 5 AM to book 8 AM tatkal tickets? Can you imagine life without IRCTC now?

Once in a while, I used to go to a bank with my grandmother to collect the pension! Literally, if we go at 9 AM, we used to come out at 3 PM!! Can you imagine such a bank transaction now?

I used to write duplicate notes to a few friends as photocopying was not affordable! Some days, I used to write whole night to duplicate 50-100 page notes! Can you think of such adventures?

Learn Tech or Learn to Adopt Tech? My Pick is Learn to Adopt Technology!

Ravi Saripalle