The thinking and work that others have done before related to our profession will be of great help to us when it comes to, not only to have a wide knowledge of our trade, but also to know how to apply innovative solutions and be authentic experts in our sector.
With what they teach us in the race it is not worth
University degrees or bachelor’s degrees teach us a lot, but they barely scratch the surface of what your branch of knowledge covers, both in exclusively own subjects and in other multidisciplinary branches that are related.
We must also think that the content they give us is not always very up to date and that new knowledge emerges every day.
Therefore, a career must be understood as a kind of map that will guide us to acquire new training and new knowledge and not as the culmination of these.
Studying a degree is a privilege that you have to know how to take advantage of. And we are not referring to academic grades and merits, but rather that it opens a window to a new world and we must be curious enough not to just stare from a distance.
You have to jump, you have to get involved, you have to look further. Only then will we be brilliant in our field.
We always talk about the importance of differentiating yourself from the competition (in the curriculum, in postgraduate courses, etc.) to find a place in the hostile job market, but if you really want to differentiate yourself and stand out in a world of mediocre and wealthy people, then make sure your knowledge is up to date.
Find out about the new studies that are coming out, how things are changing, who are the most prominent authors and researchers, etc.
Also reserve a space in your professional library for novel academic articles, for new studies that could represent a change. Knowledge is power, you know that.
Where to start
Every time a university professor recommends readings or authors, write them down. There you will have your first list of books to start your library.
Obviously you must discern if what they recommend is one of those essential books that we should all read or if the teacher in question has released a mediocre book and wants to put it in with a shoehorn to increase its sales.
There is everything, but think about one thing: even from the simplest essay we can extract interesting ideas.
Anyway, unless you live in a palace with large rooms full of empty bookshelves, the thing is that our own professional library only has those books that are really worth treasuring.
The rest, we can take them out of the public library and return them when we have read them.
A job for life
The creation of our own professional library is not something that is finished. It is a job for life that forces us to update ourselves and continue to increase our knowledge and, although knowledge does not occupy a place, books do, so it is committed to quality and not quantity.
You can also have your favorites on paper and others electronically, which, by the way, can be wonderfully organized with these programs.
