Continual Learning, why it's important

For a lot of us when we left college or university, there was the sense of, I have finished all the learning that I need to do for my career. I think what needs to be communicated in colleges and universities is that your learning doesn’t stop when you get your diploma or degree. That what you learned there is just a basis of what you will still need to learn throughout your career.

There are so many jobs now that require a certification of some sort and a lot of them come with a need to earn several personal development units (PDU) and it varies depending on what your certification is. What this means is once you have achieved your certification you will need to continue to learn to keep your certification up to date. I know that I have one certification that I need to complete 20 PDU’s a year to maintain certification. There is another certification that I have, and it required 15 PDU’s over a three-year period.

The certification that you have will tell you the minimum number of PDU’s you are required to achieve and some of them have specific requirements such as so many educational versus personal development (community work). When you have more than one certification, it means that you are going to be doing a lot of learning each year.

For those without certifications, there is still a lot of education/learning that happens if you want to move forward in your career. There are so many ways that you can continue to learn during your career and that is taking courses, attending conferences and attending/viewing webinars. All of these are ways that you will continue to learn throughout your entire career. It doesn’t matter what field you are in, there are doing to be times that you will need to do some more learning.

So, when you are talking to anyone, and they say to do that once they finish college or university, they are finished learning you can tell them it’s just part of their education. How many people go back to university or college after they have been working for a while to improve their education.  Another way that we all learn every day is just watching the people around us and experiencing what life has in store for us.

Yes, we are all continually learning, even when we don’t think we are. It’s important to accept that learning is a lifelong journey and not just think that once you have finished formal education that you are done. We all are learning each day, no matter what you think, so enjoy learning and know that it’s going to continue for the rest of your life.