As a kid I had always taken electronic components like radios, beepers, TVs, toasters, and telephones apart to see what’s inside and to put it back together. However, they don’t always get re-assembled correctly, but the critical thinking process while re-assembling and taking it apart had always satisfied my curiosity about the electronic devices. Twenty years later, now I’m working as a Lead Manufacturing Engineer for the world’s number one manufacturing aircraft company.
What may have helped me get to this point in my career is the kind of critical thinking I have been doing throughout the past years, which are driven by some standards that are important in my life and has helped me tremendously in my career in the aerospace industry. Some of the standards are critical-thinking standards, such as reasonable, logical, rational, consistent, well-organized, reliable, and effective. On a single eight hours shift, I constantly use each one of these standards, and they’ve now become second nature to me. My current job responsibilities strongly rely on those standards. Furthermore, there are some non-critical thinking standards that are just as important in my life such as, fun, feel good, exciting, and spontaneous. Those are the standards that have helped me relax and disconnect after a stressful day or week at work. As stated by Nosich, (2012) “There is nothing inherently wrong with such standards; they are not opposed to critical thinking. They are simply non-critical-thinking standards.” (p.153). Health wise, those non-critical thinking standards are just as important as the critical thinking standards.
These standards have been developed with critical thinking ever since I was a teenager with a wonder mind that always wanted to find out what makes certain things or electronic equipments work. One question that I’ve always asked myself is “How does it work or what makes it work”. That question has led me to many great things in life and has given me the drive to find things out and learn more. It has also helped me acquire those standards.
Over the years those standards have gotten better and helped me make the right decisions fairly quickly while working in an extremely dynamic and stressful environment.
Thus, if used properly, those standards can help you become successful in your career and also help you have a well work and life balance. However, without critical thinking those standards are just words with meaningless values.
Reference:
Nosich, G. M. (2012). What is Critical Thinking?. In Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum. (4th ed., pp. 65, 66). Columbus, OH: Prentice Hall.
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