75.

Learn a New Language

One of the things that distinguishes one field of endeavor from another is the language that's spoken there. Just as you need to speak the language if you move to a foreign country, you must learn to speak an industry's native tongue if you want to be part of it. That's how your colleagues will know you're “one of them.”

Each field has its own buzzwords, acronyms, and vernacular expressions. Here are a few: rubric, WASC, gainful employment stats, ABD, MOOCs, pedagogy. All these are terms endemic to higher education, where I live. If you don't work in higher education, I wouldn't expect you to know what they mean—or care. But working in higher ed requires that I both understand and know how to use these terms.