What I find interesting is how much benefit you get from being one of the guys who get asked for help with this kind of thing ("I can't figure it out"-problems).
It was the main way I studied in university. People would come with some "difficult" problem thinking that I'd know the answer. They'd proceed to explain the problem, teaching me a ton of stuff while doing so, and there would inevitably be some small obvious thing they'd missed, I'd point it out and they would be super happy. I'm sure I learned way more from those interactions though.
It's the same in work as well, if you're "a troubleshooter" you end up learning an amazing amount of things from people coming over to explain something so that you can help them find the (usually) obvious thing they missed, or if it's not obvious you get to do some interesting research with them which teaches you some new stuff.
Seconded.. and it's one of things i miss about college.. and guess i was looking for when i went back to do a master's. I didn't get it though.. due to a bad choice of college.. but you live and learn.. :-)
It was the main way I studied in university. People would come with some "difficult" problem thinking that I'd know the answer. They'd proceed to explain the problem, teaching me a ton of stuff while doing so, and there would inevitably be some small obvious thing they'd missed, I'd point it out and they would be super happy. I'm sure I learned way more from those interactions though.
It's the same in work as well, if you're "a troubleshooter" you end up learning an amazing amount of things from people coming over to explain something so that you can help them find the (usually) obvious thing they missed, or if it's not obvious you get to do some interesting research with them which teaches you some new stuff.