I've done this a few times. 1. Immersion. I learn more German in Germany when I visit for a week than I do in months of study. Why? Because I can see it al

I've done this a few times. 1. Immersion. I learn more German in Germany when I visit for a week than I do in months of study. Why? Because I can see it all context. I can guess what a Hauptbahnhof is context, and other words. You start to see the patterns. Work is much the same. Get in there and learn! There is a reason why the first thing every software developer should do is fix a pretty easy bug. It gets them to do so many essential things they will need to do day to day as part of their job. 2. There are no dumb questions. "What is Alpha?" "What are the Greeks?" etc. All VERY valid questions. If in Star Trek parlance if someone says to "Tech, tech the tech." ask some questions. :) (Tech was used by the writers as a stand in to allow them to write the script without looking everything up.) 3. You have time. Nobody expects you to know anything. Ramp up for an industry to basic levels is usually about 6 months. 4. Suffer. Try to learn the concepts. This won't always work, but it'll teach you tons of extra concepts you will need later. Time spent learning is rarely totally wasted. It just may be the knowledge you need to cross a gap later. Also it makes it obvious to the people around you, you are trying, thus you are more likely to get help. 5. Don't be afraid to be stupid. When I used to work with TLAs a wise boss once told me if he didn't know what some word/acronym meant. He'd just ask. It was amazing how many times nobody in the room could expand it. Despite us all working with it ;) I've picked up this habit from him. It hasn't hurt me... But it can be a great way to rattle people.