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Why is ArcGIS Pro so hard to learn?

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07-29-2022 02:36 PM
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by Anonymous User
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Hello everyone,

So this isn't meant to be a rant...I'm honestly interested in this from a quasi-scientific - how our brains work angle. I have been using ArcGIS Pro for a year and a half now. I'm an "old" (aged 40) ArcMap user. I do not have time to do Esri trainings to learn Pro - I have work to do. So I jumped in with no training and learn as I go. Many of you are probably similar. So my question to you is - why is ArcGIS Pro so hard to learn?

Here's today's example - open a style set and sort the items in the style set alphabetically by name. I couldn't do this intuitively. Isn't that insane? I had to google how to sort it alphabetically. Am I just "old" and my brain doesn't work "the new way"?! 🙂  (What my brain wanted to do was right click the items and click "sort"! That must be an ArcMap thing. There is no right click sort - go ahead, try it, ha!)

Thanks all,

Andrea

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23 Replies
AndreaB_
Frequent Contributor

OP here...in the next few months I will be teaching people ArcGIS Pro from ArcMap...and probably thinking about this question again!

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RossJohnson5
Emerging Contributor

Yeah, it's made me exasperated!

 

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RossJohnson5
Emerging Contributor

Good on you, Andrea.  I'm on the verge of giving up on GIS.

Ross

 

AndreaB_
Frequent Contributor

Well, I can say that more than 2 years later I finally feel comfortable in ArcGIS Pro. Do I still have to google stuff from time to time? Yep.

It helped me to remember that ArcMap wasn't perfect either and what made ArcMap usable was I had already found all the workarounds for the bugs. So once I started to find workarounds for ArcGIS Pro bugs, well, that made me realize it wasn't me - it was the software and I had done this process before. And I was able to troubleshoot. Esri Tech support and I are great friends. 😂 It's a challenge and I don't mind challenges, once I had the right mindset.

Oh and also I watched a lot of Esri videos and read a lot of documentation. And I don't use ArcGIS Pro as much as I used to! ha! Maybe that helps too.

@RossJohnson5 I was also feeling that same way for a while. But I can tell you that the other side feels really good - a great sense of accomplishment. There should be a trophy 😊 If you want to get there, I wish you luck. Reach out to your GIS network for support.

Best of luck to you all out there.  How has your journey been since July 2022 or since starting ArcGIS Pro?

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