Experience (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what experience is and how it is related to knowledge. Also, other uses of the term.

What is experience?

Generally, when we talk about experience we are referring to a type of knowledge that has to do with procedural (that is, how to do something) rather than with the factual (that is, what something is), and that, therefore, is obtained through direct experiencerather than through study and abstraction.

Thus, the knowledge obtained in this way is “a posteriori” knowledge, that is, it is obtained after having participated in real experience, and not “a priori” like the knowledge we obtain through academic or theoretical study. This is where experience and preparation are distinguished, for example in the work and professional world.

In fact, the word experience comes from the Latin word experience (translatable as “test” or “essay”), linked to peritia (“be experienced”) where our word “expertise” comes from, and also with “experiment”. Thus, it is common when saying that someone has a lot of experience to say that “he is very experienced.”

However, the experience It is not only linked to practical and applicable knowledge, but also to the experience of the world. (that is, with experiencing the world). As time goes by, we have the opportunity to go through situations that give us empirical knowledge about life, the human condition, emotions, etc.

Thus, the whole of what a person has experienced, the particular journey they took and the mark that all this has left on their way of being, are also referred to as experiences (or life experience).

Other uses of the term experience

Depending on the field, the term experience can have much more specific meanings. To cite just a few examples, we have:

School experience. In the educational field, the term experience is used to measure the student's transit through the educational institution, beyond what refers to the learning itself of the subjects taught. The school experience has to do with areas of socialization and community formation, as well as the experience of the school environment itself, in terms of emotions, identity, etc.
User experience. Expression used in computing to refer to the behavior of a system towards those who use it. The “user experience” of a food delivery app, for example, encompasses how well the program performs, how intuitive it is, what its frequent users think of it, etc.
Customer experience. In the field of business administration and business management, this term is used to refer to the customer's performance during their visit to a store or company headquarters: how long their process took, how well they were attended to, how satisfied they were. left the premises, etc.
Experience in role-playing games. We talk about experience in RPGs (from English Role Playing Game) to refer to the score that the player receives as they progress through the planned plot of the game, and which will subsequently be used to modify their character as they wish. This score will be higher or lower depending on the type of choices you make and the challenges you face.