Sprint 5 - Cultural

What are three new things you have learned about yourself and your ego as a result of the core learning?

1. I am very impatient with myself and tend to beat myself up if I can’t solve a problem in a short amount of time or if I can’t solve it at all. I am constantly feeling that I am chased by time and have to learn faster.
2. Whatever frustrations I have experienced by solving a problem, they didn't take my motivation away for the next day and I started every morning in full anticipation of the next challenge or new thing to learn.
3. The Growth Mindset belief has become one of my my biggest motivators when I feel dumb and frustrated.

What are the role of values, empathy and self-awareness in learning and programming?

Every decision we make, is a reflection of our values and beliefs, which is directed towards a specific purpose. What makes our values so important is, that they help us to define and create our future, to grow and develop and to assist us to identify our strengths and weaknesses. Core values within a company or learning group helps team members to work towards the same goal.

Self-awareness is one of the key elements in emotional intelligence and refers to a persons ability to identify and manage their own emotions. It is about understanding our needs, desires, failings, habits, strengths, weaknesses etc. When we have a better understanding of ourselves, we are empowered to make changes and build on our strengths, as well as identify areas where we would like to make improvements. It also helps us to create achievable goals and to guide ourselves down the right path.

While self-awareness and values help us to understand more about ourselves, empathy on the other hand helps us to understand how others are feeling. It is about recognizing emotions in others, listening without interrupting, withholding judgement and much more. Whenever other people are involved ( may it be in our personal lives or in our work team ), empathy can be incredibly useful. In programming, for example, it can help us solve problems by understanding of what’s super important to people, both fellow programmers and users. It helps people to create better products because we better understand the people who will be using our software. And on the programmer side, empathy is a big part of working in teams and makes for a better working place with greater staff retention.

What has surprised you the most about the core learning?

While I didn’t really enjoy the core learning in sprint 1 and 2, because it pushed me right out of my comfort zone and I had big troubles getting started to think about myself and to put everything down in writing, I started to quite enjoy it from sprint 3 onwards, which really surprised me. I thought that I would just find it as tedious as the first two sprints and would rather like to get back into coding, but instead I learned some really interesting and important things, and already started to implement them into my personal life and learning experience, e.g. active listening, mindfulness or thinking with a growth mindset.

I also enjoyed core as a relaxing break from JavaScript.

What were the most challenging aspects of the core learning?

To write everything down into a nice sounding text. Creative writing is definitely not one of my strengths and writing my core blog was hugely time-consuming.

Why do you think we, a programming school, are spending so much time focusing on core learning in a web development bootcamp course?

I believe that Dev Academy has curated the essential and foundational skills needed in the tech industry to get an understanding of how to be a valued team member and how to build mental strength.

Does the time you spent studying core learning here feel like a waste of time? Should you have just used that time to practicing programming instead?

Not at all. It was good to learn about myself and my limits, failures and frustrations and working out different ways of problem solving to overcome obstacles.

The core learning has changed my thought processes in regards to problem solving and it has also given me an understanding of how to learn from my mistakes and improve my skills, which I believe will be relevant in future employment.

What is your long term goal and/or career pathway?

After graduating from EDA, I would like to find a job as a Junior Developer in a bigger company in Wellington that supports the further development of their employees and helps people to grow. Ideally, it will be a company that particularly encourages females to get into tech roles ( for example Springload ). Long term I would like to become a senior team member, highly skilled in several programming languages, who mentors team mates without being in a lead role. I would like to be in a company that allows employees to work remotely for several weeks per year, so I am able to spend a few weeks each year around my family in Germany.

What do you think your biggest strengths and limitations will be in Bootcamp?

I believe my biggest strengths will be my strong drive to learn and develop my technical knowledge, as well as my perserverance. I would describe myself as a “completionist”. Usually, I finish what I have started and don’t give up halfway through, while always trying to give my best.

However, I tend to set myself very high standards and be incredibly hard on myself when achievements don’t meet my standards or when I progress too slowly. In those times, self-doubt is certainly my hardest struggle to overcome.

What do you think your biggest non-technical challenge at Bootcamp will be?

I think my biggest challenge will be to look after my mental and physical health during these 9 intense weeks. I will have to remind myself to spend some time away from learning to relax and recover.

What non-technical skills - human skills - would you like to see developed in yourself while at EDA?

I would like to see my interpersonal skills developed: learn how to clearly communicate with team members, trust others, support and motivate others, as well as giving constructive feedback to others.

I would also like to learn how to successfully work with people that I personally find “difficult” because their values profoundly differ from my own ones.

What are your expectations of yourself on Bootcamp?

My expectation of myself is to use the strengths that I have, to make the most and best that I can out of this learning experience. I expect myself to ask my cohort and/or facilitator for help if I am stuck with a problem and not to allow myself to hit the panic button.

Additionally, I expect myself to accept that I am a human being who is naturally going to fail heaps of times before I will eventually ( hopefully ) succeed.