Reflection - Foundations Core Skills

Three new things you have learned about yourself and your ego as a result of the core learning

• Reflection

I found it difficult, at first, to reflect on challenges where I got stuck. Having previously come from a computer science background, I held myself up to a certain standard only to realise I was holding myself down from growth. I’ve learned that to overcome obstacles and have genuine reflections, I had to put my ego aside. Bringing down your wall of stubbornness will open your mind up to growth and opportunities that will lead to your success.

• Inevitable Insecurities

The slack DevAcademy group chat is where we can share our recent blogs and apps. But there is a couple of pros and cons to having this platform; one con being the inevitable need to compare your work with others. It was inevitable to see my peers as competition at first and it is fair to see it this way as we’re all here to reach the same goal, more or less. But all this was going on in my head so I took a step back and reassess. I decided to look at the positive side, one major positive being how we can give and receive feedback for improvement.

• Asking for help

Initially, my ego got in the way of asking help from strangers. I didn’t know anyone in the cohort and have only interacted with a couple of staff members. When googling for answers just wouldn’t seem to work, I had to finally set my ego aside and ask questions. The people in the academy are great and is what made the whole Foundation process easier. I casually chime in on ideas and help out where I can now. It was basically just the start that I needed to get over

Roles of VALUES, EMPATHY and SELF AWARENESS in learning and programming

• Values

Values are what a person strong believes in and will stand for. One common value that is applicable to everything is being true to your word. Commit and deliver to what you have promised because to display trustworthiness does not only show leadership skills but also shows that you are a person of value.

• Empathy

Most employers, not just in the tech industry, prefer to hire a team player willing to be trained in the process over an arrogant lone-wolf who has the perfect technical skills on paper; empathy is an important trait of a leader. Ironically, a leader is the one who stays back with the slowest in the pack and nurtures them forward.

• Self Awareness

Reflection is key to further and continuous development and you can’t do this without any sense of self awareness. In order for one to reflect on ones self, you must have have the awareness of your actions and be accepting of your flaws. Turn your weakness into strength by focusing on honing your skills one flaw at a time.

Most surpring thing about core learning

I didn’t expect to learn so much about Neuroplasticity. This part of the core was what I was interested in the most. Knowing the idea and its principles will help us unlock unimaginable abilities and overcome impossible obstacles simply by changing our way of thinking and doing. Along with Growth Mindset and my drive to become successful, I truly believe that, Neuroplasticity is the key to success and I’m glad DevAcademy had introduced us to it.

Most challenging aspects of core learning

The most challenging aspect of the core learning for me was identifying my values, strengths and weaknesses as part of my identity and how I see it relating to my learning and career development. Although I did previously mentioned that I talking about myself isn’t exactly the hardest thing in the world, I still did feel a bit of exposure writing about the values as a persona and the culture that I grew up around that has made me into the person I am now.

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 the reason why DevAcademy is so focused on honing everyone’s core skills is what separates them from other institutions. It is the need for employability in all aspects of the applicant. The academy not only research what technology is used by companies for us be trained on but also what type of people these successful companies hire and look for. It’s about learning how to fit in the team as a programmer and as a social creatures. This is the academy’s unique competitive advantage.

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?

I’ve done my due diligence on DevAcademy before deciding to join. I could’ve joined any other tertiary establishments to reach the same goal but it was the academy’s core teachings that really resonated with what I needed to be employed as a full fledged developer. I need to make sure that the technical skills are in tandem with my soft skills therefore I don’t believe I’ve wasted my time learning everything the academy has to offer.

Preparing for Bootcamp

Long term goal and/or career pathway

First, I would create my own resume in a website format, it seems to be the best way for a programmer to showcase their abilities. Not only would it show my skills applied but also show the extent of my creativity. In this age of information, creativity is critical to applicants and employees to combat being wiped out by automation. In the future, I’d also like to help out small businesses build their online footprint. Selfishly, this would help me hone my familiarity with building online footprints from the ground-up so I could use it on my own business ideas. A short term goal of mine is to find an organisation with a lot of performance transparency so that I have an idea of my performance and adjust when I need to as a programmer.

Biggest strengths and limitations in Bootcamp

In Sprint 2, I discussed my strengths and limitations. Since both were non-technical social attributes, I thought that nothing would’ve changed but I’ve learnt a lot about myself during the foundation course. My strength of being open and approachable stays the same. But my biggest weakness may have changed since then. It is now the constant comparisons I can’t help make with the work of others in the shared channel. Instead of working together and sharing ideas, my ego felt the need to compare and be insecure about my own work. This may re-occur in the bootcamp.

Biggest non-technical challenge at Bootcamp

Given that Bootcamp is a short but intensive 9 weeks, only means that there are a lot of materials to cover and deadlines to meet in such a short period of time. Lagging behind will definitely lead to a lot of stress and mental fatigue. With that said, the biggest challenge for me will be staying on top of the material. Therefore, I’ll do my best to get ahead and do extra work when I can in order to keep my sanity in check. I wouldn’t want to always be in panic mode.

Human skills that I would like to develop while at EDA

I’d like to make the most of my time at EDA learning how to think critically and hone my analytical skills. Previously, I’ve chased after analytical roles in the tech industry because myself and the people I worked with saw that my attention to details, how I perceive information, problem-solve, and decision making were my best traits. I’d like to build on this further while learning how to incorporate it with the technical skills I will be learning at EDA.

Expectations of myself on Bootcamp

Given how intensive and time critical bootcamp will be, I’ve set a process to commit to whenever I feel stuck. If I’m working individually, my process to problem solving goes something like this: troubleshoot, google, peers and facilitators. There’s always a sense of achievement when you can solve a problem by yourself but I’m aware enough not to let myself get stuck so asking for help can also be handy as long as it’s not disrupting.

I plan to read through every sprint/project to assess how much effort and time I think it will take me to complete each one. Then give room for error for good measure. I also believe that frequent self reflection would be critical in assessing how I cope with the workload. Since bootcamp will be more difficult than foundations, I would need to keep re-assessing my approach and adjust accordingly.