Sprint 5 - Core - Reflections on Foundations

Look forward to looking back

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

1. I enjoy thinking out loud and find talking through each step of a problem. When frustrated it is good stratergy to think “what question do I need to ask to solve this problem“.
2. I have watch frustration and anger consume me and raise stress levels through the roof. I have noticed this happens WAY FASTER if I am tired, hungry, or sedentary for too long.
3. The most important thing is other people

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

Empathy is a very important skill to have when working with other people, being able to understand how somebody else is learning and how they are feeling has a direct result of how we communicate and ultimately getting things done as a team.

Having self-awareness of how you are feeling is really important. Sometimes you will be working with a person that you do not enjoy working with and being contious of that fact can have a huge impact, just having the awearness allows you to the ability to choose how you respond rather then just reacting to what you are given.

What has surprised you the most about the core learning?

The thing that has surprised me the most about core principles is how important reflection is. It is very easy to understand something in a general sense or to learn about particular core value or principal but after revisiting the topic over long period of time that I have seen changes start to occur.

What were the most challenging aspects of the core learning?

I constantly find my ego creeping in. For example, I will look at somebody else’s work and then instantly find myself comparing what they did to my own. Finding the balance between learning and collaborating with others VS competing and comparing yourself has and will continue to be a challenge for me simply because it happens so sub-consciously.

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

It would make sense for any industry training organization to focus heavily on core skills, this is because 99% of all jobs require human to human interactions. For a company or team to be successful everybody in the team must be able to work together and move in the direction towards a common goal.

The reason I think EDA as a programming school focuses on humans skill so heavily is because the essence of a programmers job is to solve problems. When solving problems in a team it is very easy for people to have differing ideas and ways of going about solving said problem. Frustrating can lead to a whole bunch of negative emotions and it is critical that we understand this and have tools to communicate and manage our emotions in a productive way.

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? Justify your answer.

Focusing on core skills will never be a “waste of time”. I have learnt from previous jobs that human skills and your reputation within a company has a much greater weighting on your success then your technical abilities.

People remember how you make them feel not the work your produce.