Hello and welcome back to benderson’s blog! This week are going to discuss another apprenticeship pattern from the Apprenticeship Pattern book that my classmates and I have been reading and taking notes from. The pattern that I would like to discuss today is “Find Mentors”, which is a kind of a self-explanatory pattern. It follows the rule of “If you hit a roadblock and need help, ask some to be there apprentice and work under them and learn from them”. You’re not a master at the craft yet and at some points you don’t know what to do next, one of the best things you can do is find someone that has already gone through the process and you can ask them questions on what they did and how you should approach your future. I have a friend actually that graduated from Worcester State with a Computer Science degree, where I plan to graduate this coming May and also graduate with a Computer Science degree, and I asked him a bunch of questions regarding what he did after graduating and what are the steps I should take so I can get a well paying job and be able to be successful for the coming years. He gave me some pointers and what I should know for interviews and stuff so he was very helpful in that sense, still finding internships and job opportunities will be a challenge in them selves but I will cross that bridge when they come.

The pattern itself wasn’t really thought provoking because as I said earlier, finding a mentor is kind of self-explanatory. You got there, find someone you consider to be really good at the craft and you ask them if you could learn from them if you aren’t too intimidated by them. If you’re too intimidated by them, just ask them out to lunch or something and generate questions to find out what you can do to better yourself in the craft. This pattern could honestly be used for many different subjects such as business, teaching or being a doctor. All those jobs have people learning under people that have already mastered the craft and are willing to teach them so they can succeed them when they retire. The pattern has not caused me to change the way I think about my major as I know one day, I will have to find a job such as an internship and learn from my experiences there, hopefully from someone really good at computer science and willing to share information with me. Finding a mentor is just one step in the journey to becoming one of the best computer scientists out there as to become the best, you have to learn from the best. Thank you for joining me this week on benderson’s blog!

From the blog CS@Worcester – Benderson's Blog by Benderson's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and welcome back to benderson’s blog! On this edition of benderson’s blog, we will be discussing another pattern from the Apprenticeship Pattern book that contains many patterns that influence a computer scientist and how they should approach certain obstacles in their career. The one I chose today is called “Draw Your Own Map” which discusses the problem of your employer not having the career path that you want to do or fits your plan in your career. This really impedes your production to reaching your future goals and becoming the best you can be. The solution that the book provides includes identifying the next step for your career and what you think should is the next stop on your path to becoming the best programmer you can be. If your job doesn’t meet your vision that you have yourself then you should start to seek other opportunities where you feel that it does meet your vision. You should also reassess your map as your journey changes, you may run into obstacles that are too big for you and you want to take detour, or something just isn’t right to you and you want to try something else. There is no map that is always right as changes always happen. The action the pattern suggest is to web storm where each of your jobs go and see if that map is good for you and fits all your goals if not keep trying until you get a map that does.

The reason I choose this pattern for this week is because as a Senior computer science major, I don’t really know what my map looks like right now. I work at a grocery store and I know that doesn’t have anything to do with computer science so once I find my first job in the computer science field, then I will be able to draw a map to see where I could end up. I could draw a map now but I don’t know exactly what I want to do after college yet. Since I’m a software concentration major, I would want to do something with software and software development but will see what happens when I start job hunting. My big goal in life is to create something revolutionary that changes how people perceive technology and apps, another big goal of mine would be working on video games at a company such as Microsoft or Sony. My map hasn’t been fully made yet but for sure one day I will be able to create it and find my journey as a computer science major. Thank you for joining me this week on benderson’s blog!

From the blog CS@Worcester – Benderson's Blog by Benderson's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and welcome back to benderson’s blog! This week we are discussing a different pattern that is found in the book Apprentice Pattern called “Confront Your Ignorance”. Confront your ignorance talks about identifying gaps in your skillset that is relevant and will affect your everyday work. The book talks about a common problem with most people trying to master computer science and that is where to start. There is so much in computer science that you don’t know where to begin, you got to decide on a language to learn, what to program, etc. There are too many pathways just to choose one. The solution though is to pick one skill/technique that will help you actively fill the gaps in your knowledge, and you can do this in many ways as well, some suggestions that book has is to look at overviews or FAQs of different computer science topics. Either you eventually master it, or you get good enough in the skill and you move onto other gaps that you need to fill. To find the gaps in your skillset, you need to do another pattern known as “Expose Your Ignorance” which confronting your ignorance attacks.

Confronting your ignorance is a challenge of mine as I want to be proficient in other programming languages other than java, but I don’t know which one to choose half the time. I have tried python and a little C but I always get caught up in something else and never finish learning all the ins and outs of the languages. I feel like I’m familiar with all my ignorance’s, so I’m passed the exposing my ignorance’s phase and I just need to confront them. As I have said before, I’m worried about getting into my first job and not being able to work efficiently enough so getting experience and filling my gaps is something that I need to do to gain more confidence. I probably will start learning another programming language soon that most workplaces use just so I’m ready to use the language right when I get into the job. Eventually though, I will do my best to fill all by gaps and get the job I need to succeed. Thank you for joining us this week on benderson’s blog, make sure to comeback next week for more patterns.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Benderson's Blog by Benderson's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and welcome back to benderson’s blog! This week we are discussing another pattern in the Apprenticeship Pattern book called “Concrete Skills”. Concrete skills discusses the problem of wanting to join a team that will lead you to a big learning experience but they probably won’t let you join do to you not having the credentials to work on the project therefore being a rock in a bag that they got to carry across the finish line, in other words you would be holding them back instead of helping them move forward with the project. The book provides the solution of maintain your concrete skills as it may influence them to trust you and let you on the project. Some of examples of concrete skills they provided were; writing build files in various popular languages, knowledge of open source frameworks and standard libraries. This still may not get you hired to the job as managers would have to take a leap of faith on you but having these skills will make that leap of faith a little bit closer. The book also suggests collecting the CVs of the people you respect as you can learn from their CVs and pick out certain things that they do well with and learn from it, this will allow you to create something to show that you have learned and may get you on the team.

The pattern “Concrete Skills” is intriguing as it is how every job usually works that has high end problems with it and needs the best workers on it. The most knowledgeable will always be working on those projects as the people who need the experience and want to learn will have to sit out on it as they can’t hold the team back from completing the project on time. Now the goal of the person that has to sit out of the high-end projects has to become the most knowledgeable to be able to work on the next high end project or join this one. This pattern talks about the ways you can do that and it’s through learning from outside sources, online research or even your colleagues are a couple of outlets you can use to become the one of the most knowledgeable in your workforce. Acquiring a CV from one of the people working on the high-end project would be a great way learn and be like that person which will greatly increase your chances of being hired for the job. Concrete skills is exactly what you need for the baseline but you need to rise to the occasion to improve those skills and become one of the best.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Benderson's Blog by Benderson's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and welcome back to benderson’s blog, this week we are going to discuss an apprenticeship pattern discussed in the Apprenticeship Patterns book called “Breakable Toys”. This apprenticeship pattern discusses trying to find ways to learn when your work environment doesn’t allow failure to occur even though failure is key in learning in computer science as we learn from our mistakes most of the time and find solutions to fix them. This environment doesn’t allow the worker to learn which really impedes the knowledge that a computer scientist can gain. The solution that the book provides to fix this problem is doing simple at home projects that will help you learn and keep your brain thinking as a computer scientist would. Some examples of projects that you could do were making your own calendar from scratch, making a wiki, or an address book. They suggest making your project something that is useful to your everyday life and will improve your skills as an apprentice. The reason you want to build something is to learn from it and learn new things while creating your project that will make you a better computer scientist.

I’m glad I picked this apprenticeship pattern first because I can relate to this as one of my biggest fears of when I get a job is “what if I fail at doing something? Am I going to get fired after one mistake?”. Failure is a big part of learning, lots of scientists, especially some computer scientists, have made some mistakes and that has led them to create bigger and better things and makes them better at their profession. No one in this world is perfect and will get something right 100% of the time but that doesn’t mean that you can get a lot things wrong and expect to have a job at the end of the day. Creating projects and working solo on your own objectives will make you learn and influence you to keep going and figure out how to get over certain obstacles. Problem solving skills is huge in work environments as finding the solution as quick as possible is always key in a job and the solutions that the pattern reading provides are great in making you better at that specific trait. “Breakable Toys” is a great title for the pattern as that is exactly how it is, as a child you play with a toy and figure out what it can do and the many ways you can use it and it’s like you grew up and you’re translating that exact principle to computer science and what you can create with your knowledge. Thank you for joining benderson’s blog this week!

From the blog CS@Worcester – Benderson's Blog by Benderson's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.