To avoid frustration, I try to keep myself motivated by thinking about the feeling when I complete my task. Along with the feeling of completion, sharing information among people is some sort of motivation that I want to show off every time I learn something useful.

In my view, I am not a beginner applying this method introduced in Dave Hoover’s book since I am not feeling strange when I explain to my mates what I have learnt, instead, I actually like doing it because it is not only a way to help my mates understand the part that I have been working on but also a great opportunity to test my understanding over subject and enhance my memorization onto it.

I started feeling the benefits of sharing information with other people since high school. Back then, I mostly helped my friends when they didn’t understand some math problems in class, and every time I do it, I remember that issue much longer, and I feel more comfortable with the technique used to solve that problem. The more I “teach” them, the better my “teaching” skill and my sense of learning improves as well. As they started counting on me in these difficult tasks, I would perceive the sense of motivation to push my learning into the higher level.

We are afraid of having a conversation about a topic that we do not really comprehend. In both math and code, exchanging information, in my opinion, is an infamous problem since I have encountered lots of people who suffer from it. Coding and mathematics have a similar concept (it is like a feeling, but I cannot think of a more specific word to describe it) that once you understand the flow, solving their problems is utterly attractive. Therefore, besides the benefit of improving my apprehension, I also want to help my friends be able to comfortably debate when it comes to specialized topics.

As we grow, we have less confidence to ask other people, searching for problems online is therefore becoming a more popular approach. Hence, publishing blog posts to share my learning will be my next path to maintain my motivation and improve my understanding. Stay tuned!!

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

In approximately 6 weeks, I will become a new graduate student, and as I have not yet found an entry position for any company, it seems like I have no choice but to take any opportunity which comes first. Looking for a company makes me doubt that I am not good enough to qualify for any position and the waiting period is a bit frustrating and annoying.

An infamous reason that I heard from my friends is because I needed employers to sponsor me working authorization due to my international status. I was told that if employers see that option is on, the candidate’s document will immediately be excluded. Somewhat unfair but I will have a chance to verify it myself after earning myself working authorization and now I can be treated fairly by the applicant tracking system.

Besides, I think I made some mistakes in creating my resume initially that I did not include enough ability to show I am a good fit for the position. It is understandable that companies will not risk hiring someone who may not be able to directly contribute to the team’s workloads, even automate some simple manual tasks. Since my resume back then was poorly written, I failed to advertise myself to get the hiring manager’s intention.

Luckily, my action over the problem was kind of similar to what I read from the book, by collecting CVs from different people from the Internet and by hearing some tips and tricks from my friends on how to make my CVs better, I was able to rewrite my resume and checked it with different trusted ATS sites. Furthermore, my understanding on the subject improved considerably since then, so I can add more properties to the CVs. Comparing my initial CVs with my current one, it seems like I am now ready to reapply for every suitable position.

In conclusion, it could be tough getting to my first job, but as I started to be hired, it will be easier by then. Besides, I learned that I should put more preparation in my CVs, make a section to list every concrete skill that I have and related to the specified projects in the CVs.

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

Back when I was a kid (actually until now), I have been really into playing video games. It could be the reason why I chose Computer Science in order to be able to create games, a popular reason just as many of my colleagues. I somehow was able to land a spot at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, a flagship in technology teaching and research activities in Vietnam, after the high school graduate exam.

By the start of the school year, I had nothing but excitement, my only experience was some rough foundations of Pascal taught in high school and I barely remember anything from it. On the other hand, my colleagues were students from the very top high schools with a program concentrating in what they desire, which were mostly computers and the others had extra programming courses outside the class. Besides, the program was designed for students who already had experience with programming since the syllabus of my programming introduction class is a C++ class consisting of both functional and OOP methods with two huge projects. As a result, I was totally “destroyed” in this intro class while my colleagues, having a hard time, but managed to get through it.

Since my excitement was demolished, I had a hard time thinking about my major choice. I did not have any problem doing the required calculus, linear algebra, physics classes but my computer introduction class was a disaster. I was not able to unleash my enthusiasm, I did not know what it was, what I did at that time was grinding myself painfully to be “better”. In my opinion, we tend to be afraid of discussing or expressing something we are not familiar with, and for my case, I cannot show my professor my problem because of it.

After a few years since then, I would say that the syllabus for that intro class was still overwhelming for new students. However, for students who already had their based knowledge before taking that “intro” class, it’s a good opportunity for them to review before going into the main courses. If only I knew how to inject my excitement into my work to ask my professor about my problem, my learning would have been much better, wouldn’t it?!

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

Continuing from last week, “Confront Your Ignorance” is also the next section in the book where I find some similar patterns to my current state with the context of identifying gaps in my skill set.

According to what was written

“There are tools and techniques that you need to master, but you do not know how to begin. Some of these are things that everyone around you already seems to know, and there is an expectation that you already have this knowledge”. 

The only difference is not everyone around me seems to know it, except the YouTube algorithm, but I should meet the team’s “expectation” to have my part working on time. The situation can be described as I currently have a sample to refer to my work, but I do not want to abuse it because if I do so, I learn nothing from it. It feels like I can understand everything in the sample, I’m still curious on how it was done and since the programming language is too versatile, is there other way that I can do it without “copying” the sample?! Since the sample has a good structure and is written in a comprehensive manner, I would happily learn it, but the code, I don’t think I can write it that good just by looking at the documentation.

I consider myself a competitive person and sometimes my curiosity makes me feel unsatisfied in many cases. I always want to be as good as that “person” in a particular situation and when I can’t, the feeling is quite uncomfortable. Hence, I think my biggest ignorance is trying to achieve too many things but not concentrating on a certain topic. A solution was given in the book, it’s also obviously the only way for me to get rid of my bad habit, which is to strive to learn each one, maybe in important order.

In conclusion, I think it’s not bad at all to have so many interests at the same time, but I should figure out which one I should prioritize learning it first. Back to my current problem, I think I would go over the commit history to see how it was initially done and proceed from there.

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

Next week, my second Sprint will start. My team worked really well last Sprint that we met all the initial objectives; however, the context was we reimplemented something that we’ve already known or heard about, which only needs a bit more searching in order to fully commit the work. This second Sprint we are going to have lots more “abstract” topics, materials that we weren’t familiar with, so I expect we might get frustrated, overwhelmed when we come to it.

This situation might somewhat be similar to what I’ve read in the “Expose Your Ignorance” section, the only difference is that I’m not in a nine to five working environment. Per description from the book, we have been brought in some projects that we are unfamiliar with some of the required technologies; but team members believe that we can deliver because we have a deep understanding of the business domain or some other aspect of the technology stack being used in a team, or perhaps we are the only person available to do the job. In my view, learning and implementing what the team needs while carrying their expectations is difficult, especially when it is something that we have no experience in.

Finding myself falling into this issue in no time, I might consider taking the solution written in the book which is to show my teammates that the learning process is part of delivering software. Therefore, knowing how to learn the technology effectively is important because I should know which part of my current project will need this and go straight to documentation with relevant information on it. Furthermore, asking questions, instead of hiding our issues, exposes it to everyone in the team because no one will be annoyed when we show them what we cannot do, instead, not telling them that you are having problems is what keeps the team behind.

Luckily, I consider myself a bit “figurative” when it comes to asking questions since I don’t mind asking anything that I didn’t understand. Compared to myself 3 years ago, it’s a huge difference as I was that shy guy hiding my weaknesses, I find learning is much more efficient when I can ask everyone what I don’t know, of course, after a period of time thinking and testing and implementing. Having questions is a good practice, but it doesn’t mean that we should ask without already researching it.

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

Months ago, I found myself standing in “The Deep End” since I wasn’t able to land any internship before graduating this year. The situation was exactly the same as how they described in the book, I needed to grow more skills, my confidence, and my portfolio of successful work, I needed to challenge myself with bigger works, projects, complex tasks, and teams, etc. The YouTube algorithm even made my situation worse by showing people about my age are “better” coders than me in my opinion. I was afraid that I did not do “enough”.

 Currently, what I really felt at that time was envious, seeing people better than me virtually is rough but seeing people who I know landed works while I carried them through classes is overwhelming. My resume, my ability, my confidence, all of them were kind of irrelevant at that point. I created an invisible time limit for myself to be successful, to this point, I still think there are pros and cons to doing it, the risk could be high but I take it.

Later, exactly in how they advise the action, I should instead jump into working on projects that I did not do to create a time limit for it, I’m willing to take more work than anyone in the team and fulfill my responsibilities to not only build my portfolio but also my skills and my confidence. Then, after a while, I will analyze my set of skills fit to what role in the industry and pick the right opportunity based on it.

Besides, when this post is online, I’m currently handling an internship and a capstone project in which I volunteered to be the Scrum master that instead does not make me feel overwhelmed but motivated, as I am learning new materials every day.

In conclusion, it likes how The Deep End was described in vol. 15 of “Diary of the Wimpy Kid: The Deep End”, which follows Greg Heffley’s summer story, a dramatic summer yielded great memories, things could be tough initially, but if I keep continuing on this track, hopefully, the result will be what I aimed.

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

Self-learning is one important quality of any programmer; however, self-learning is not always useful since the learner might not know what is waiting for them and if their approach is good or not. In this case, every learner needs mentors, those who already achieved what we are working on or at least, they have deeper knowledge about the topic that we are learning.

“Whether a beginner starts out with a training course or is self-taught, the first step on the path to software craftsmanship is finding a craftsman to apprentice himself to”

–Pete McBreen, Software Craftsmanship, p.96

From my own experience, I find this statement can’t be more accurate as I find myself learning more productive when I have mentors to show me what I should do compared to learning by myself. However, as in the book illustrated, as an apprentice, it can be difficult to tell who is truly a master craftsman. Therefore, an apprentice should follow a set of mentors that each one will show them a bit of a huge picture. And the set of mentors here counts not only “real” people who we should have already considered them as our mentors to learn, our friends and our professor, but also the active community we could find online to exchange information with people on it.

Besides, according to what was written in the book, an apprentice shouldn’t expect their mentors to know everything and get disappointed if mentors don’t know what we are seeking for as the current mentors could be other’s apprentice, we are all walking on a long road. Because our field is huge, a person who can guide us through 10 in-built React hooks may not be able to show you how to design the API route and vice versa, these twos are completely different topics and what we probably need is to master a specific set of skills that we desired; but it’s obviously the more we know, the higher opportunities we’ll have.

In conclusion, what I learned from this chapter is that I should find a community and actively communicate with other members there. Luckily, I found myself on a discord channel of one of the biggest Vietnamese tech forums, J2Team, having a community of developers exchanging lots of quality contents.

Now, I should consider posting my first message here and seeing where it will lead me to. 

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