This apprenticeship pattern describes how we should approach difficulties that we encounter along our way of being an apprentice. There will be times when we are working on projects and are faced with difficult challenges that we don’t know if we can overcome, and there are ways to get around this. In the future we will try and expose our ignorance to learn new things, but in doing so we might take on more than we can handle. In doing so, it is okay to take a step and work on something else. Sometimes taking some time away from what you’re struggling on will help you in the long term. It is important that once you take that step back that you then take two steps forward and use that momentum to better yourself. Taking a step back might feel as though you are retreating into failure, but when you work on something you’re comfortable it also adds to your expertise in that area. This then leads to needing to grow as a software engineer and having to learn new things. What we must also remember is to seek support from our mentors and use them to help us become better equipped with handling these situations.
What I’ve taken from this pattern is that taking a step back from what we’re uncomfortable with okay. Sometimes it is okay to go backwards in order for us look back at what we’ve preciously done, then use that to our advantage of progressing forward with our skills. Growth can be looked at from many different views and that’s what we can take from this apprenticeship pattern. There is nothing wrong with facing failure head on, but it’s about how we bounce back that will make us better software engineers.
This pattern has reminded me of experiences I have had in my life. There have been times where I have been put into situations at work where I was required to do work I was unfamiliar with. In doing so, I reverted back to completing work I knew I could do, and once that was done I was then forced to work the things I was not too sure about. In this situation, I then reached out to engineers and other people who could assist me in my work. This then helped me to better understand how to approach this new situation and helped me gain knowledge and experience in completing it later on without the assistance of others.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Life as a CS Student by Dylan Nguyen and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.