Category Archives: Apprenticeships

Draw Your Own Map || S.S. 9

csseries281829For my second-to-last individual apprenticeship pattern, I have decided to go with something a little more relevant to my current situation–relating to starting my career post-graduation.

The Draw Your Own Map pattern caught my attention right away with “we might come across situations or colleagues or people in the society who will try to prove that programming will become an unsustainable activity as time passes by.” Throughout my job search process, I asked questions and requested advice from all different kinds of people across different fields (and especially within computer science) on how they knew what job they wanted to start with when given opportunities.

In the end, I must choose what I think is best for me in terms of what I’m looking for. I’ve finally came up with a list and that includes:

  • Having solid mentorship
  • Proper training (no room for imposter syndrome)
  • A company that tries to stay on top of new technology
  • Work-life balance that allows me to continue doing all the things I love to do outside of work and travel often

The Draw Your Own map pattern is very encouraging, reminding us that we have options elsewhere if we feel that our current company is hindering our learning and personal growth. I found that this pattern was interesting because I part of my decision-making process was “what if I am ____ amount of time into my first career and realize that I do not like what I am doing?” How would I move on out of that role to figure out what I may like better in terms of my day-to-day tasks?

The activity to list three jobs that I could do following my next was was really helpful to visualize future career possibilities. I know that we can always learn on the job and at new jobs but it is also important to build up your skills that can be transferred in the first place.

The pattern has helped me feel more confident in the decision I made to start out in software engineering. I will build up my skills starting here and then more onward from there!

From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Breakable Toys || S.S. 6

Sams Ships (7)Recently, I have been seeing plenty of messages along the lines of “We learn from failure, not from success.” As someone who used to regularly watch all of Casey Neistat’s vlogs from the beginning days, it is something that has been ingrained in me to take risks and know that if I fail, then at least I did not give up and allowed myself to try.

When I saw the Breakable Toys apprenticeship pattern, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to discuss trying things! This pattern is basically trying to explain to us that you need a safe space to learn something even if you work in an environment that may not allow for failure. It encourages us to seek our own way to sharpen our skills and take initiative, which would increase our confidence.

I found that this pattern is thought-provoking because where would you be if you did not take all the risks or new experiences beforehand to get to where you are today? I used to study biology and chemistry until I gave computer science a real chance. It was a little daunting at first to catch up but I made it (so far). If I did not take on leadership opportunities when given the chance, would I have the observation skills I have today when it comes to being involved on a team? Probably not!

If you do not allow yourself to try something out or practice something, I think you would feel a lot more pressure. It was reassuring to hear that someone like Steve Baker also experienced something like that, which makes it a lot more normalized.

As kids, we started learning how to interact with the world by playing with toys and developing our own sense of physics. Through that, we took risks like throwing things, sliding things down places, and etc., until we figured things like “oh, maybe I should not have accidentally thrown that ball too high and it went to the neighbors yard!” But at the same time, you’re a little proud that you’ve gotten better at throwing the ball harder.

That’s the same thing with developing yourself in your professional career. I will allow myself some time and space to learn something without that pressure and it may surprise me, once again, how far I may go.

From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Concrete Skills|| S.S. 4

Sams Ships (4)On this weekly individual apprenticeship pattern post, I’m going to discuss Concrete Skills. This pattern is pretty much explained with someone wanting to be a part of a good development team but they have not yet built up their development experience. My reaction to this pattern is that this would be a comforting one for students in college or upcoming graduates (and even entry-level developers) to feel a little less pressure on bridging the gap between starting fresh and being an experienced developer.

Concrete skills are interesting to me because you can have all the knowledge and information but being able to take what you know and apply it to something is different. The main takeaway I got from this pattern is to learn things that you will be able to apply even when you are still in the on-boarding phase. This has caused my to change the way I think about my intended profession because of course I want to get started and involved in projects right away. I like the feeling of being able to help people out when I have down time at my current opportunity just because I get to sharpen up a skill in one area instead of just sitting there.

A good question proposed in the pattern stood out to me, “If we hire you today, what can you do on Monday morning that will benefit us?” It’s interesting to imagine yourself in the role of a hiring manager; they have to hope to understand you well enough so that they can trust that you will be able to do your job and have an impact on the company. This thought makes me want to continue what I’ve been doing in terms of pursuing different learning experiences that will help me become a stronger developer not only knowledge-wise but skills-wise.

I do not disagree with something in the patterns as it gave me something new to think about and look forward to using in my future. I found it useful to hear their advice on considering looking at other CVs as references of what we would like to put on our potential list of skills.

 

From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Deep End || Sam’s Ships S.S.3

Sams Ships (2)On today’s installment of the individual apprenticeship patterns series, we’re going to discuss The Deep End. The main takeaway of The Deep End is that you should throw yourself into an opportunity even if you are hesitating or unsure. Of course, it is not necessarily telling you to be reckless, it also emphasizes how it is your responsibility to offset the risks of your approach.

I found that this pattern was interesting because as a person, I continuously try to say yes to trying new things or taking on new roles when the opportunity arises. The Deep End is basically the pattern that represents that mindset and reinforces how important trying something you might think is “risky” turns into being one of the best choices you ever made.

The pattern has caused me to change the way I think about software development/engineering based on the “action” it tells us to consider; which is learning to see what choices are affecting where our career is heading and eventually learn how to make choices based on it. I will try to focus on not only reflecting and reviewing what has happened but I will also move forward by actively making decisions based on experiences.

I do not disagree with something in this pattern so far as the “risks” I have taken so far have always turned out bettering me as a person or helped me achieve something greater. Things like taking on new roles within Enactus when I was unsure about how much time it would take on top of my already busy schedule to how to actually do things were part of my worries. In the end, it turned out alright because I was able to work things around my schedule and people who knew what the role(s) consisted of were there for me as a resource or form of support.

Overall, I am pretty content with the things I have jumped into because like Enrique from the Jumping in With Both Feet story, I eventually felt “like a fish in water.” I liked being able to read about someone’s success story of an instance where they went after something and thought “hey, the worst thing that could happen is I don’t like it and I fly back.”

From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expose Your Ignorance|| Sam’s Ships S.S.2

Sams Ships (1)For this next installment of the Apprenticeship Series, I wanted to discuss Expose Your Ignorance. This apprenticeship pattern involves being more direct with people to have the faster route on the road to journeyman instead of protecting one’s pride to find other ways to obtain the knowledge they are seeking. When someone exposes their ignorance, they will be able to learn more quickly instead of trying to appear like they are capable.

Based on what I have learned of this pattern so far, my reaction is that it was useful seeing examples of how this happens in real life for people. To me, this was something I thought of before without putting it into a framework of sorts. I found that this was interesting because of the way they explained it saying, “One of the most important traits that a craftsman can possess is the ability to learn, identifying an area of ignorance and working to reduce it.” It shows how ignorance does not necessarily mean they are at fault of something, it just means they are willing to work to move past it.

Taking this as a lesson to think about, the way I work will be pretty much the same. I once almost made a task over-complicated because I wanted to find my own way to work on it instead of just asking another developer for their opinion on whether I was doing something correctly. After deciding to ask for help thought, we figured out that there was a much more simple way of going about it instead of changing a whole system of developing a certain feature. Due to this, I have gained more confidence to ask people when I am uncertain about something because in the end it would save a lot more time and avoid confusion.

I did not disagree with anything brought up in the pattern so far because I believe people should be able to communicate when they are not confident about something or at least ask for clarification. After some thinking, I realized I’ve never expected anyone to know everything so why should I feel like other people should expect the same from me?

From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The White Belt || Sam’s Ships S.S.1

Sams Ships.png

So you either want to or have already been an apprentice for software development huh? I just read the section on the apprenticeship pattern for The White Belt and it was a nice beginning to approach what we are doing. It reminds me of a quote: “In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or back into safety.” This is us stepping out of our comfort zone as we approach real-life situations and try to help them by starting our journey into development.

A summary of the pattern would be after some time of developing skills, someone may feel that their growth has plateau-d, however there still remains confidence in their abilities to do something. I found that this was interesting because as someone approaching a career where I will be a life-long learner of technology and ways to develop it, I never considered getting stuck or feeling like I was not getting somewhere.

Based on what I have learned about the pattern, I think it will change the way I work based on their advice to set things we have previously learned aside in order to “unlearn what we have learned.” I like the idea of approaching something that is new to be able to fully appreciate it.

I could relate to the situation they describe about sacrificing productivity in order to improve our skills. From on-boarding as a junior developer, it was a different experience trying to do self-learning while getting assigned tasks to work on at the same time. It was interesting trying to find a good divide between learning something while trying to develop things compared to using internet references.

I agree with how they mentioned not basing everything you learn in other languages based on comparing it to a base language that you know. This made me realize how I have been doing this for a while; I sometimes forget that not everyone knows Java or a language that would seem “universal.” It would help take away the stress of thinking in a certain language’s syntax or process; allowing people to just code something that would work more efficiently and effectively.

Overall, I would say that this pattern is nice to hear about in the beginning so people can approach it in a way that allows them to learn things with a fresh start to programming. I also just liked how they called it The White Belt so people can level up.

From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sam’s Ships || Apprenticeship Patterns CH1 & CH 2-6 Intro

csseries281829Welcome aboard! Today we are going to discuss Apprenticeship Patterns based on the book by Adewale Oshineye and Dave Hoover.

What it means to be a software craftsman is to be on a continuous journey to absorb new things and implement them, then taking the time to reflect. To me, being a software craftsman seems like a journey to do better, seek more, and learn from experiences while remembering where you came from.

The three stages of becoming a software craftsman are the apprentice, the journeyman, and the master. Based on those, I thought it was reassuring to read about what changes in each modern-day phase, like a guide or what to expect or what may happen in the technology world with software development. It seems useful because instead of having a core timeline of expectations, it was more based on how people personally developed or tried to grow and learn more.

I found two sentences on the apprenticeship phase thought-provoking, “Th[e] transition [out of apprenticeship] may take longer for some people than for others. For some, the transition may take longer than their professional careers.” It made me think about whether people were settling or just not able to have the right resources to continue growing. Or maybe they had just switched into technology on the further end of their career spectrum.

The reading also made me think about the cycle of knowledge; an apprentice learns from a master, becomes a journeyman, and then hopefully becomes a master as well who ends up teaching skills to newfound apprentices. There was a time before our jobs and there will be a time after our jobs.

The chapter introductions which seem most relevant to me are two and three. From chapter two, I liked how we are encouraged to get really good at a language but not rely on it so that we can continue branching out and learning more. It made me more grateful for sites available today that just serve as online courses to teach and guide you to learning new languages from the beginning.

From chapter three, it feels very relevant to read about “valu[ing] learning and long-term growth opportunities over salary and traditional notions of leadership.” As I will be graduating in only a few months from now, I will have to make an important decision on my first official career. This was an interesting perspective after all the current trends of always hustling and being on the grind and people moving to bustling technology cities.  I will most likely be writing about some points brought up in future blog posts as well.

Overall, this book seems pretty reassuring in terms of helping a reader slow down for a little bit and think about what path they are on and which ones they are willing to cross as well. It helped me reflect on what I have learned so far and what I may want to focus on in the future.

 

From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.