Hello and welcome back to another week of my blog. This week, I looked through chapter 5 of the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover named Perpetual Learning. One particular apprenticeship pattern I found interesting was “Record What You Learn.” This pattern is about taking notes and keeping track of what you learn in your journey as an apprentice or a learner. The idea is that if you write things down, you can look back on them later and remember what you’ve learned. Plus, by sharing your notes with others, you can improve your communication skills and help others learn too. There can be several ways to record what you have learned throughout your journey, such as constantly updating a journal, personal wiki, or writing a blog, such as me writing these blog posts when I learn about the different apprenticeship patterns. Those listed have only writing involved. Other ways you could record down what you have learned include making a drawing or even making video recordings of yourself. No matter what way you choose to record what you have learned, it is important to keep a date on them. This way, your recorded notes will be organized and sorted in chronological order.

I should start following this apprenticeship pattern especially since I tend to forget things that I have learned such as a stack versus a queue in Java. Sure, I could just look up what the differences are online, but actually writing it down in my own style would help me remember it more easily. In addition, if I forget anything in the future, I could always just refer back to my old notes. When I start incorporating this apprenticeship pattern into my journey, the main way I would like to take notes would be to find something digital and write stuff down in it. I prefer writing stuff down with a stylus, like using an Apple Pencil on an iPad, since I tend to remember things more when writing notes down rather than typing them out. I hope to start using “Record What You Learn” because it will be highly beneficial to my computer science career.

From the blog Comfy Blog by Angus Cheng and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and welcome back to another week of my blog. This week, I looked through chapter 5 of the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover named Perpetual Learning. One particular apprenticeship pattern I found interesting was “Record What You Learn.” This pattern is about taking notes and keeping track of what you learn in your journey as an apprentice or a learner. The idea is that if you write things down, you can look back on them later and remember what you’ve learned. Plus, by sharing your notes with others, you can improve your communication skills and help others learn too. There can be several ways to record what you have learned throughout your journey, such as constantly updating a journal, personal wiki, or writing a blog, such as me writing these blog posts when I learn about the different apprenticeship patterns. Those listed have only writing involved. Other ways you could record down what you have learned include making a drawing or even making video recordings of yourself. No matter what way you choose to record what you have learned, it is important to keep a date on them. This way, your recorded notes will be organized and sorted in chronological order.

I should start following this apprenticeship pattern especially since I tend to forget things that I have learned such as a stack versus a queue in Java. Sure, I could just look up what the differences are online, but actually writing it down in my own style would help me remember it more easily. In addition, if I forget anything in the future, I could always just refer back to my old notes. When I start incorporating this apprenticeship pattern into my journey, the main way I would like to take notes would be to find something digital and write stuff down in it. I prefer writing stuff down with a stylus, like using an Apple Pencil on an iPad, since I tend to remember things more when writing notes down rather than typing them out. I hope to start using “Record What You Learn” because it will be highly beneficial to my computer science career.

From the blog Comfy Blog by Angus Cheng and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and welcome back to another week of my blog. This week, I looked through chapter 5 of the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover named Perpetual Learning. One particular apprenticeship pattern I found interesting was “Record What You Learn.” This pattern is about taking notes and keeping track of what you learn in your journey as an apprentice or a learner. The idea is that if you write things down, you can look back on them later and remember what you’ve learned. Plus, by sharing your notes with others, you can improve your communication skills and help others learn too. There can be several ways to record what you have learned throughout your journey, such as constantly updating a journal, personal wiki, or writing a blog, such as me writing these blog posts when I learn about the different apprenticeship patterns. Those listed have only writing involved. Other ways you could record down what you have learned include making a drawing or even making video recordings of yourself. No matter what way you choose to record what you have learned, it is important to keep a date on them. This way, your recorded notes will be organized and sorted in chronological order.

I should start following this apprenticeship pattern especially since I tend to forget things that I have learned such as a stack versus a queue in Java. Sure, I could just look up what the differences are online, but actually writing it down in my own style would help me remember it more easily. In addition, if I forget anything in the future, I could always just refer back to my old notes. When I start incorporating this apprenticeship pattern into my journey, the main way I would like to take notes would be to find something digital and write stuff down in it. I prefer writing stuff down with a stylus, like using an Apple Pencil on an iPad, since I tend to remember things more when writing notes down rather than typing them out. I hope to start using “Record What You Learn” because it will be highly beneficial to my computer science career.

From the blog Comfy Blog by Angus Cheng and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This week I read the Apprenticeship Pattern Learn How You Fail. The context of this pattern is that failure is inevitable. It happens to everyone eventually. If someone has never failed then they have either avoided pushing boundaries or learned to overlook mistakes. The problem given with this context is that your learning skills have enhanced your successes, but your failures and weaknesses remain.

The solution given for this pattern is to identify the ways in which you tend to fail and try to fix them. This pattern is not about self-pity or trying to make things perfect. It is about gaining self-knowledge about the habits and behaviors that lead you to failure. Once you become aware of the things that trip you up you will have the choice to either fixe these problems or cut your losses. You will need to accept that there are things you’re not good at or that would require a great deal of time and effort invested to fix the problem.

The action plan to help solve this issue is to use your choice of a programming language and a simple text editor to write an implementation of binary search in a single sitting. Then write all the tests you think you will need to confirm the code is correct. Before running the test and compiling the code go back and try to fix the mistakes you have discovered so far. After that run the code and see what errors are still there. Think about what you learned and how the errors could have happened when you thought the code was perfect.

I chose this pattern because as this pattern said, failure is inevitable. I have had failures in my software projects and I will certainly have more failures in the future. I want to be able to fix these failures by correcting my weakness and bad habits. Following the action plan given in this pattern will help me understand where I might have blindspots for errors. I also need to think about my past failures and figure out the common cause that leads to them. I think taking the time to do these will be a great learning experience for me and it will help me in my future career.

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

Hello and thanks for coming back to another week of my blog! This week, I took a look at chapter 4 in the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover, called “Find Mentors.” Having a mentor can help you get guidance, support, and feedback to help you get better in your field. This apprenticeship pattern gives tips on how to find a mentor, like looking for people who are respected in your industry, going to conferences, and asking for feedback from your colleagues. It is also important to be open to feedback and find more than one mentor to get different perspectives. The computer science field is still relatively new, so there are not that many truly skilled mentors that excel in all computer science areas that are available to look up to. The pattern also says that you may encounter mentors that you may not be able to talk to, such as people making informative YouTube videos who live overseas. But those people are still mentors who inspire you. The pattern also emphasizes how hard it actually is to find a mentor. While there are many skilled people in the computer science field, not all of them are open to mentoring. Therefore, you should always ask if they are interested in mentoring people because you never know if they will accept being a mentor.

As an aspiring computer science major myself, I should also be on the lookout for mentors. There are several ways I can find mentors. The book says I should pick a tool, library, or a community that has an active mailing list and sign up for it. Other ways include asking faculty members at university, who are definitely more skilled than me and are always open to answering questions. Reaching out to alumni is a great option as well, since they were in the same boat as me when they started out. They could mentor me themselves or redirect me to someone they know who is skilled enough to answer my questions. Attending computer science events could be another option since it is a great way to network with professionals and ask them for advice. I would also have to keep in mind that as I get more experience, others may look up to me as a mentor and I would have to guide them on their long journey as well.

Thank you for reading.

From the blog Comfy Blog by Angus Cheng and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and thanks for coming back to another week of my blog! This week, I took a look at chapter 4 in the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover, called “Find Mentors.” Having a mentor can help you get guidance, support, and feedback to help you get better in your field. This apprenticeship pattern gives tips on how to find a mentor, like looking for people who are respected in your industry, going to conferences, and asking for feedback from your colleagues. It is also important to be open to feedback and find more than one mentor to get different perspectives. The computer science field is still relatively new, so there are not that many truly skilled mentors that excel in all computer science areas that are available to look up to. The pattern also says that you may encounter mentors that you may not be able to talk to, such as people making informative YouTube videos who live overseas. But those people are still mentors who inspire you. The pattern also emphasizes how hard it actually is to find a mentor. While there are many skilled people in the computer science field, not all of them are open to mentoring. Therefore, you should always ask if they are interested in mentoring people because you never know if they will accept being a mentor.

As an aspiring computer science major myself, I should also be on the lookout for mentors. There are several ways I can find mentors. The book says I should pick a tool, library, or a community that has an active mailing list and sign up for it. Other ways include asking faculty members at university, who are definitely more skilled than me and are always open to answering questions. Reaching out to alumni is a great option as well, since they were in the same boat as me when they started out. They could mentor me themselves or redirect me to someone they know who is skilled enough to answer my questions. Attending computer science events could be another option since it is a great way to network with professionals and ask them for advice. I would also have to keep in mind that as I get more experience, others may look up to me as a mentor and I would have to guide them on their long journey as well.

Thank you for reading.

From the blog Comfy Blog by Angus Cheng and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello and thanks for coming back to another week of my blog! This week, I took a look at chapter 4 in the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover, called “Find Mentors.” Having a mentor can help you get guidance, support, and feedback to help you get better in your field. This apprenticeship pattern gives tips on how to find a mentor, like looking for people who are respected in your industry, going to conferences, and asking for feedback from your colleagues. It is also important to be open to feedback and find more than one mentor to get different perspectives. The computer science field is still relatively new, so there are not that many truly skilled mentors that excel in all computer science areas that are available to look up to. The pattern also says that you may encounter mentors that you may not be able to talk to, such as people making informative YouTube videos who live overseas. But those people are still mentors who inspire you. The pattern also emphasizes how hard it actually is to find a mentor. While there are many skilled people in the computer science field, not all of them are open to mentoring. Therefore, you should always ask if they are interested in mentoring people because you never know if they will accept being a mentor.

As an aspiring computer science major myself, I should also be on the lookout for mentors. There are several ways I can find mentors. The book says I should pick a tool, library, or a community that has an active mailing list and sign up for it. Other ways include asking faculty members at university, who are definitely more skilled than me and are always open to answering questions. Reaching out to alumni is a great option as well, since they were in the same boat as me when they started out. They could mentor me themselves or redirect me to someone they know who is skilled enough to answer my questions. Attending computer science events could be another option since it is a great way to network with professionals and ask them for advice. I would also have to keep in mind that as I get more experience, others may look up to me as a mentor and I would have to guide them on their long journey as well.

Thank you for reading.

From the blog Comfy Blog by Angus Cheng and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.