Week 7 at LEARN Academy
This is part 8 in a series about my experience at LEARN Academy coding bootcamp in San Diego, CA. You can read why I decided to go to bootcamp here, and also catch up with my thoughts on Week One, Week Two, Week Three , Week Four, Week Five, and Week Six.
Week 7 – Professional Development Week.
I thought my brain was going to explode after the six-week sprint to full-stack, so it was a much needed pivot for week seven. Our learning turned inward as we were forced to discover the things about ourselves that make us unique.
We had workshops on resumes, interviews, portfolio development, networking and just about everything you can think of that is needed for the job search. And we had plenty of time to get a jump-start on creating and updating those things.
It was perfect timing to have professional development during week 7 and whoever decided that is a genius. I needed time to decompress and process all of my new learning, and getting a start on the resume and portfolio now is essential, because it takes a lot of time to get everything where you want it to be. (Who am I kidding, it is always a work in process!)
Another task we have all been assigned it to give a 10 minute tech talk. I was able to start that process, but I have a long way to go. It’s going to be a challenge because I’m not a big fan of public speaking. But who is, really?
I love that LEARN is not only pushing us to learn to code, but is teaching us how to contribute and be a part of the tech community. I enjoy attending meetups, and I am starting to recognize faces as I attend them. I enjoy the talks that others give, so it will be interesting to see what it’s like on the other side of things. I’m scheduled to give me talk in week 12, so you can look forward to reading about that in the weeks to come.
At the end of the week I was able to volunteer as teaching assistant for the LEARN Jumpstart Weekend class. I had a great time. It was awesome to meet new people that have the desire to learn web development and are just getting started. I met some really amazing people over the weekend. I very much enjoyed sharing my knowledge. The only instructions I received were to not give the answers, but rather to help the students think about what they needed to do and guide them on how to use what they learned.
It was a wonderful experience and I’m pretty sure I want to continue on the teaching path. I definitely will be volunteering for more teaching experiences. I know how great if feels when I have an “A-ha” moment, and to help guide others to that same sense of satisfaction was extremely rewarding. I really loved it!
No notes on my lunches this week as they were all repeats.
Up next – Scaffolding and jQuery calendar widget.