What are three new things you have learnt about yourself and your ego due to the core learning?
I would say that reflection has helped me to know myself better, improved my ability to talk about what distinguishes me as an individual, and identified positive learning techniques to continue to use in my life. In terms of ego, my view of myself has improved.
What are the role of values, empathy, and self-awareness in learning and programming?
Being kind to ourselves and others as we realise that programming can be difficult and stressful. Understanding that learning new skills is possible through deliberate practice, trying things, and seeking help from others if needed.
What has surprised you the most about the core learning?
I have found the core learning made education a much more positive experience. It was surprising to me to consider how little emphasis was given throughout my prior educational history to “learning about learn”. Understanding the educational process better is beneficial to avoiding learning being a dreaded task of memorisation and examination.
What were the most challenging aspects of the core learning?
Sharing somewhat personal thoughts and feelings with others through the blog posts. As this puts me out there to be judged on those same thoughts and feelings. I think my hesitation around this is an expectation that if I am putting something out there, then it is implied there is an open invite for people to judge what I produce. Which is magnified when the audience is anybody with an internet connection willing to access my GitHub Pages website.
Why do you think we, a programming school, are spending so much time focusing on core learning in a web development Bootcamp course?
To set graduates up for a lifetime of growth. In the relatively short time a bootcamp runs you cannot cover everything, so a viable alternative is to teach the fundamentals and cultivate the mental outlook to enable self-development into a junior developer and beyond.
Does the time you spent studying core learning here feel like a waste of time? Should you have just used that time to practise programming instead? Justify your answer.
It does not feel like a waste of time. Core does not take up a disproportionate amount of time, maybe 20% of the course. The other 80% of the course is tech. Yet that other 80% benefits from the time spent developing core skills.