Reflection - Foundations Core Skills

What are three new things you have learned about yourself and your ego as a result of the core learning?

I've also learnt more about my values as a person. I’ve learnt that I don’t need to feel in control all the time. I’ve learnt that I don't know much at the moment and I'm ok with that. Instead of viewing failing as a negative thing, I see myself as a vessel ready to be filled with knowledge. I’ve found it’s quite freeing to be on a learning path, it allows me to fail over and over again, knowing that this failure is a positive act that is enhancing the construction of my neural pathways. Being able to fail and not know the answer to problems is good for my ego, it gets a chance to relax and be ok with not knowing, while still having good self-esteem and enjoying myself.

What are the role of values, empathy and self awareness in learning and programming?

Values are important in programming as people’s own values, as well as societal values, will hopefully stop people from using their skills to do or contribute to harmful applications. Values, empathy and self-awareness help people conduct themselves in a team and shared environment, such as a work place. With empathy we can understand where clients and teammates are coming from and what has or could be affecting them that day. Self-awareness allows programmers see how they are seen by others and how their actions can affect others. If you are aware of your own emotions you can take charge of them.

What has surprised you the most about the core learning?

Learning about my values and how they have shaped my life surprised me. I hadn’t thought in-depth about them before and it was interesting to see the parallels in-between what I state my values to be and my life choices and journey so far.

What were the most challenging aspects of the core learning?

I found the most challenging aspects of the core learning to be writing about myself for others to read. Thinking about how my culture has impacted me was quite difficult for me as I’ve never celebrated having a culture, so I had to think a lot about who I was and what my culture was.

Why do you think we, a programming school, are spending so much time focusing on core learning in a web development bootcamp course?

People skills are the most important aspect of a work place. If people don’t get along and personalities clash then the culture of the company suffers, which means that employees won’t be happy and productive. If employees and employers have self-awareness and empathy, employees feel more cared for and understood and are therefore more loyal and productive.

Does the time you spent studying core learning here feel like a waste of time? Should you have just used that time to practicing programming instead?

I understand why we have spent time on core and I can imagine that we don’t see the fruit it has borne until we are neck deep in Bootcamp. I think that the core skills that we have learnt are important across all of life, not just study. If we were all a little more empathetic and self-aware, I believe that the world would be a nicer place for people to live in, side-by-side with each other. Learning programming skills, such as JS, is really important too and so far, I believe the balance has been good. There are always kata’s to engage with if we find spare time!