Reflections on Foundations

What are three new things you have learnt about yourself and your ego due to the core learning?

• When looping back to someone, I need to use language that centers the other person. I notice that when I loop back, I use examples which relate back to me, and then the conversation is about me and not them.
• Discovering other weaknesses that I did not recognise before and actively working on them.
• That I need to set more achievable daily goals for myself and not to let not meeting my daily goals affect my mindset.

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

Learning how to program is hard! But having an understanding of your values, empathy for others and self-awareness about yourself provides padding and security for your programming journey. It means knowing when to take a break so you don’t get frustrated and having patience for others if they don’t understand something straight away. Having these tools in your toolkit means that you can ground yourself, optimise the best way to learn and to foster new connections.

What has surprised you the most about the core learning?

I interrupt people a lot when talking and I dislike speaking in monologues. I think it’s just my excitement for other people and wanting to share it straight away and needing feedback when conversing with someone. The listening and looping exercise really highlighted this about me, and I have been conscious of it since. I realised that this is because this is how my family talks to each other.

What were the most challenging aspects of the core learning?

Trying to find the words to describe who I was and what my values are. I know my values are really important to me, but it was so hard to just boil it down to a couple of words.

Why do you think we spend so much time focusing on core learning in a web development Bootcamp course?

From my understanding of how programming works, it’s a lot of sharing ideas, working with others and being in teams. Github is a good example of this. Therefore, Dev Academy puts a lot of emphasis on core learning because it gives you the tools to understand others, be a great team player and to also better your relationship with yourself. All these things mean that you are not only a programmer, but someone pleasant to work with!

Does the time you spent studying core learning here feel like a waste of time?

No, I think the time spent learning core has reminded me of my potential. Learning different aspects of core, I have come to understand myself better, and therefore have an even better relationship with myself. Learning more about EQ and its importance is a great reminder that emotional intelligence is valued and something that is needed within the workforce. My favourite core session was about growth mindset and neuroplasticity as it felt like I could apply it straight away and it reminded me that I don’t have to be naturally talented! All the aspects of core were important because it meant that we were challenging ourselves not just with programming, but we were also being challenged in the way we think and viewed ourselves.