- note- use cmd+f and search 'mod [mod number]' to jump to mod section
- Reflect on your habits from last module. What behaviors and activities were helpful for you? What activities and behaviors could be more effective for you? What processes would you like to try differently this module to become more effective at your work and as a software developer?
Pre-studying was very helpful and overall just being prepared and ready to go when classes start. Helping other classmates on problems also helped solidify concepts for me. I would like to get better sleep though as it was hard to concentrate without it
- Setting intentions for this module: who do I want to be this module? What specific habits would help me get there? How are those habits tied to the identity of a software developer?
I think sleep is a really important part of being able to function properly. Essentially, I would probably benefit more if I was less of a night owl and more an early bird
- Incorporate temptation bundling to create a new habit by using this template:
- After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED TO DO].
- After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT TO DO].
- How to enjoy “hard” habits: Reframe your habits to consider their benefits rather than their drawbacks; name 3 habits that you have to do and explain the benefits of them. How do they further your goals longterm? How will they add to your processes as a successful developer? At the end of the day, how do they add to your life?
- Sleeping
- Collaborating
- Thoroughly going over documentation of new concepts
sleep prepares your mind, collaboration practices you concenptual learning, and documentation increases your understanding
- Environment design (optional 5-min. additional reading: Motivation is Overvalued. Environment Often Matters More): how does your environment set-up currently help you with your habits? How could it be improved to make it easier for you to follow through on your habits?
I have a standup desk and everything is fairly close by and functional. The only issue is that my monitor sometimes cuts out on me which creates coding sometime frustrating.
- “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” Read this 4-min article on how to stop procrastinating. Apply the 2-minute rule to reframe 2-3 of your habits by scaling them down into the 2-minute version. How does this reframing help you think about shaping your new identity as a software developer?
I think it's like the process of chunking where you take a big problem and break it into smaller amounts. The goal is to make it smaller and thus more manageable which is mentally, very important and less taxing.
- Assess your habits from week 1: how did you spend your time this past week? What was effective in your habits? What could be more effective? What steps will you take to make that happen?
Sleep was difficult which made focusing in class harder, but pre-studying helped to balance that out. Trying to find a better balance would be better so maybe setting a hard schedule for certain tasks would be helpful
- Write a draft of your professional story here as 1-2 paragraphs. Focus on answering the questions who are you, why are you here, and what's next? Consider how to talk about your motives and values, the turning points that led to your career change, and what you envision for yourself going forward.
I graduated college as an IA major, and this opened the door for me to teach English abroad While I was abroad, I was able to meet a variety of different people and talk to them about their experiences. Teaching itself was something that taught me how to be adaptive and more observant in my day to day life. Through out my time, I was also trying to figure out what would be a good longterm goal for myself.
As I grow as a coder, I realize this is something that I appreciate in a job; collaboration, growth, and problem solving. I’m doing this because the end result fits my needs but I’m also continuing to do it because it is something that I have grown an appreciation for.
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Update your LinkedIn profile with the following: updated photo/headshot, headline, summary statement using your story, and Turing added to your experience and education sections. Include a link to your profile here in the journal. Remember the guidelines and tips from the lesson here.
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What other steps will you take this week to update your branding or practice your story?
sleep
Assess your habits from week 2: how did you spend your time this past week? What was effective in your habits? What could be more effective? What steps will you take to make that happen?
Sleep and pre-studying
Reflect on how you’ve spent your time so far at Turing to gauge your engagement and energy:
- When have you been excited, focused, and enjoyed your work?
- when coding has been challenging but productive
- When have you felt bored, restless, or unhappy?
- when there's a problem that you've been on for hours with zero progress
Setting up habits and routines to make time for the job search this module:
- Block out time on your calendar this week to work on your job search. When will you make this happen? How will you hold yourself accountable to this? What activities will you focus on during this time this week? What outcomes do you hope to reach by the end of this week because of these activities?
I took some time during the weekend to ask a few questions about what their job search experience was like, both by someone who just jumped in a year ago and another that's been in the game much longer
Applying wayfinding to using job search resources
- Go through the resources listed here and explore 2-3 tools. List what you looked at here:
- Indeed
- Craigslist
- Glass Door
- Apply wayfinding: of what you looked at, what did you discover that aligns with your vision? If it didn't align with your vision, what will you try next?
Most listing I found were a bit more vague or otherwise required or preferred languages that didn't necessarily apply to myself such as SQL or C++
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Find a job posting that aligns with your vision. What's the posting? How does it align with what you're looking for? Add it to your Huntr.
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What next steps will you take to explore that opportunity and find contacts? Add that information to your Huntr card.
Ideas here are adapted from Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Assess your habits from week 3: how did you spend your time this past week? What was effective in your habits? What could be more effective? What steps will you take to make that happen?
Talking through concepts with other students and pairing with them to solidify or build on concepts
- Implement a reiforcement strategy: to make one of your habits more satisfying, what is a reward you can give yourself immediately after completing the habit? How will this reward encourage you to continue completing that habit?
If I've been working particularly hard, I'll usually get takeout for dinner as opposed to cooking it myself.
- "Don't Break the Chain": Use a habit tracker
- What is a habit that you want to make sure to do every day? How could you visually cue yourself to complete it (i.e., moving a paper clip)? How can you visually track it each time you've completed it? Could you automate the tracking? How will you do that?
more pre-studying concepts, even just glancing at it the night before is helpful
- Need help? Check out one of these habit tracking apps
- How to get back on track when missing a habit: if you miss a day or two of completing your habit, how will you get yourself going again?
Set reminders to take time of the day to follow through with it
- Pick an accountability partner (your cohort accountabilibuddy, your mentor, a close friend, etc.) and create a habit contract with them. How often will you check in with each other? How will they hold you accountable?
We check in once a week and talk/vent about the week
Review your habit tracker: how did you monitor your habit(s)? What does this tell you about your overall progress becoming the person you want to be? In general, how satisfied are you with how you spent your time this module? What could be improved next module?
I used a notebook to keep track of things but I could be more stringent with keeping to the schedule.
Mind Maps:
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- Engagement. What did you reflect on before in regards to when you're engaged in your work at Turing? Pull out an idea that resonates with you most (e.g., "Talking through a problem with a partner," "The moment when I solve a problem that I previously didn't know how to do," "Setting up a successful project management process for my team") and break that idea down into parts and make a list (what are all the steps that go into that moment? When do you get to use your strengths? What is fun about this?).
Talking through concepts and being walked through code by another classmate was very helpful in my understanding and I appreciate the collaborative aspect of it.
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- Energy. What did you reflect on before in regards to when you feel most energized in your work at Turing? Pull out an idea that resonates with you most and break that idea down into parts and make a list (what are all the steps that go into that moment? When do you get to use your strengths? What is fun about this?).
Once again, talking with people gave me that energy and understanding to move forward
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- Flow. When have you had an experience recently in which you were in a state of flow? You can also think about this as "joy" or "play." Pull out an idea that resonates with you most and break that idea down into parts and make a list (what are all the steps that go into that moment? When do you get to use your strengths? What is fun about this?).
For the last solo project, I was stuck on a problem all the way to Monday, when the project was due Tuesday. Things began clicking for me at that point and so I was able to turn a failing project into one that progressed me to the next mod.
Prototype your mind maps: what do these mind maps tell you about what's important to you as a software developer? What questions do they bring up about what you still want to learn about this career?
Scheduling and sleep is very important and also that there is a fine balance between researching a topic and practicing a topic.
In your career journal, create a new header that reads "Module 3" and respond to the following prompts there. Please complete these prompts by EOD Saturday at the end of intermission.
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Please list the top 3-5 industries and companies you'll pursue in your job search as of right now.
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NGO for Global Development
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Promotional Websites Production Companies
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Game Programming
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Why did you pick the industries/companies that you listed above? How do they relate to the values and goals you have for yourself in your job search?
Things that relate to Global Development really interests me because of my background in International Affairs which is what I studied in University. The money probably isn't great so maybe this will happen when I can afford to take a pay cut but it is something I'm interested in. In terms of production companies, I have some friends who produce local comedy shows and events and they've asked how I could help in terms of setting up a website. Game programming because I often play videogames and has been a staple in my for ages.
- How does your LinkedIn currently reflect your goals and induz
Currently it does not but man oh man when it does, it's gonna be so good.
The following links lead to the individual gists that were made. Otherwise you can continue scrolling to find them here as well.
week 1
week 2
week 3
week 4
Current Resume Draft(this will likely change because I suspect ATS might not read it properly. Resume compiler found it okay but Indeed and TopResume had trouble reading it)
Medium Faux Rough Draft Cover Letter
By the Pixel Rough Draft Cover Letter
In terms of values, I don't want to be in an industry I have no care for whatsoever or does not resonate with me as a person. Being a developer for a home inspection company or a gym for example gives me no joy. At their core, I would like to think that my values are humanistic in that I want to help people in meaningful ways. Since a lot of my personal experiences are from living abroad, some type of job dealing with education and exposure to different ideas and culture would be interesting. As far as potential industries, I think the following are decent starts
- Education
- Traveling
- Gaming
The first two are directly related to my own experiences traveling. The third is because I find a lot of enjoyment in gaming and have always wanted to step into the industry in some capacity. Furthermore, my values also rely on a balance between, what's fun, and what's educational, and how can we combine those?
- My need to help people, and my remote experiences, learning and implementing new technologies quickly
- Upload your resume to CV Compiler
I updated my resume as I went through the notes. However, when uploading it for the second review, I received largely the same weaknesses. Looking deeper, it says there are things like, broken links or phone numbers that are missing but are actually listed.
Log in with the link you got in your email. Going forward, log in at alumni.turing.io/user
- Currently, the Turing Alumni site does not save any information I put in even in Safari
Reflection questions:
That I'm a well-balanced worker that's excited to learn more about coding, whether that React or whatever.
How will you continue to add to this to portray your story and showcase the kind of work that demonstrates your brand?\
Use my past experiences to relate how I solve problems and then relate that work to what employers are looking for Ian’s workshop this week is designed to help you break down your interest in specific industries even further by exploring their tech stacks to decide if you want to utilize any of their tools in upcoming projects. Make a copy of his template here and post a link to your copy here to show what research you’ve completed. You can also link this research to your Huntr board.
Find a position or use a position you’ve put on your Huntr board and write a cover letter for that position in a Google doc or gist. Reference these cover letter resources as well as the session to complete your cover letter.
- Post the link to your cover letter here Review your cover letter with a peer some time this week. What feedback did your partner give you? What next steps will you take to make your cover letter even stronger?
If you were to apply to this position (and you should!), how will you customize your resume for it? What other next steps would you need to take here?
Medium isn't hiring now but they are pretty explicit in what they are looking for as per this link Medium interview screening
Answer the below questions in a separate gist and link them into your career journal using this template:
Week 3: Link here to the gist
- [x](partially complete)
Back to your resume and cover letter you’ve been working on: What other next steps do you want to take to make these two components stronger?
- Probably more in depth research into the company, see if there's any newsletter they may have or where they more explicitly say what they're looking for Outreach Brainstorming: Either explore the company you wrote a cover letter for or find a new company to explore this week; Go to their company LinkedIn page and start to explore the employees. Who are a couple people you could reach out to? Why?
- There's only about 11 on LinkedIn which tells me it's a small company and their page isn't getting a ton of activity. Currently, a person by the name of Roeland Reyneir is the CTO so he would be the one to talk to. He speaks Dutch.
Finalize Your Plan: Who have you decided to reach out to? Why that person? How will you contact them? What do you want to talk to them about? How will you follow up?
- I reached out to a few aquaintances I have met over the years to no avail. As for finding meetups and the like, my current schedule with projectst and the like have prevented me from really digging deep and looking out for those besides Denver Startup
Hi Linus, thanks for getting some things updated here. I would still recommend that you create an outreach and networking plan since I don't see one, and can you also please update this with your LinkedIn profile? Thanks!