If you will not be able to complete your journal this week, please provide an update for the Career Dev team on when you’ll have it completed here (remember to reflect on what you have control over, what you want to try differently this week, and what habits you can utilize to get back on track):
In week 4, you’ll have a job experience activity with employers. The next two prompts are designed to help you both prepare and reflect on that experience:
Prepare for Job Experience: AEIOU
Activities: what questions do you have about the activities that a software developer does on a daily basis?
- What is your average schedule look like?
- How often do you work in groups/individually?
- Do you have the opportunity to work on side projects?
- is your day goal oriented or time oriented?
Environment: what questions do you have about the overall environment and culture of this workplace?
- Is it cooperative or more competitive?
- Are you encouraged or given busy work?
- Is it a friendly environment inside and outside of the company?
Interactions: what questions do you have about the team at this company? What do you hope to learn during this experience?
- What does your team do for the company?
- Do your roles/jobs vary depending on the project?
- How many people are generally on your team?
Objects: what questions do you have about the code or the product?
- What is it that your company even does?
- Do you usually work on a new project/product or update existing models?
Users: what questions do you have about how the company interacts with their users?
- Who are your users and who are your clients?
- Are your clients your users or do you make software that the client can then dish out to the user?
After the Job Experience, reflect on the same questions; what are your takeaways from the activity?
- I really learned a lot about how different companys operate and what the average developer does at these companies .
Activities: what was engaging to the person/people you met with?
- They were engaged by the company culture and being allowed to move up and grow in the company.
Environment: what did you notice about how they talked about the culture and environment of this company?
- The culture at these companies seems stimulate growth and they are working on ways to make the culture even more inclusive through comapny outings, hiring processes, etc.
- It seemed as though these three companies want to help build people's skillset because it can help the individual and it also helps the company.
Interactions: what did you notice about your interactions with this person/people?
- I noticed that they were willing to dish out advice and information.
- I also noticed that the people seemed very knowledgeable about their work and the company they work for.
- You can tell these people have been at the companies for years and have an important role in the company.
Objects: what did you learn about their approach to code and/or product development?
- I learned that the problem solving approach is what is more important than complete competency.
- They would rather you have a productive and growth mindset with problem solving.
- For the company we looked at, we saw an example of a current project, and I saw the developer go over his method/strategy of debugging and problem solving.
- You need to really understand the models that the company wants to use in order to break down the code.
Users: what did you learn about their approach to their users?
- I learned that companies always have the user in mind.
- The company needs to learn about the user and their needs before they can integrate an application/program.
What are your main takeaways from the shadow? How will you use this information to help you with your job search strategy?
- My main take aways are self-sufficiency, teamwork, and problem solving. Those need to be integral in my approach to software development in order for me to be successful.
- I also can't be afraid to ask questions. The more questions I ask, the more it demonstrates my willingness to learn and be involved and really that's what these companies are looking for.
- They don't want someone who thinks/says that they can do it all already.
Ideas below 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?
- This past week I was mostly focused on my group project and workig on IronFE/JSFun. I didn't really have time for much anything else.
- I was still able to get a few workout sessions in in the mornings and that helped with my energy.
- I didn't have time to do extracurricular reading but I honestly dont mind that because I need to continue to prioritize what's important.
- Since it was a group project, it was harder to set defined work and break times so I would like to get back into that.
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?
- I consider working out satisfying in itself, but as a reward, to keep me interested, I can give myself some rest time after.
- If I workout and immediately after start working on coding, I find my brain to be all over the place and it is hard to concentrate. I think that break will be rewarding in that way and also the fact that I can have some relaxtion time to reset before getting back at it.
- Not having back/shoulder pain from sitting all day is what I think will continue to motivate me to continue the habit.
“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?
- I would like to work on IronFE/JSfun/CodeWars type problems everyday.
- To do track this, I think it would be a fun side project between mods to make a habit tracker
- but in the meantime, I can keep track of this by moving my light from one side of my desk to the other. If the light is on one side, then I know I did some coding that day. If it is on the other side, I know I will need to do coding for that day.
- This is a day to day tracker, but to track progress over time, I will need to update my calender with a certain color indicating my goal being met for that day.
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?
- Thankfully if I establish a habit and take a few days off, my body/mind feels kinda lost and I become motivated to get back into the habit.
- Another way I can get myself back into my good habits is by writing down/remembering the reasons WHY i established that habit in the first place. Like a motivation jumpstart
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?
- my accountabilibuddy and I already do this each wednesday and set aside time to work on things together if we have fallen out of our habits.
- So far it seems to be working, but with the projects and assessments coming up, we will need to be more mindful about our time.