Mod 2 Week 2: Professional Storytelling & Branding

Mod 2 Week 2 Career Journal

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?

  I spent more time this week helping out and talking to folk in my cohort. It help eased some of the "fear" of starting a new mod, that I hadn't already gone through. 
  This being said, I do feel that I need to continue on orginization, as there were times this last week, in which I felt lazy/unmotivated. If I would have had a schedule, I would have been able to stick to it a bit better, and been able to put more effort into these "unmotivated" times.

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.

  Before getting into programming, I was a wildland firefighter. This job gave me an altruistic joy, in that, I was able to help people. However, I knew firefighting was a process of defense. There were only so many fires I could fight. There was only so much effort I could put in. I realized in order to aid others more, I would have to think on a grander scale. Instead of defending, I needed to build. Instead of protecting, I needed to create. I looked to programming as an outlet for this. This was a career that I could build greatness that would last. It would grow. It would expand the horizon of humanity. And this is a company that I feel is doing just that.

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.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-holladay/

What other steps will you take this week to update your branding or practice your story?

I will look through more companies I would like to work for and see how my own personal statement addresses these values.

Thanks for getting your Week 2 prompts completed, @holladayian. I appreciate your thoughts around building instead of defending when it comes to making the switch to programming. Beyond what you described - why programming and not another occupation that builds things? Were there instances before firefighting (or during firefighting) that you found yourself building/problem-solving? While I like the contrast between the two occupations - and I would still keep that - I think it would be great to really pull on the transferable skills that you bring from firefighting that translate to being a great programmer.

Make sure to update your LinkedIn with the following: updated photo/headshot, a summary statement using your story, and add Turing to your experience section.