Build on your professional story by thinking about how you're progressing at Turing. Answer the questions below in your own gist to use your StrengthsFinder themes to add to your story:
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Write 1-2 paragraphs about your StrengthsFinder themes: How have you seen yourself using these strengths at Turing? Has your understanding of these strengths changed since you first reflected on them? If so, how?
My initial reaction to my strengths report was surprise. I didn't really buy-in to what the report stated. But after a couple days of reflection, I have come to agree with all of the listed qualities. It turns out that my only challenge was a misunderstanding of the strengths.
I am an analytical learner. I enjoy learning things for the sake of learning. I need to be stimulated in my work and I will seek tasks and projects that fulfill this need, sometimes to the point that my performance suffers in other areas important to my position.
I am a logical person motivated primarily by my own curiosity. I like to get to the bottom of things and seek out factual evidence, often examining things from new, previously obscured perspectives.
I have leaned on my natural curiosity and eagerness to learn in order to stay motivated during some of the lows I’ve run into at Turing. Some days, I want to give my brain a break and watch mindless TV and movies. But so far, there has always been a challenge in front of me to keep me looking forward. Sometimes it is a concept that I don’t understand or a coding feature that I can’t quite get to work. I’m almost unable to give my mind a rest because I need to understand and solve problems to be content.
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Write a story about your Turing experience so far: When have you struggled? How have you dealt with struggle? When have you succeeded at Turing? How did you accomplish those successes?
When I started Turing, I had some experience in HTML and CSS as a hobbyist. But I had always been frightened by Javascript and consequently never gained any experience. As a result of my experience with HTML and CSS, I was pretty comfortable in the first two weeks (though CSS is still unpredictable to this day). When Javascript was introduced, things became much more challenging. With every project, we were introduced to new challenges that would not be taught until the following week. After struggling each weekend, Monday became "I-wish-I-had-known-that-yesterday day." Though these struggles caused a great amount of stress, they resulted in the understanding that there are numerous ways to solve a particular problem and they gave me a few extra tools in my developer toolbox.
My greatest successes have come in sharing my learning with others. There was one partner in particular who struggled with Javascript and jQuery. I was initially frustrated with the pace of our progress. But in the end, I was able to guide my partner through the concepts that we needed to understand to be successful. Although our final product was not as polished as others I had worked on, this was one of the more rewarding projects because I was able to see the growth in my partner. Teaching and coaching have always been great passions of mine and I was grateful for the opportunity to practice them in our projects.
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Answer the question: how does your Turing story end? Create a vision for your future and your career transition into being a junior developer.
As I transition from pupil to job-seeker, I will continue to network with entrepreneurs and small/start-up businesses in technology. I will research for organizations that share my values and attend conferences and meet-ups with a heavy presence of this particular demographic. While my primary goal will be to seek out and accept a position with a company that values quality of life, I will also be seeking mentors with different perspectives to guide me through my transition from job-seeker to junior developer, and as I advance through my new career.
When I accept a position that meets my needs as an employee, I will get in on the ground-floor and be part of the history of the organization. I will have mentorship from within the organization that will allow me to grow as a developer and the rapid growth of the organization will continue to keep me challenged. In this position, I will use the skills I learn in both FE and BE Turing programs to become a big fish in a small pond. I will become well-respected in my organization as the subject-matter expert for all things software.
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After you practice storytelling in the session, answer this question: What was particularly easy or difficult about telling your story? What are 1-2 steps that you can take to continue to improve your abilities to tell your story, talk about yourself with ease, and examine your strengths?
The only thing that was particularly difficult in telling my story during the session was that prior to that moment, I had not given much thought to the specifics of my vision. After 20 years of service, I do not want to continue in human resources and I really enjoy programming. I just wanted a job as a Junior Developer where I could find my place in the field.
Once I was able to think it through to the next level of detail, the story-telling was not nearly as difficult. To become truly comfortable sharing my vision, I need to continue to dig into the details and become the subject-matter expert of my vision. What methods of networking are going to be most effective for me? Where do I find the people I want to network with? How can I be certain that I would enjoy working for a particular company or type of company?
Once I truly understand in fine detail the steps I need take to fulfill my vision, it is merely a matter of practicing my story-telling. I will practice when meeting new people or when friends and family ask me about school. When I can, I will "rubber-ducky" my vision to explore new ways of telling my story.