Mindsets to become a successful programmer:
- Agency: Taking initiative and ownership over your learning and work
- Empathy: Understanding and sharing others' emotions in order to relate to them
- Engagement: Active participation in community
- Grit: A combination of perseverance and passion
- Growth: A belief that your abilities can be developed through dedication, hard work, and resiliency
3 Qualities that Resonate: As a a new student to software development, the first quality that resonated with me was to "Understand that 'Code is cheap'". I believe this in an incredibly important quality for me to remember as I begin Turing because there will be plenty of times that I will work hours on a project and that my code may be completely scrapped during review, but the learning process of writing it first and then later finding a better way is what will help me become an unstoppable programmer. The second quality that I would like to carry with me was "Don't count the number of hours". I resonated with the differentiation between deep work and shallow work, and think it will be of high value for me to take that into consideration as I go through this intensive program. Wasting time on shallow work will only add to exhaustion, so I will be sure to remind myself of this throughout the program. The third quality was to "Be capable of writing bad code". After the Success at Turing workshop I noticed how many of us are perfectionists, and I can see how it would be easy to over-engineer complex solutions to a simple problem. To me "responsible laziness" means to know when to keep things simple in order to be an efficient programmer.
Benefits of a Checklist: First and foremost, I believe the checklists are important because they keep you humble in a way. Utilizing a checklist is an excellent reminder that despite the skills you have under your belt, human error is always a factor. Having that checklist at your side will only make you a better programmer. As a student, I know that a checklist will help me because I will simply have so much going on in my life that I will need that structured reminder. A checklist will keep my priorities straight and allow me to stay engaged in "deep work" rather than being distracted by less important tasks, improving overall efficiency and quality of code. Checklists will help me into my career for the same reasons as they will for me as a student, as well as the importance of checklists for collaboration and teamwork. By using checklists on my dev team I can ensure that every feels that their voice is heard and that they are in a respected environment where they can speak up if they see a problem or have a new idea. I am already a huge fan of checklists and use them daily, so I look forward to continuing their use in a team environment at Turing.
Reflection After these readings my impression of strengths-based development leads me to desire a workplace that utilizes this approach. The ABCD of strength-based leadership empowers both the leaders and the team itself, and allows everyone to tap into their full potential within their roles in the company rather then forcing them into ones that simply don't fit their best selves. I feel my strengths are collaboration, delegating tasks, and an eye for detail. These are the strengths that I was often praised for throughout college and my teaching career, as well as areas that I would feel excited about if put in charge of in the work place. I hope to continue to develop these skills as the teams that I work in will have a completely different dynamic than in the teaching world, and it will inevitably require some re-learning in order to acclimate to those changes.