Reflecting on foundations

Myself and my ego: Three new things

My learning journey so far has had me delving into some parts of myself I haven't needed to look at for a while, which has been an interesting experience.

In this process I found out a few things about myself:

• My ego is not as delicate as it used to be.

  I've grown a lot over the past few years and I've learnt a lot about putting my ego aside, accepting criticism and learning from others.

• But I accept too much criticism from myself sometimes.

  I'm less of a perfectionist then I was in the past but sometimes those critical old habits can sneak back.

• I have a tendency to overthink.

  It's good to think things through, but I need to check in with myself and see if what I am thinking about is truely worth the attention.

The role of values, empathy, and self-awareness

Being able to work well with others and collaborate effectively has a huge impact on our daily lives as well as our careers. In programming it would be very rare to work on a project completely independently. When interacting with people in any circumstance it is important to be self-aware about how we are expressing ourselves and what we may be projecting into the space. And it is equally important to show empathy for the people around us and seek to understand their points of view or circumstances. When we apply this to programming this is important in terms of both what we create and how we create it - thinking about both the rest of the team who will need to interact with our code, as well as the accessbility to the end users.

What has surprised you the most about the core learning?

What surprised me most was how familiar a lot of the ideas and concepts were but how much they challenged me any way. Some tasks were more confronting than I expected.

What were the most challenging aspects of the core learning?

I found writing the blog difficult- I always thought I was pretty ok at writing but especially when writing the core blogs I second-guessed how much of myself I should put out there and overanalysed how my chosen language would make me come across to others.

Focus on core learning

I think there is a lot more value being placed on human skills and how well people can work with others compared to in the past. Having a better understanding of others and acting with empathy makes working together more pleasant, and improves your employability.

Does core learning feel like a waste of time?

Not at all. I have come into this course with some familiarity with most of the concepts in the core learning, but not everyone learns these things. Even if we all only take away a small part of what we have learnt and apply it in our lives the interpersonal gains that can be had will be rewarding.