Three things I have learned about myself and my ego during the core learning:
Listen, I know I’m supposed to come up with three things here, but I’m struggling. When does anyone ever learn three new things about themselves? Maybe you learn three things over a lifetime, if you’re lucky. Let me say instead: It is good fun to feel stupid, and infinitely relaxing to surrender to the waves of math panic. It has been so long since I actually learned anything new, it feels good to be stressed, even though every night huge chunks of my brain are floating away like wet cake.
Values, empathy and self awareness are important in programming, just as they are important in life. If you don’t have any, nobody will ever want to work with you. Like Shania Twain said;
“Okay, so you’re a rocket scientist. That don’t impress me much. So you’ve…” etc
The most challenging part of the core exercises is trying to be truthful enough so that you don’t sound like a motivational speaker being held at gunpoint, but also striking a balance between what you’re willing to share to a classroom of strangers.
I do appreciate there is a focus on interpersonal skills and self-reflection, and I agree they’re important skills to prepare people for, but I also think that our culture’s current obsession with extreme introspection & infinite self-exploration isn’t always as an uncomplicatedly helpful or useful. Although the benefits of meditation are pretty hard to argue with.
I imagine Dev Academy spends so much time on core because coding is highly collaborative, and anyone who wants a career in the industry better be good at working in a team and managing their own emotions, during stressful times.
I wouldn’t say the core stuff is a waste of time. To be honest, I spent so much time on the javascript, I just tried to fulfil the base core requirements each week. It’s not that I don’t think core is important, but for me, the best ‘core’ learning has been during the Javascript portions, with my homegroup all working to help each other out, rather than the written reflections. This to me, is the real ‘core’ stuff, and I feel #blessed and ~~grateful~~ to have been put in a really supportive homegroup.