My learning plan describes how I will operate within the Dev Academy Foundations and Bootcamp Programme context. It will be negotiated with peers and Facilitators as a Kaupapa for my individual learning. I'll use the last sprint's exploration of values, identity and strengths to describe the motivations and values I am bringing into my learning experience.
What is your long term goal and/or career pathway?
The specifics of my long-term goals are still 'under construction'. But the parts I enjoyed the most during foundations were the challenges. So I think I would love to work creating fun and helpful products as a FullStack Developer.
What do you think your biggest strengths and limitations will be in Bootcamp?
My biggest strengths are that I love learning, I love challenges and I care for others even if I don't know them. I believe this will help me to complete the assignments, make the most of my time at Dev Academy, and also help me while working in a group.
My limitations will still be the perfectionism (I'm working on it), time management and introversion. But as I'm aware of those limitations, I'll do my best to stay on top of them.
What do you think your biggest non-technical challenge at Bootcamp will be?
I know we have to do presentations in Bootcamp, so I'd say this will certainly be a challenge for me, as I'm not good at public speaking.
What non-technical skills - human skills - would you like to see developed in yourself while at Dev Academy?
I'd like to strengthen my leadership and public talking skills (mostly, how to manage the anxiety of speaking to a large group), as they are important for my personal development as a programmer.
What are your expectations from the Bootcamp team?
What I expect from the Bootcamp team is good communication, respect and reasonable availability when I need their help.
What are your expectations of yourself on Bootcamp
What I expect of myself during Bootcamp is focus on each task, perseverance and that I remember to be kind to myself when things get harder.
So Bootcamp has started and on week 3 we worked on our wellbeing / oranga plan, that we should refer to, and follow from now on. We also discussed it with one of our colleagues (accountability buddy).
Here is a picture of the plan created in class:
1. What is your long term goal or career pathway?
My long term career pathway is to become a Full Stack Web Developer and find a way to merge it with the knowledge and experience I gathered as a Nurse. I think I'd like to work in a creative environment while also applying some of the Nursing background I have. But maybe I’ll never use what I learned as a Nurse in the Web Dev career and I’ll find other ways of helping people. And I’ll still enjoy it, specially if I can take care of my wellbeing in the process. The truth is that I don’t know yet where I want this path to lead me, I just know that I’m enjoying the journey so far.
2. A description of your strengths and limitations when it comes to learning
Strengths: Love of Learning, logical and mathematically inclined thinking,
and kindness. I’ve always love learning about everything and anything.
I’ve also always enjoyed a good puzzle, charade, or a challenge to solve.
Learning about the human body, it’s systems and they work, how diseases
and all sort of injuries affect them and how to care and restore it to
functionality again, is like a giant and challenging puzzle. That’s one of
the things that brought me to the Nursing field, after living with so many
relatives in the area. I also love helping people, make sure they are well
cared for and promote their wellbeing.
Limitations: attach to details, perfectionism leading to time-management
issues, and introversion. Those characteristics could affect the way I
interact with other in my group, compromise my time management and set my
expectations to a high level that I’m not ready to deliver yet.
3. What skills (non-technical core/human skills) would you like to see developed in yourself while at Dev Academy?
I think it would be good to develop more confidence in my ability to work in the tech industry since I have no previous experience in this area and I’m learning most of the concepts for the first time in my life. Also improve my public communication skill (would be nice to explain something in front of a group without causing an earthquake).
4. How will you manage your workload in this programme?
I have planned my schedule to allow me to study, at least, 40 hour per week as advised in the Prep Curriculum. I still having some flexibility to when I start and when I stop, but trying my best to keep within commercial hours. It helps both me and my family to know when I’m busy with study and when I’m free for family time. I’ve been using the pomodoro technique to help me manage how much time I spend in each task. And I’m aiming to finish each Sprint till Friday night, so if I have any delays or issues I still have time to finish it before the deadline on Sunday. If things start building up and I feel I’m struggling to manage them I’ll as for help of my peers and facilitators as soon as possible.
5. How and where will you seek help in a timely way?
So far, all the team of facilitators have been very helpful with every question asked or issue raised. There is also some peers in the student group that have more extensive knowledge and experience with some of the content and are ready to help too. I’ll keep using the Discord channels to ask for help when I can’t find the solution to my issue by simply Googling it.
6. A description of what you expect from the Facilitation team
I expect the facilitation team to keep answering the questions made, in a timely manner, as they have been doing till now. Also it is good when they share their experiences and tricks to help us in the content of that week.
7. Any scheduling information such as block-out times when you are committed to other things. For example, you might have whānau commitments like school drop-offs. It's important to plan these in.
I have a meeting with my son’s new teacher in the 31st of January from 4 - 5pm. But I’ll be working my study schedule around that. I’ll also be dropping-off my children at school for their first day back on the 1st of February. Apart from that I’ll be free for all the duration of Bootcamp. I have my mom staying with us to help with the children during the time I’ll be studying. My husband is also ready to change his working schedule in the advent of any emergency with the kids, to allow me to focus in the course during this 16 weeks.