As a musician I have trained in balancing the creative side of my mind with the logical to produce a desired end product. I used my creativity to think about different subjects that would be interesting to write about and with what musical elements they would pair or contrast with in a suitable way. I would take these elements and work them out through improvisation and experimentation seeing where I could push boundaries and where I needed to have structure. Then once I was happy with the theoretical construct of my piece I would begin to set the actual framework making sure that all of the elements I had chosen would function the way I had planned them to.
Hi. My name is Taylor Smith. I am a web designer focusing on small business and start-ups. I am currently looking for clients, are you in need of a developer?
Hi. My name is Taylor Smith. I make table top games that utilize technology to create a user experience that is both fun and engaging. Are you looking for a game designer?
The first picture represents my career path before Deep Dive. I was trying to find my way but even with help from others I never made any real progress. Nothing seemed to work for me and looking back now I still dont understand why previous opportunities failed. Never the less just like that house all of my previous career paths have gone up in flames leaving me with only one viable option. I have to rebuild from the ground up. During this boot-camp I am pouring the foundation, learning the fundamentals and creating good work habits. Afterwards I will build the framework of the house most likely by attaining an internship or some other kind of lower level development position to fine tune my skills will beginning the work on my passion project. Finally when I am comfortable with my abilities I will be self employed as a freelance developer/game designer and my house will be built.
This in-class activity was technically my first play through of Forbidden Island although I own and play the sequel Forbidden Desert regularly and I have previously read the rules of Forbidden Island and was generally aware of the rules. However my team did not win our game. While we did have great communication and were on our way to developing the winning strategy my folly resulted in our loss. I forgot that in this game of Forbidden Island a player can only have five cards in a hand at one time, which I did comply with at first, inevitably ruining our statistical margins. Although I had far greater knowledge going into the game relative to my team I still allowed myself to overlook a basic rule and was responsible for our loss. I think this speaks a lot about my personality and work ability. I strive to understand the whole picture and can often find myself overlooking the most basic of concepts.
I have done some research into average salary for web developers and in conjunction with what I have heard from my peers I expect to be offered an initial salary of 30-40K. I have heard a few stories of people starting around 50K and I believe that the national average is around 100K but I dont believe this is to be expected in New Mexico. I want to have a salary of 40K and I dont think I can accept an offer for less unless the position has other opportunities associated with it. That being said I dont expect to have a problem with the pay of my future web developer career I am more concerned with finding the right job and having a good interview. From a company perspective I will demonstrate a high potential because I am asking for a reasonable starting salary and my experience is rooted in actual job training.
The first week has gone by quickly and it feels good to say the least. As as new coder I had some anxiety about being in the bootcamp environment but I feel confident in the work I've done. It seems that this first week was more or less a review of the prework which was unexpected compared to how the program is generally describe but also made entering into this new field more reassuring. The tech update at Fat Pipe was very interesting to be apart of. I unfortunately did not understand most of the technical talk but I was able to take away from that event that New Mexico has a far greater tech presence than I had previously thought and perhaps with that a greater variety of development jobs.
This week we mostly worked on mySQL which started out straight forward but has quickly developed into a complex topic. I'm not sure I understand fully how everything connects but I think I am starting to get small parts here and there. The UNM App Contest was an interesting end to the week. I have previously heard of the contest before but never had attended the actual presentation however I was able to see most of the demonstrations this year and I was rather impressed with the entries. It was especially inspiring to hear that some of the contestants were from previous Deep Dive cohorts. One of the demonstrations that was most memorable to me brought up an important concept regarding the legality of what we can do as developers and really how important it is to fully consider a project concept before spending time and resources developing something that wont result in a functional end.
I'm not sure how I feel about week three. On one hand I know that I am actually retaining at least the basics of this material, but on the other hand I'm realizing just how much I have left to learn. We started learning css this week and it has lived up to it's reputation. On the surface it seemed so simple "it's just styling" I thought but as with all aspects of coding there is far more involved with css than I thought. Luckily this week's friday Tech and Art lectures offered quite the contrast. I have a history has a musician and although my immediate goals involve using my developer skills to earn a wage my long term plan is to return to my artist roots. It was very impressive to see how forward pressing the digital media program is even if only a few of it students have gotten into AR.
With the fourth week having ended I have officially begun to worry about what I will be able to accomplish before the end of the program. I feel like I am keeping up with the expectations at a base level but I want to be further along than I am or perhaps assumed that I would be by now. This next week we need to start unit testing for capstone projects and that is also worrisome. The assignments have quickly developed from basic fundamental work into fully fledged projects, almost out of no where, and although I am excited for the challenge I also am cautious to proceed. This week has also involved a lot of introspection about my future path toward self employment and entrepreneurship. I want to eventually work for myself however that requires a confidence in one's skill set that I'm not sure I have or will have by the end of week 10. This feeling was not helped by this weeks speakers either. Although it was inspiring to hear everyone's success stories I can't help but compare myself and specifically my drive to that of the speakers and I just hope that I can one day be as fearless.
It's almost hard to believe that boot camp is already half way over, we're five weeks in but it feels like it's been five days. We have just started unit testing for our capstone projects and the challenge is living up to it's expectations. It doesn't help that our database is larger than the other groups so as it took us longer to get started it seems other groups have already passed multiple classes through testing, which is frustrating. I hope that my group will be able to solve our errors quickly and catch up to the pace but I have a feeling that we will be struggling on this step for a while. Pro dev was a great way to end this week and it kind of changed my thoughts on job opportunities. The GAP lecture seemed like an odd addition to the line up at first but the way they described the work and the type of problems they are tasked with solving impressed me. I guess I still have a negative opinion about big corporate businesses but the GAP team definitely did not conform to my expectations and have opened my eyes to more possible career paths.
This week has been a roller coaster. Unit testing is taking out group a lot longer than anticipated but we are finally starting to make real progress forward which is a huge relief. Although just taking a first look at the classes I wrote has revealed that I am not good at database stuff, at least that is what I am feeling right now. I know we can get through the testing but as time goes by I am starting to worry more and more that we aren't going to have enough time to finish. Or at the very least I'm worried that our user interface wont be developed to a high enough level. I suppose it's normal to be feeling overwhelmed as that is what all the instructors and alumni keep telling us is normal however it doesn't really help. I felt like the field trip this week was one of the best Pro Dev experiences that we've had so far. Not only was the tour of Albuquerque's new Tech Sector enlightening and encouraging I have found myself reflecting on the One Million Cups event quite a bit. It almost seems too easy now to think if I needed some kind of lead for or an insight into my free lance career all I have to do is visit the monthly event and just try to talk to someone new. I know it wont be that easy but knowing that there is a community to fall back on just helps.
This week we started click testing our Capstone projects. I still feel like our group is behind but luckily George was able to help get us to a point where I'm not so worried anymore. The concept of click testing actually seems like it will be easier than unit testing. Even doing the practice version of click testing was far easier to accomplish than the work up to unit testing. Although I'm sure there will be road blocks in the future I am really starting to see the end goal of the capstone and I'm becoming confident that we will actually finish. This week I was also able to have a meeting with a potential business partner which was a bit of an intimidating experience although everything turned out just fine. As I was expecting the opportunity is not as glamorous as my initial expectations but I feel confident moving forward with hopes that I will be able to achieve at the least something worth putting in a resume. Although as a counterpart to my entrepreneurial development, learning about big data definitely peaked my interest this week and got me thinking about what kind of internship I really want to be looking for after camp is over. People have been using the term "unicorn" to refer to someone who has sufficient skills in virtually all aspects of development and I can't help but want to achieve that title. I know it will be hard but I feel like the only way I will be able to truly achieve my life goals will be to become a unicorn and take care of everything myself.