Professional Transition-

1. (#8. I Don’t Know..): This is something I feel has always been a strength of mine. I read a lot and I notice a lot of people will really make stuff up even when they themselves don’t know the answer. It has always bothered me. I’ve always been the type of person to say “I don’t know” right off the bat, but then I can make some pretty good educated guess’ because of the sheer amount that I read. I do think it is important to distinguish you need to acknowledge that you don’t know something but that doesn’t necessarily mean you throw your hands up and walk away. You can say you don’t know something but add on “..but I’m going to figure it out” and then go down the windy road of trying to figure something out that you have no idea about.


2. (12. Become a power-user..) This is something that has been at the forefront of my mind. I want to do/be this but I don’t really know everything that is out there and what it all has. With everything in my life I tend to move pretty slow in the beginning and do it over and over again, all in an attempt to know it inside and out and have it all committed to memory. So this is something I am cognizant of and relate to it being on the list because I can grasp its value.


3. (1. Use google..) This is something I relate to because I am very good not just with google but searching the internet in general. You could say I am skilled in google-fu. I feel an indispensable skill is not necessarily knowing where to go to get questions answered but having a method/ability of knowing how to ask and find the question that you are looking for.


4. (9. Analyze clues..) I’ve done this my entire life, not just with programming in the last year or so. I feel most people when something goes wrong just see a wall of text or gibberish when an error message appears. I’ve always sort of enjoyed rummaging through it all, regardless of how alien it may seem at the time, and trying to make sense of it all. I think this was why I succeeded in Latin in high school and college. I got pretty good at picking out patterns and figuring out what things meant in the context of where it would pop up. This is something I continue to try and hone to this day.

Organization-

1. To me checklists have been the make or break for me. I am a huge proponent of checklists and the differences of when I use one or not are blatant. Unfortunately because of recent/past jobs I began to lose the discipline I had when it came to creating checklists. When I force myself to make a list not only does everything get done but it gets done well and in a timely manner. Not to mention my overall understanding of whatever was on the list I seem to retain more easily. That could be from just doing the act of sitting down and writing it down allows me to create clearer memories, as a result I can recall more detail easily. This is something I am going to work towards getting the discipline back to do this every time I can. This way more things get committed to memory and I work more efficiently than I would have without making a list. It is clear how being organized and making lists would help as a student, you remember more, you’re more focused and task oriented, as well as being efficient and not forgetting/letting anything slip through the cracks. It makes sense to me that this would only magnify when using a checklist in a job, or as a full-time developer.