21 January 2024

What is your long term goal or career pathway?

In the past my biggest challenge for career development in the IT sector was a lack of technical foundations. While I had the organisational and soft skills required to help me excel and translate technical information across teams using anecdotal metaphors I was weakest when encountering technical jargon and concepts. My long term goal is to be well positioned as a developer that excels in a technical aspect, my hope is that combining my innate soft skills I can be reach a senior position and effective leader.

A description of your strengths and limitations when it comes to learning

Strengths: My strengths lie in my eye for detail, my problem solving skills and my work ethic. I have a good natural aptitude for learning and enjoy working hard. My eye for detail helps me notice mistakes as I make them and spot challenges/issues ahead of time and helps me stay focused on the task at hand. I enjoy solving problems and challenges and even create some for myself. Solving these problems teaches me more and reinforces that foundational information I’ve learnt. Limitations: One of my major strengths is also a weakness, as I can foresee problems ahead of time or understand challenges before they’re presented I often fixate on trying to solve those before completing the task at hand. This can be quite time consuming and become a distraction which actually weakens the understanding of what I’m trying to learn in the present because I’m too fixated on the future.

What skills (non-technical core/human skills) would you like to see developed in yourself while at Dev Academy?

I’d really like to grow my creativity and innovation skills, I often find that is where I struggle the most. I break down problems as logic quite often and so my solutions are generally the most direct path or the most efficient path and rarely something that is creative or new that could be the most enjoyable way to solve the problem.

A commitment to how you will manage your workload in this programme. This should include:

I will stick to my time plan and keep using time tracking tools to make sure I’m giving myself the breaks I need to stay focused on what I’m learning. I’m committed to being available and involved in the cohort discord and keeping an eye on how people are doing. I’ve been quick to ask for help when I’m feeling like I need a hint or a push and I have a fantastic support system in place outside of the course which has helped to keep the emotional pressure of the work from getting to me.

A commitment as to how and where you will seek help in a timely way

When I’m feeling lost and down the rabbit hole I will seek out help from my homegroup and facilitator. I can also discuss my challenges and the help I received/how I solved problems with my friends and family who are developers and IT professionals to strengthen my learning and understand more solutions.

A description of what you expect from the Facilitation team

My expectation is for a kind and involved team that is available to help and support.

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.

My brother’s wedding is on the 16th March 2024 during bootcamp. I will need to plan around missing a day of focused study and work ahead of time for this.