#apprenticeship patterns

Dave Hoover & Adewale Oshineye

 "As a rule, each step should have a feeling of entrance. This is beginner's mind -the state of becoming." - Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

4 weeks into it

It's already been an intensive four weeks since I started learning to program. Four weeks since I dropped everything to move to Chicago and attend The Starter League. These four weeks have been extremely challenging, and have pushed me to my limits. I have learned a lot of new things, from general programming concepts and design patterns to Ruby and Rails.

Not only I am learning a lot about programming and product development, but moving to the States has taken me out of my comfort zone. From pitching startup ideas at different hackathons in front of more than a hundred of people, to leading different technical projects and networking with Chicago's best and brightest entrepreneurs and VC's. I feel like I've been firehosed with knowledge both on the technical and business side.

A long journey

Although I am learning a great deal so far, I also know that I am at the beginning of a long journey. Talking with different software craftsmen, I realize that the knowledge I am gaining is only the tip of the iceberg. I am a still a beginner, I still have a long way to go.

While this would discourage some people, I feel more energized than ever. My perspective on this craft is still fresh and my passion strong.  I am still wearing my white belt.

“Don't let education get in the way of learning.” - Mark Twain

Today I attended my first Learning Lab. These two-hour long weekly workshops hosted by Adam Lupu, resident Learning Architect at Starter League (SL), aim at teaching Starters to be better learners. At first, I was kind of hesitant about going to this event. I mean, what can I learn there that is worth sacrificing two precious hours of coding? I decided I would give it a try and I'm pretty impressed by the result. Here are my four take-aways from this first lab:

1. Set goals and constantly review them.

Setting goals is a great way of reflecting on what kind of outcome you want of a certain process. As a student at Starter League I am in a three month programming training process. What do I want out of it? Do I want to be a software developer or do I want to start a business? The answer will greatly affect my time allocation. I better be investing my time towards what I want. As you know, time is a scarce resource.

2. Surround yourself with people of all levels.

I feel pretty lucky being taught Ruby & Rails by Jeff Cohen, a PragProg author that is well-known in the Ruby community. But, learning isn't only about having experts teaching you new concepts. Learning is also about being a teacher and helping other people out. It's about working with other people sharing complementary skill sets. As part of a learning process you better be surrounding yourself with people of different levels, not only experts, in order to progress.

3. Re-shape what you know.

Learning is hard. Unlearning is harder. In order to learn, you need to forget some bad habits. My keyboard typing isn't great. I'm having a hard time using all of my fingers while typing. For the last weeks, I've been trading off my typing speed in order to learn to type the right way.

4. Reflecting on learning is time well-invested.

This isn't limited to learning. Spending time reflecting and getting feedback on any process is time well-invested. This process can either be the development of a product (ever heard of Lean Startup and Customer Development?) or the method you are coding (ever heard of Test-Driven Development?). Do yourself a service. Take a step back and reflect on what you are doing, you won't regret it.

Your goal isn't to become better than the "average developer". Your goal is to measure your abilities and find ways to be better than you were yesterday. We're all on the same journey, and comparing ourselves to others is useful only when it allows us to find ways to help each other improve.

Apprenticeship Patterns - Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye