Learning plan

What is your long term goal or career pathway?

My long-term goal is to do a complete career change. I have been working in IT for 20 years and have been dabbling in scripting and programming for a few years now. I decided to take the leap of faith with Dev Academy as an opportunity to gain confidence in my logical and problem solving skills, as well as my passion for programming, which originally stemmed from curiosity and me striving to automate as many of my daily tasks as I could.

At the end of the course I believe one of two things will happen: either I will become a full-stack developer to work remotely and travel the world while doing it, or I will become a DevOps engineer mixing my newly-acquired software engineering skills with my previous career as a systems/cloud engineer, hopefully also working remotely and traveling the world while doing it.

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

I am an avid hands-on learner. I learn best by practicing what I learn and teach. I am frequently mentoring younger engineers at my current job when they have questions and I am great at breaking down complicated things into more manageable chunks of knowledge, that are easier to understand. And given my customer service experience, I am also adept at finding the right way to present that knowledge to others depending on their level.

My initial limitation for the Foundations part of the course is that I am very short on time due to me completing a handover at my current job, however, this should be a non-issue as my last day here will be done before the bootcamp proper begins. I am going all-in for this one.

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

I am confident in my communication and relationship skills when it comes to interacting with others. I would guess that my biggest expected non-technical gain from this would be team collaboration and confidence in my technical skillset.

What is your commitment to managing the workload of this course?

My commitment to this course during the foundation is at least 20 hours a week in the evenings after work, with a more or less random spray until my last day at work comes. At the moment of writing this I am in the middle of a handover, with many many tasks that sometimes overflow into work from home in the evening kind of deal.

I know that during the foundations I may lag behind on some individual work, and may sometimes blow the deadlines, however, I am committed to getting it all done before the bootcamp proper starts. At the end of April I will have all the time in the world to focus on the in-person classes and teamwork, as I have resigned and had a few days of rest before the new 50-60 hours a week commitment for the next two months.

Regarding seeking help, I believe the Dev Academy facilitators will be able to help me with advice and some extensions where necessary during foundations, however, I do not expect I will need to ask for much help during the bootcamp itself. I know where to go for the assistance, but I am confident in my skills, my previous experience and lust for knowledge. I was always self-sufficient. If anything, I expect that I will probably be seen answering questions in chat myself when I have the time for it or if directly approached.

A description of what you expect from the Facilitation team

I expect general guidance and support in learning, as well as fairness and honesty in evaluation.

Any scheduling information such as block-out times when you are committed to other things.

I am committed to my day job from 7:30 AM to 4 PM on weekdays until the end of April. After that I have no outstanding commitments apart from my gym habit that I am trying to get to 1 hour and 4 days a week.