I passed assessment 2! But I was fairly disappointed with my performance. Given that the practice assessment was easier, in my opinion, than the actual assessment, I came into the assessment fairly confident. But a/A threw a couple curve balls in the assessment, and dealing with those curve balls really put a wrench in my mental processes. I was done with about 80% of the assessment in half the time, and I felt like I was taking the assessment at a strolling pace, so it wasn’t too bad. My main problem was just hitting those curve balls that I couldn’t recover from.

After some reflection, I definitely see some things I could have done to recover better. One was to detach myself from the assessment for a couple minutes to recenter myself. Taking a couple deep breaths and slow things down. Another thing was to draw out what I was seeing in the RSpec so that I could better visualize what was going on and what was expected. I was really torn apart between two different problems, both having about four failed specs each so instead of focusing on one set of problems, I was divided between two. I would tackle one problem, not make any headway, and move forward to the other problem. This it turns out, was fairly counter-productive. I really think stepping back and refocusing would have definitely help with re-designing one of the game mechanics method where my only issue was having one too many cards being added to the pile. That’s a lesson for you guys, hit a snag and your mind’s just not getting you anywhere? Take a step back, breathe and go back at it.

One of the reasons I was so disappointed in myself despite the fact that I passed was that I didn’t perform as well as I wanted to. It’s all about setting expectations for myself and not being able to meet them. My buds at Cohort X were all telling me not to worry, and I get that. No one who’s going to interview me later is going to ask me about how I did on assessment 2, but that doesn’t necessarily lower the expectations I set for myself, which in terms creates disappointment in myself if I’m unable to meet them. That said, this hasn’t brought down my determination to do better in the program, in fact it’s only made me want to do better. I still have my foot on the gas pedal, and I haven’t let up.

Assessment stuff aside, yesterday we had an introduction into SQL, pronounced “sequel” as it turns out, specifically PostgreSQL. We ran through the exercises found on SQLZoo which were great, but I do recommend doing the SQLBolt tutorial before talking SQLZoo. The tutorial and exercises are great, and I did find SQL fairly interesting, especially when it came to thinking about approaches to filtering out databases to query what you want to see.

The hardest part of SQL so far was understanding self joins. I understood most of the joins, but when it came to self joins, I was absolutely clueless. I definitely think that a/A could have done a better job with the self joins portion of its exercises. We pretty much had our hands held with all the problems except the last one, where we were eventually dropped off a cliff. It was a great analogy that was given by a TA. Other than that, I understood majority of the SQL material that was covered today, except for the occasional magical problems that just seemed to work.

I think that’s pretty much it for yesterday. It’s study hall at the moment, so I’m going to try and get a deeper understanding into self joins, as well as get my sqlite3 issue fixed from last night. I’ll talk to you guys later!