Week 2 Day 4 – Cracking Passwords, kinda…
So there goes THAT theory. While I think there is some validity in my theory that a/A gives harder practice assessments to motivate others to study harder, that concept probably just doesn’t apply to everyone, OR given the premise and objective of the projects thus far, the practice assessment was actually do able. I was a bit slow in terms of completing it, but for an assessment with 40-something specs, I only couldn’t get one to pass. That said, I think there is motivation for me continuing study to be able to perform the assessment in half the time. I would like to be able to finish the assessment in roughly 30-45 minutes, maybe even sub 30 minutes? Regardless, I did well on the assessment, and that’s really boosting my confidence about being able to succeed in the program. I had my doubts, however small, but they have been niggling in the back of my mind. I don’t think that’s really going to go away, but this confidence boost will help my mindset entering the actual assessment Monday.
The day’s projects were extremely effective exercises for understanding the time complexity within an algorithm. Learning about the various Big-O categories each algorithm was extremely interesting in understanding why certain sorting methods are faster/better than others. My partner and I had difficulty solving a certain problem that required us to optimize a solution that would run only at O(n) instead of O(n^2) or higher. That one was extremely difficult because you had to keep track of a window or slice of a set a data, which naively would require two iterations through the array in order to get every subset of the array. Once we overcame this hurdle though, it was a great feeling. And knowing the difficulty of the problem, hearing about others cheering and exclaiming as they figured out the problem was equally as gratifying.
Jeff, the lead instructor, gave a lecture today on a couple different topics, but the most important ones that I want to bring up are: self care and imposter syndrome.
In an industry where the competition and standards are on a global scale (talent is recruited globally, not just nationally or locally), it’s very easy to succumb to imposter syndrome, especially when I came from a non-technical background. I did come from a STEM background, but no where near close to the tech or engineering aspect. And to be frank, the constant fear of being an imposter or being a fraud is always there for me, and definitely contributes to that fear and doubt I was mentioning earlier when talking about assessments at a/A. However, Jeff says that’s completely normal, and it’s even normal for senior software developers with years and decades of experience to feel the same way. That’s comforting, and definitely reinforces my belief that I can do this, and I can succeed.
The other aspect Jeff talked about was self care. He talked about taking care of yourself mentally, physically and surprisingly, socially. But it makes sense. In the physical sense, he recommended getting plenty of rest and exercise. I’ve been doing plenty of that so no worries there. In the mental sense, he recommended, again, getting plenty of sleep, especially because it relates to being able to internalize information and staying alert throughout the day. I do believe I do that enough, although I realize that 5-6 hours of sleep isn’t enough, I’m hoping that my power naps during lunch do make up for it though. And finally, there was the concept was socially taking care of yourself, to build connections and relationships with fellow cohort mates. I’m definitely positive I got that down. Staying at Cohort X with a group of my cohort mates was the best decision I made, right next to attending App Academy. There are 8 of us currently at Cohort X, and the energy here is nothing but positive and motivation to succeed. Most of us are near the top of the class I feel like in terms of assessment scores thus far, and I really do attribute this to living with these guys.
Finally, to close the day of, we received an AMAZING lecture from Haseeb, an alumni from App Academy. You can read more about his story at his website here. He did a live demo on how he was able to kind of crack his password using Ruby. It was absolutely phenomenal to see Ruby at work in a real life example performed live. It really expanded my mind to using Ruby to more than toy problems and games, which has been my bubble of scope during my first two weeks at App Academy, as well as my prior three months before starting the program. It was absolutely refreshing to watch, especially since Haseeb was such a great and engaging lecturer. That said, it was also great to see him again since we had lunch before I got my acceptance.
Anyways, I still have assignments and readings to do for today, but I really wanted to get this post out since I really think this one was more reflective, and less of a summary of my day so I hope you enjoyed the read. Take care, and I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow!