It’s currently 2:45 and I…am done. Sort of. I’m sitting in the main room of Tech Elevator with both my pair programming exercise and my personal exercises finished. I could be working on my resume I suppose, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to have a little break and look around.
I’m sitting at a circular table with a plant in the center. Beside me, Matt, a German-born, deeply religious, workout enthusiast is eating a blood orange and trying to figure out how to write a command-line program about shipping packages and charging per mile.
Hugging the wall is a kitchen including an oven, a sink, a microwave, and an industrial coffee machine that is forever brewing a fresh pot. At an expansive counter in the center of the kitchen sits five other TE students. It’s the fast kids, so they’re finished too. If you ask them, they’ll say they’re working on their resumes, but they’re really talking video games, swapping recommendations like baseball cards. Or, to be more accurate to their tastes, Pokemon Pogs.
The ping pong table is empty for the moment, but soon two stressed out students will be battling, awkwardly backhanding the ball to their adversary, letting off the steam.
A prospective student sits on the couch, waiting for her interview with Caitie. She peeks over her shoulder at us as we throw around terms about classes and interfaces, abstracts access modifiers, pushing our commits. I wonder if we’re scaring her.
Through all of this, Tom the instructor walks, his easy-going gait sending his gray pony-tail back and forth like a tire swing. He asks the rooms at large if anyone needs help. Someone always does. He stops and explains with boundless patience, never even hesitating before answering.
It’s a clean environment filled with people trying as hard as they possibly can to learn something. I’ve never been anywhere like it, and I spent 16 years in schooling institutions.
Back to work. My resume is frightening and it’s not going to fix itself.
From Retail to Programming 