After the lecture, Tom said offhandedly, as if no one would care, “Oh, and by the way, there’s no assignment for today. Just finish the stuff from yesterday.”
The room erupted in joy. We literally jumped out of our seats yelling–some of us sounding primal yalps of happiness, others machine-gun-questioning Tom that what he said wasn’t some joke gone terribly wrong. No assignment. No homework. For the first time in seven weeks. I might have had tears in my eyes. Maybe.
But, then again, everyone still had work to do from the day before. Like, a lot of work from the day before. We had pair exercises and individual assignments as well. Most people still had an hour to go on the pairs and almost no one had even looked at the individuals yet. I certainly hadn’t.
And, really, there was a lot still to do in our Tech Elevator day. We are not here for coding alone. After the lecture we had a showcase with a woman named Samantha, representing Bellefield Systems. She bought us a delicious lunch and then described her company to us, which makes a sophisticated time-keeping app used by some of the biggest law firms in the country. It might sound like a dry topic (and I suppose it is) but when she got into the different technologies they were working with to build their apps, she had me hooked.
Then, after the showcase, we had peer reviews of our resumes. Caitie grouped us into fives and we separated, trading resumes with our fellow students and offering critiques. I have some work to do on my resume still. We spent about forty-five minutes in our room, talking about resumes and work histories.
It was nearly three by the time we were done. We poked around with our pair code a bit, trying to make it look prettier and adding things that Tom hadn’t even asked for. But by the time we were finished, I was ready to call it a day. My individual exercise, which is due on Monday, will have to get done on the weekend.
Seven weeks in the books.
From Retail to Programming 