Tom finally admitted it. After four days of homework-palooza, he told us that this was the hardest week. With the four to six hours of homework a day, the five hours of showcases, the mock interviews, the updates to our resumes, the updates to our LinkedIn, and our reviews on our capstones–I can believe it. People are starting to crack.
People are cracking so much so that Caitie addressed the whole .NET class about it. It was a culmination of many things, I think. The tasks listed in the last paragraph have hit some of the students really hard. On Monday, Tom reminded the class that homework was due two days after it was assigned. Of the 16 students in .NET, only eight of them had turned in the assignments for that day. Talking on the break, I found that many are behind even further than that. Having struggled with the last capstones, some people had days of backwork to catch up on leading into this, the most hellish of weeks.
But maybe an even bigger stresser than the work is the redoubtable phantoms of the job search–the resumes, the interviews, the waiting game of getting called back. It’s right around the corner. We had behavioral practice with Caitie this week, technical interviews with the instructors next week and then it’s game on. We’ll start applying. Things once theoretical will get real in a hurry.
So Caitie gave us the pep talk. She reiterated what Tom had said, that this was, indeed, the hardest week. She said to remain organized, prioritize the work in the classroom, and come to her with any problems or if the stress gets too great.
Coming to the end of the hardest week, I feel pretty good. It was tough, yes. Counting up the hours (which I should know by now not to do) I’m going to log somewhere in the range of 60 to 70 this week. But as I type this, I’m basically caught up. The quality of my homework hasn’t been stellar, but it’s all turned in and I feel confident that I’ve learned the lessons. And that’s all I can ask for, I think.
From Retail to Programming 