Real users, Real clients, Week 32, finale.

With another week at an end, let’s look back on what happened one last time.

This last week was pretty standard, as I continued working on a multistep form using Formik, as well as creating and routing some users to certain pages. On this front, the main takeaway this week was the strategy employed in this project for routing, as it was something I had not seen used before since it required very custom rules in order to guard their routes. Another interesting aspect I learned from this project as I focused on these tasks was the way their routing worked, since it uses the create-next-app utility and therefore uses its routing conventions for each page route. This model is quite interesting and, in my opinion, elegant and simple in practice.

Onto other lessons, this week I made an effort to each day make some progress on the Angular course I’ve been working on. Progress was slow, but at the very least it was made, so that is a positive trend. The module I’ve been working on focused on Forms and 2 different ways to handle them. The first one is Template forms, which carry the bulk of the setup and logic in the HTML part of the component. This approach can be quite useful and straightforward, but comes with the disadvantage of becoming quite bloated, even for small forms. Therefore, Angular provides another alternative for handling forms: Reactive forms. Reactive forms take most of the logic and code to the typescript file, leaving a lean and clean HTML behind while the bulk of the work is done in the component file. In this approach, we only need to make references to the form object in the HTML, and all of the logic, verifications and setup are made with the help of the different forms libraries. Both of these approaches have their uses, and it is quite useful to have some general knowledge about both of them.

On a final note, as this will most likely be my last week being part of the Apprentice program, as me and a couple of other teammates are transitioning into working full time with a client, let’s look back on these last months and share some thoughts. I’ve been thinking back to the start of the program, to the ideas I had in mind coming into it, the plans I was making, the dreams I had. Eight months is a long time, long enough that I find myself often being at odds with the thoughts and feelings that used to define me back then, that is, when I can even recall what those thoughts and feelings were even in the first place. This is to say that I don’t really feel connected at this moment with the person I was back when all of this started, and while this might sound tragic, for me it actually rings quite a happy tune. When the program started, I was coming out of a programming job that I had taken more due to chance than choice, a chance I risked taking as I saw fit to experiment in this field before pouring my efforts into the career I had studied for. The job I had was, for the most part, a bet gone wrong, as I had only been there for a year and I was already feeling pretty burned out with the whole programming field.

Encora’s Apprentice Program arrived in good part due to chance as well. A good friend who was looking for new opportunities sent me the application, and on a whim, I decided to take a shot at it. Not thinking much about it. To my surprise I was approved, started my process, and before I knew it, I was in. I don’t remember much from this time, aside from looking for reviews of the program and finding a couple of periscope talks from previous batches, as well as being ecstatic when I found out I was in. I remember hearing someone from those periscope talks mentioning how they saw it as an investment, an opportunity to better their abilities and find new opportunities; I ended up taking on this mindset myself in order to convince myself to take the position.

If I had to pinpoint the most significant change I’ve experienced over these last months, I feel it is in my own mentality of myself and my abilities. Back when the program started, I didn’t take it too seriously, I even recall having plans of taking a part-time job as a waiter during the first week (and that idea being immediately shattered once I found out the amount of dedication the program required). Part of this was not knowing exactly what the program entailed, but a bigger reason was a lack of purpose or direction in what I wanted out of it. I am not a programmer; I made a conscious choice to not study programming as a career back when I finished high school; so, the weight of getting back into this world after so long was quite a burden. Even after working for a year as a programmer, I still felt incompetent, I still felt there was a lot I didn’t know, and more damning, that I wasn’t able to learn. The first month of the program was absolutely grueling, but looking back, I feel like I needed to pass through that experience in order to face the limitations and expectations I had put on myself. I still recall the lessons I learned during that month, such as the impostor syndrome, the 1% improvement rule, the habit formation steps, the 4-7-8 beathing technique, and such on; and I still find a lot of value in these. Both the knowledge, the work rhythm, and the experience itself allowed me to break free of a lot of self-imposed limitations and ideas I had about myself and my abilities, and for that I’m still grateful to this day.

While the first phase helped me to iron out some disruptive thoughts, I feel the second one helped me iron out some disruptive social tendencies. The main takeaway from that phase was getting some hands-on experience working in a project, which to this day still forms the base of how I approach working in any project; another fundamental aspect of this phase was the development of organization and teamwork with people you have little to no prior contact with. I feel that the second phase was the point where my experience of the apprentice program and of myself as a part of it fundamentally changed. While that phase was incredibly arduous, stressful and complex, thinking back to it still brings a smile to my face, as the first memories that come to mind are those of our team bonding over our common goal. That phase was really scary, especially considering the fact I was the member of my team with the least experience, but at the end of it, I felt more welcomed, integrated and happy than I had in a very long time. From this point on, I’ve felt incredibly comfortable and secure working here, which to me is something astounding, as in my last job by the third month I was completely burned out. Great teammates and great people make it an absolute pleasure to work on even the most complex of projects.

The next phase, the open-source phase, helped me to dislodge some of my old-held beliefs that I wasn’t good enough to contribute to anything useful to a wider public. Back then I had heard of open-source projects, and I wanted to take a shot at taking part in some of them, but I always felt like my contributions wouldn’t be good enough, or that I wasn’t going to be able to understand the code enough to contribute anything useful. Often in life we need something to force ourselves in order to break through our barriers, and this program would often force us to confront with ourselves all of these notions we had of ourselves. Even though it might be cool and cute to say that I always had it in me, I have to admit that I needed that push to move forward, to find what my potential was and to break through my comfort zone.

And now, I’m here, a couple of days away from working with a real-life client, working on interesting projects with awesome teammates and people, wondering what will come next and curious to learn more. The last 8 months have been quite a journey, and at this point, I have little more to do than to put all of the effort and attention I was provided to good use, and to hopefully repay them back to other folk I find along the way. Thanks to everyone who has been there for me, the staff, my mentors, my teammates; each and every one of you have helped me to move on not only as a programmer but as a person, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for all the help you’ve given me.

I’ll see you when I see you, in the meantime, take care! :)