For the 7th Week Growth Journal entries, in addition to writing about what you’ve learned and done in the past week, I would like you to reflect on what you’ve learned from these projects so far over the quarter.
Most educational projects are small (1 or 2 people) and short (can be completed within 1 or 2 weeks), have been well-designed by the instructor to illuminate topics that have been the focus of the course, and are implemented in a language the student already knows or is learning as one of the focal topics in the course. Generally speaking, the instructor knows in advance the shape and scope of the desired or typical solution,
The projects you’ve been working on this quarter are completely different. They’re much larger, and were developed by multiple people over a long period of time (and not for educational purposes). They may have originally been well-designed (or not), some may still be well-designed, and some may have evolved in complex or even chaotic ways. These projects may be written in languages you did not already know when you started the project. Your first job has been to find, install, read, and understand existing code, which is seldom the case with pedagogical projects. There has been little or no instructor-provided scaffolding to help you learn new concepts.
So, what has working in a totally different type of environment taught you? Think at many different levels: there’s the language/technology level, the process and teamwork level, and even the self-reflection level: have you learned anything new about yourself, your way of working, and the kinds of things you do or don’t enjoy working on? Are there any surprises? (I suspect so; I suspect there are things you’ve learned that you would not have expected this course to teach, and maybe even things that I didn’t expect this course to teach!)