Orientation
Why is this important?
Make sure everyone has a similar development environment and similar expectations around how the course will run.
What are the objectives
- Understand the protocol for the workspace
- List some common checks for understanding
- Describe the schedule for a normal day of training
- List the ways to communicate with the instructors
- Understand the assessment structure of the course
- Verify functionality of the development environment on your local machine
Industry
WiFi
Please use the INDUSTRY-CORP network. Username: "ga-guest". PW: "yellowpencil"
Parking
Parking is not easy around General Assembly and Industry, but is definitely possible. The following options are available:
- If you can take public transit, bike, or walk to work, it will lower your stress levels significantly, and probably save you some money.
- There is free parking in the residential areas around the office, but long-term spots are, well, spotty.
Using Industry Space
- There are a lot of businesses here at Industry. Please be mindful of your neighbors, their space, and their things.
- The water, coffee, and tea are free. Drink as much as you want, but if the container is empty, it is everyone's responsibility to help brew the next batch.
- Please do not use the beer on taps at Industry. The use of those taps is only for full-time employees of coworking spaces in Industry.
- Also, if you are bringing alcohol into Industry, or if you are at an event that serves alcohol, remember to drink responsibly (and only if you are of-age), and do not bring any alcohol into the classroom.
- When you are done with your dishes, put them in the dishwasher if possible, and put them in the sink if it's not possible.
- If you want to use an open conference room, please ask an instructor if the space is available. However, "break out rooms" at Industry are completely free and first-come, first-served. Look for rooms that end in ".5", and you can meet in there anytime you want.
- The ping-pong tables and other communal spaces are also available. Again, just be mindful of your neighbors and share.
- You can use the fridge in the kitchen/cafe for drinks or food. Please put your name on anything, and the date you put it in. Industry will clean the fridge every Friday afternoon.
- If you are bringing guests to the space, please notify the front desk.
- The front doors at Industry are only open during business hours. Side doors require a key fob for entry, as well as the front doors outside of business hours. Make sure you keep your keys with you at all times.
Class Expectations
Graduation Requirements
- We will send a Google Form to you every morning, afternoon, and evening
- You are expected to sign in by 9:05am, 1:35pm, and 5:00pm every day
- No more than 3 unexcused absences
- 3 missed sign-ins = 1 absence
- Completion of 80% of homework *
- Completion of all 4 projects
* Homework must be submitted by 9:00am the class day after assignment
* We expect homeworks to be completed by 9:00am the class day after that
Checks for Understanding (CFUs)
Fist-to-Five
One of the things you'll notice about the classes is that we'll chop them up and ask you individual questions, and make sure everyone is keeping up. We'll be using several techniques and tools to look at how the whole class is doing and one of those techniques is called the Fist-to-Five. Everyone holds up between 0 and 5 fingers depending on how they feel. We'll typically use Fist-to-Five in two cases: to check on how you understand some piece of content or to check on agreement.
| Value | Learning | Agreement |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Did I walk into the wrong class? | I am offended by this |
| 1 | I need help | I have strong reservations |
| 2 | I think I need some help | I have a few reservations |
| 3 | I understand | I'm OK with this |
| 4 | I think I can teach this | Not the best idea, but close |
| 5 | I can teach this | That was my idea! |
One Cool Thing
Throughout the first week, we will be asking each Developer to find out one cool thing about one of their fellow Developers every day. There are only two rules to this:
- You can't choose the same Developer twice.
- You can't say the same "cool thing" twice.
Shout Outs
Another thing we want to stress is the Shout Out. Any time one of your squadmates gives you an "A-ha" moment, or knocks a lab out of the park, please share it with the rest of the class on the #wdi6 channel. It can be anything in the course, even if it's not related to the current topic, and can also be something we covered a few weeks ago.
"It's not at all important to get it right the first time. It's vitally important to get it right the last time." - Dave Thomas (Not the Wendy's Guy)
Squads
Every unit, we will establish 'squads' - these small teams will contain 3-4 developers who will sit together and be each other's first lifeline if Google does not resolve an issue. Your squad will be responsible for approving your project ideas, and will act as your team for group projects.
Each unit, squads will be reshuffled to allow developers to experience different perspectives and personalities in much the same way they will experience these in a development job.
Schedule
The typical schedule for the week is below:
Daily Schedule Overview
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 9:00 | Morning Warm-Up |
| 9:30 | Module 1 |
| 11:00 | Module 2 |
| 12:30 | Lunch |
| 1:30 | Module 3 |
| 3:00 | Module 4 |
| 4:00 | Independent Work* |
* From 4:00pm to 5:00pm, the Instructors will be unavailable for questions or issues.
A TA will be available every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 530pm to 830pm unless there is a holiday or special event. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, another helper will be available from 5pm to 6pm. Before asking the TA for help, please clarify your issue, using a GitHub issue (more on this later).
Each module is usually a training section or a lab section. They'll run about 75 minutes each and then we'll have a quick break. If you need to step out of the room for a bathroom break or a phone call, feel free to during the class.
The schedule above is a general guideline, but we will give a more accurate schedule at the beginning of every day.
We'll have a detailed schedule up for the next week by the weekend before it. The schedule is available on GitHub. We'll fill in the links for the specific lesson plans by the beginning of the day.
Communication
Slack
Feel free to use #wdi6 for any conversations outside of lectures for general course content questions. For any other discussion not related to the curriculum, you can use #random or an appropriately named channel (e.g. #upcoming-events to pitch an upcoming event).
Instructors Communication
One of the most important things that you'll learn in this course is how Developers learn things. Ultimately this will be a Read-Search-Ask (RSA) policy.
- Read the instructions and/or documentation...
- Search using Google, and finally...
- Ask someone.
As we progress, the Developers will be expected to get more and more independent. This will be painful, but there is a reason for it.
GitHub Issues
GitHub is a powerful tool, and we will be using it throughout the class. One of the most important uses of it will be building this Developer independence. If a Developer is having an issue with their work on an assignment, and needs help of any kind, we are expecting them to submit a GitHub issue:
Feedback on lessons and assignments
Firstly, feedback on lessons and assignments is always appreciated. If you see something that is confusing, or unclear, please submit a GitHub issue on the relevant repository with a detailed explanation. Then send a Slack message to #wdi6 with a link to the GitHub issue you created.
Request for help from Instructors
Secondly, any request for help from instructors should follow the Read, Search, Ask policy mentioned above. Specifically, to request help we are expecting a GitHub issue on the relevant repository with a detailed description of the problem. Before submitting this issue, make sure you have tried to "Google your way out", and ask a neighbor if there is one nearby.
Putting content questions in the Slack channel has several benefits:
- Other Developers might have the same question(s) and we can help everyone at the same time
- Other Developers in the class might have worked through the issue and might be able to help before the Instructors can answer.
Note that Instructors will not be available 24-7, but will do their best to answer questions as soon as possible. If a Developer doesn't feel their questions were fully answered by the next class, please bring it to the attention of the Instructors at the beginning of class.
The Help "Queue"
If you would like 1:1 help from either of the Instructors, mention @zeb or @Joe Oldenburg in the #wdi6 channel, and we will set up appointments on a first-come, first-served basis. We will take 1:1 appointments outside of instructional time. Note that we might combine 1:1s into a small group if several people approach with the same issue.
Other Issues
Instructors can take direct messages for non-content related issues. Direct messages are a great way to talk about any issue that you're not comfortable talking about in a public channel.
"No one is born knowing how to code." - Various
Staying Healthy
This course will be a lot of work. We will ask a lot of you, and we want to make sure that that is balanced with your personal health needs.
Sleep Getting a reasonable amount of sleep is important. 6-9 hours per night, depending on your needs, can be a useful general guide for a schedule and how much material to work through.
Exercise Getting out for some exercise everyday will help you learn and think creatively, so don't be afraid to take some time for exercise.
Family/Free time The course moves fast, and it will take a lot of time, but don't feel bad if you need to take time for family or just take a break. You'll usually find you can make more progress when you come back from that break.
Assessments
General thoughts on assessments:
The best way to learn how to program is to program. Try things out. Make mistakes and fix them. One of the great advantages of programming is that you can gain your "10,000 hours" of practice with constant feedback from the computer itself. The important thing to remember is that this is a safe place to make these mistakes, fix them, and learn from them.
Also, if the computer does what you want it to do, you've succeeded. This can be really confusing, but generally, "No news is good news," with a computer. If you are ever unsure of what's happening "under the hood", use the Read-Search-Ask policy. Your peers and the Instructors are here to help.
"If you want to run fast run alone, if you want to run long run together." - Kenyan proverb.
Work and Feedback
Exit Tickets are weekly surveys that we will deliver toward the end of every week. Please be as honest and open as possible, because your feedback helps us shape the course, and the earlier we can do that shaping the better.
Homework will be reviewed every night. If you have specific questions around homework, follow the procedure for GitHub Issue submission above. Keep in mind, we've chosen to write the homeworks in a way that will make them a good future reference, and will challenge all students. Sometimes this may be more than you can accomplish in one night. If you're spending several hours on a homework and not making much progress, submit what you have done and move on to something else. As mentioned earlier, sleep and well-being is important.
Submit homework by 9am the following class day. We will be using Google Sheets for our submissions. You should have received a link to your personal tracker on Slack from an instructor today. We will walk through submitting your first test assignment by the end of today.
To re-iterate, submit all of the homeworks. Even if you don't make much progress on a homework, submit it, as that's important feedback on how we're doing as Instuctors and as a class.
Homework Feedback will be given by one of the Instructors. You will receive a direct message with an indication of your pass/fail grade on the assignment, one specific "glow" (thing you did well), and one specific "grow" (something you could improve).
Labs during the day will not be formally reviewed, but questions that come up after the lab can come through Slack and 1:1s. Labs are similar to homework in the sense that we're writing them to be good references on the topic, and sometimes there may be more work than you can do.
Projects will include a rubric, or a predefined set of standards that will be evaluated. For projects 1-3, the Instuctors will go through your code and highlight any specific issues that we see to help you understand how to write better code. The Instuctors will also have a 1:1 with each developer where we go through the rubric and celebrate your progress and help work through any issues.
"You are not your code." - Multiple Quora Users
Goals
- Another thing we want to establish are growth goals for each student. Take the next 5 minutes to come up with:
- One personal project goal that you would like to see built or be able to build by the end of this training.
- One personal general goal that you would like to accomplish by the end of this training.
- Save these two goals somewhere on your computer.
- Send those two goals to the #wdi6 channel.
- The Instructors will compile this into a goal list for the team this week, so that we can all help each other reach them by the end of the training.
Final Thoughts
- Programming is not about learning a sequence of steps, it's about developing a mindset to solve problems and think programmatically.
- Language not important
- critical/analytical/programatic thinking.
- don't memorize, conceptualize ideas.
- the internet is your notebook/memory
- be able to adapt quickly
- Deal with chaos in your head. Being confused/lost is NORMAL. No one pays you because you know all the answers. The job is about jumping into confusion and being able to find a solution.
- Development can be very personal
- Debugging your own mistakes
- Being a good "Googler" and reading tech documents takes practice
- You learn more by doing than by listening
- We try not to hold your hand
- There is a decent amount of failure that happens initially
- good to get that out of the way before starting work
- There is a decent amount of failure that happens initially
- Hard Work: More time than is comfortable every week till graduation
- The maximum point of learning is right at the edge of learning and panic.
- This experience is a rollercoaster.
InstallFest Help
If any Developers need help with the installFest materials they received last week, we are here to help.
** Setup your Mac Development Tools
** Setup your Node Environment
** Setup your PHP/Postgres Environment
Licensing
All content is licensed under a CCBYNCSA 4.0 license. All software code is licensed under GNU GPLv3. For commercial use or alternative licensing, please contact legal@ga.co.