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📓 Journal #9

You were asked to keep a journal while going through the program. Each weekend you'll receive a brief journaling assignment in addition to your coding homework. (Review the Journaling at Epicodus lesson for a refresher.)

Journal #9 Prompt​

Spend several moments thinking critically about the following questions, and record brief yet honest responses. Include a date or timestamp and quick summary of the prompt to refer back to later.

Now that we've completed our first group project, let's move back into thinking about our career path again. In section six's journal prompt, we explored how our past experiences and general skills apply to future tech careers even if these skills aren't directly related to coding. Then in last section's prompt we perused job postings, honing in on the type of work we may find fulfilling after graduation. We even drafted a fictional job posting for our ideal job.

For this section we'll reflect on how the skills discussed in section 6 can be applied to our desired type of work, to begin setting goals and forming a cohesive narrative around our job search.

  • Review what you wrote about your ideal job last section. Do you know what this position might be titled? (For instance, if you wrote about designing interfaces in Sketch, but not coding them, this could be a "Web Designer" job. If you wrote about managing projects from a more macro perspective, that might be a "Project Manager" position, etc.)

  • If you aren't sure what type of real-world position would be similar to your ideal job, that's alright! Simply browse more postings on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and/or Indeed to get a clearer idea.

  • Look for more job postings for this same job title (or similar titles) and identify what they have in common, paying especially careful attention to the requirements that aren't directly technical (we'll explore technical qualifications later on). This could be things like "thrives in a fast-paced environment", "strategizing and collaborating with a team", "meet measurable goals and requirements", etc. Jot these down.

  • Then, using your section six journal response as a guide, list non-technical skills and experiences you already have that demonstrate these requirements. Don't hesitate to record anything, or convince yourself something is too much of a "stretch" or a "long shot". Get any and all connections down on paper. We'll continue working with this information in future weeks.

Discussion​

We'll discuss our responses at our next class session. Make sure your responses are recorded before then!