As I begin my experience at bloc I was given a mentor who was confident in my abilities and helped me rarely so I learned mostly on my own. I did good at getting through the checkpoints that concerned writing ruby. When I started going through the rails checkpoints things started to get more difficult especially as I never really built a web application before and I didn’t have much experience with rails. Some days I would easily complete many checkpoints and others it would take days just to complete one checkpoint. My mentor was eventually let go as he wouldn’t give the appropriate time to his students.

Then I got another mentor who was either late to the sessions or missed the sessions entirely and would rarely respond to emails and so he was also let go. I at that time was working on my capstone so I was able to learn a lot on my own. Then I got another email who was more responsive and helpful and I was able to finish a good part of my capstone project.

I learned a lot outside of bloc as well by reading books about javascript, doing mini courses on codeacademy, and listening to lots of tutorials. Before I knew it I became hooked and wanted to know everything there is to learn about web development and programming in general! I also realized something I never really quite understood that learning the fundamentals is even more important than just sitting down and coding like a chicken with its head cut off. Without knowing the basics of the framework or programming language you are trying to learn it makes little since to start practicing with it. Sure practice is important but understanding the fundamentals behind object oriented design or funcional programming is essential to writing code that allows your application to be agile and scalable.