My Learning style

I’m not the kind of geek who stays true to one programming language through their entire life. Listing all the languages I’ve done some code in taught a lesson right here: I should pay a little more attention to structurally motivate my learning: I mean to set not only S.M.A.R.T. goals but a framework of learning that tells me why I am devoting time to it.

A novelty junkie

This was also my problem: the balancing act of energy between many courses was difficult for me. I tended to go 110% all in with one course. It was the course that felt most interesting and, perhaps, novel. I loved to explore hard new stuff.

Before entering technical uni, I’d already coded for 14 years. So I was quite experienced, but also in a way, “locked in” a way of thinking, especially regarding the imperative style of coding. There’s basically five main paradigms in computer programming. One is imperative style languages; you tell the computer what to do, in a rather linear fashion. The imperative paradigm is something I happened to pick up first.

The very first programming course at uni was painful, because in it, I had to completely unwind and rewind my thinking process about programming. The course used “functional programming” methodology, whereas self-taught you’d always picked the “imperative” style – a straightforward idea of telling the computer exactly what to do. 

The final outcome, however, was that I had an incomplete Master’s degree at 102 ECTS points, which is along the 42% (out of 100%) completion line. I essentially dropped out 8 years after starting. The average graduation time in my line of study (Master’s, Computer Science in Helsinki Uni of Technology) was at the time quoted to be 7.8 years. So I was actually darn slow!

Meaning of Work and achievement to me

I’m driven by

• expectations of being able to change the world to better
• through process engineering and influencing people
• teaching some of the ways things are best done; example: I have a life long interest in teaching how to efficiently use software and computers in general
• I love to advise on computer security issues, and want to protect people from online scams and all kinds of malware
• understanding and optimizing a human activity in congruence with a process that is guided by code

This was cathartic. Share your thoughts, and see you in the next blog! Thanks!