What are three new things you have learnt about yourself and your ego due to the core learning?
I am critically minded, value irreverence, but sometimes I can do both these things to a fault.

What are the role of values, empathy, and self-awareness in learning and programming?
It’s important to be empathic and self-aware for both yourself, being kind to yourself in an inherently challenging field is important. But so is being kind to others, listening well and being receptive to feedback.

What has surprised you the most about the core learning?
I appreciate how much thought has gone into it. It doesn’t seem tacked on our lip-servicey but a genuinely well thought out component of the curriculum.

What were the most challenging aspects of the core learning?
I have done a lot of this stuff with my work in education, I often don’t like the “pop” stuff like Dweck etc. it can feel a bit corporate-y but it is useful short hand for things too, so reining in my critical mindset was important. A lot of people get comfort/direction etc. from things like Growth mindset - I shouldn’t let me own reflexive skepticism (not about the core wisdom of it but more about the branding and dot-pointification of that wisdom that can serve to shear away the important, challenging, complex stuff in favour of “takeaways”), get in the way of people appreciating and engaging with it.

Why do you think we, a programming school, are spending so much time focusing on core learning in a web development Bootcamp course?
As has been said, someone’s disposition/affect is massively important when it comes to working in teams in organisations. But it is also very important when you’re ramping up your skillset from 0 - 100 to be self-aware, kind and mindful about yourself and the bumps you will hit on the way.

Does the time you spent studying core learning here feel like a waste of time? Should you have just used that time to practise programming instead? Justify your answer.
No, never. It is always interesting and good to reflect on these things. I got more out of it by going and reading all the criticisms of some of the stuff like neuroplasticity etc. I often find I get more of an answer of “how one should be” not from the orthodox stuff but from the kind of critical literature/writing around the orthodox stuff that point to what is being missed, over-simplified, or over-complicated and polished up for Harvard Business Review/The Economist readers.