Because we cover material so quickly at DevBootCamp, they have really emphasized that we know as much about our own personal learning style and preferences as possible. One of the easiest yet comprehensive methods for figuring this out is this simple test created by Anthony F. Gregorc, Ph. D. Basically it categories people into one of four overlapping ‘Mind Styles’, that helps you evaluate the learning and working environment that suits your needs best

While taking the test, I quickly formed a pretty good guess of which style it could ultimately choose for me, but I kept going just to be sure. Good thing too, because my guess was off a little bit. I thought I was going to be labeled as an Abstract Random thinker, but it turns out I’m more of a Abstract sequential kind of guy. When I looked more into it afterwards, it made a lot of sense. I do seem to work best when I am working on my own, but not to an absolute, because having peers, teachers and other personal references helps me stay on task. A nother thing that really stuck out to me was how my results told me that lots of specific rules and regulations, and repeating small and seemingly meaningless tasks would frustrate me.

All that being said it is important not to pigeon hole your self into one specific kind of working environment, or even one specific mind style. That is to say, they’re are going to be situations where I might have to adapt and try to put on my best Concrete sequential ‘face’ in order to finish the task at hand. This relates back to the idea of a Fixed mindset vs a growth mind set, another idea stressed heavily at DBC. Essentially they are encouraging us to have a growth mind set; Embrace challenges, learn from criticism, persist through adversity, etc. In a few words, having a growth mind set means having strong mental stamina and constitution, with a heavy dose of flexibility mixed in.

One of the things I have enjoyed so far at DBC is how invested they are in ensuring that we maximize our own potential, and through it, the potential of our peers and the program as a whole. Yes the work is challenging, but its also very rewarding, and the staff jumps through hoops to make sure that we all feel confident in our selves and in our abilities as ‘young’ programmers.