Long absence - TAing CS after Lambda

So, it’s been a while since I last updated this little blog. I know no one reads this, which is actually something I prefer, as I can use it as a little journal that I can reference from anywhere. I am thinking of transferring the technical parts of this blog to Medium or something that has more web traction in the future, for career purposes, but something about that also seems a little icky. The point of all this was never to become better known (although that is a really nice side effect), but to organize my thoughts better so that they could maybe help my friends and others down the lane, and to help me navigate the little tempest that seems to always run amuck in the corridors of my brain.

So, what’s been going on? Firstly, I’m technically done with Lambda, and now I’m on my … 4th week of helping teach CS, although my little “Sprint” group (basically as sub-group of the main cohort, about 5 students) is only done with the first week. I have 9 weeks, including the upcoming week, left to go with this group, and hopefully that will coincide with the culmination of my finding a job in this industry, hopefully in the Bay Area. I feel rotten at the idea of leaving my TA contract in the middle of teaching my group, because I … sort of feel that I am one of the best possible TAs that my group could have.

Let’s unpackage that previous statement: this is in no way me saying that I am actually any good at this stuff. It’s actually that I had to struggle immensely through this material, and I am honestly still struggling through it as we go through it. I am much more Brady Fukumoto than Sean Chen in this regard, and I feel a kinship with him because we seem to have the same mindset to CS. (On that note, Sean Chen might actually be as similar to us in having to confront the demon that is algos and data structures, and the feeling of helplessness in front of all its complexity). I know that I have the intelligence to eventually fully master this stuff, as I have had to do even more complex things in the past, but the exhaustion that I face and the overwhelming feeling of not wanting to take the fight to the material is something that I know perhaps better than anyone else, as I really really am sensitive to failure and letting people down. This pushes me to put probably inhuman hours of work to mastering these things, and I hope that that time can be put to use to helping my students master the material themselves.

On the whole career end of all this, I haven’t had much luck yet in getting my butt down and mass-applying to a lot of companies I’m interested in. Partially this is due to a tremendous feeling of fear of being not ready, especially with React. Another issue with my issue in React is that I have a plethora of resources available to me: I have the updated Lambda Curriculum, with context and hooks, and I have Tyler M’s courses, some other resources from really good Youtube series, and now it’s just down to me getting that stuff working.

The other side of it is that I have it on some decent authority that I might be being trained to challenge some pretty tough interviews in the future, and I will need a lot more of my Algo and DS skills over just being able to do front-end stuff. So there’s that. That’s not a good excuse; I should be able to do all of these things: work on React stuff, work on algos because I teach them, and do some applications, but I’m very bad at task management.

So, here is the plan, at least for this Sunday and the future days:

1: Work through one-two youtube series stuff and get that stuff down because it will boost my happiness level

2: Work on the Tyler stuff, go through that course and the adv. JS course (This will be a long time in coming, maybe 1-2 weeks)

3: Work on getting my little GP nice and good for Monday and the following days

4: Supplement above with Algoexpert + do the 3 hour challenge for Lambda

5: For the react stuff, find the material on Lambda for Context API/Hooks, do another project on that stuff, and then take my redo for the React Interview, and crush it. Maybe call in James and Jon to test me on some of it before I have to take it again.

6: Finish that presentation for the Lambda Showcase. That might have to be finished first, actually.

So yeah, that’s the goal for now. Let’s see if I can get all of this done.

Written by Kai Lovingfoss who lives and works in San Francisco building useful things.