I Failed My First Assessment at Launch School
After three months of hard work, I failed my first Launch School assessment. It felt devastating. I almost quit the program.
I have never failed anything before in my life, not ever! (Well, OK, I did fail a test one time, but I didn’t take it very seriously!) I am a hard-working student, I worked through the course twice, made a couple of hundred flash cards which I reviewed regularly, participated in about a dozen group study sessions, filled out a full study guide that I knew by heart, and completed the exam in record time! I thought I was going to get 100%! But instead, the test was repeatedly sent back to me asking for more detail and further clarification. And then the grade came back, ‘Not Yet’. It is the Launch School’s gracious way of letting one know they have not mastered the material and must study more. But it felt like a failure! And I wasn’t sure what was expected of me or how to improve. I thought perhaps Launch School wasn’t for me, perhaps I didn’t have the right mind for engineering, or perhaps I was wasting my time. But before I quit, I decided it was worth asking the Launch School community for help.
On March 3, 2024, I posted the following on the #general Launch School Slack channel:
“Hi everyone, I just attempted my first assessment and received a not yet, which is pretty discouraging. I thought I was ready and did spend a lot of time in group study sessions, but I just don’t think I fully understood the questions being asked of me. Are there others who have failed assessments and gone on to do well in the program overall, or is this a good indicator that software engineering is not for me? Thanks in advance for any feedback you may have!”
I received 10 gracious and encouraging responses from other students and TAs, and a couple of people went even further in helping me! One student, Trisha, offered to get on a call and help me figure out how to proceed. She spent 1 hour and 40 minutes with me listening, giving me pointers, and encouraging me! One of the TAs, Philip, offered to look at my exam and gave me some excellent pointers on how I could better meet the requirements to pass the assessment. Other students also gave me encouragement with their stories and suggestions. And I knew that not only was there a supportive community to help me, but others had been where I was and had gone on to be excellent software engineers!
Here is what I learned:
- When you need help, reach out to the community. The students and staff are there to help!
- Launch School assessments require more than an understanding of the material and an ability to write working code. They require a level of technical precision foreign to most of us. I found this article by Rebecca Biancofiore very helpful in learning to talk about and write about code in the manner expected of a software engineer: https://medium.com/@rebeccabiancofiorecw/speaking-in-ruby-caabc4f1adf6
- A ‘Not Yet’ isn’t the end of the world, especially early on. Many students received one or two of them in the first few courses and still completed the curriculum and the Capstone.
- Even those of us who are big-picture-people and extroverts can learn the art of technical writing.
I am happy to say that I passed that assessment on March 19th, 2024. And I also passed the interview. I am continuing my studies and anticipate completing the core curriculum, working through Capstone, and embarking on a long engineering career. If I can do it, you can too!