42 Piscine Day 17 — (12)
Edit: This is part of a series that culminated here, Next post. Previous post.
Edit2: I consolidated all the posts of the piscine daily posts here
Edit3: You can read up about what it’s like as a cadet at 42 here
Still struggling to focus, but today was slightly better. I think it’s almost like I’ve lost hope in my ability to get in, I haven’t given up, but mentally I’m dragging my feet in an almost “what’s the point” kind of way. It’s something to push through, and to ignore rather than accept.
Ultimately the piscine is a battle of resilient thinking, of keeping emotions in check, and of prioritizing time appropriately. In all three areas I’ve stumbled, tripped and struggled, helping me to learn some incredibly valuable lessons. I think I may look back on this month as a formative time that eventually really shaped who I am and how I do things.
There is a student here, a pretty cool guy, everyone likes him and today at lunch I made a comment about the lunch lady having given him more curly fries than me (she did). He just sort of looked down and in a non confrontational and still really cool way said “well that’s sort of jealous” and uh, you wouldn’t think of that as being a life changing insightful statement, but it blew me away. I’ve been comparing myself to other people, looking at their stats “they are level five, I’m not even level one” kind of self talk. I’ll hear myself say things like “we all learn at different paces and speeds” but do I actually believe it, I mean I do, I don’t say things I don’t believe, but then somehow I work it out in my mind that when it comes to me there is some exception, that it’s true for everyone else, but for me, no with me I’m held to some sort of higher personal standard. All in all a stupid attitude, short sighted and worst of all, it was petty and holding me back from actually being able to learn. So long story short, thanks for calling me out at lunch man, means more than you know.
Some good news though, I got some of day 10 turned in and graded, so I finally got above level 1, a small accomplishment to be sure, barely worth celebrating, but I feel a small amount of relief to at least get that far.
Most people have started seriously studying for the next exam. I guess showing growth matters, and most of us understand the importance of the exams now, so most have started a routine already, this has made us interact less in the lab today, interactions aren’t absent, but it is less.
There also seems to be a shortage of correction points as predicted. lots of people who left took their points with them into oblivion. So the economics are skewed. Ironically I have a small stockpile because I didn’t turn in anything to be graded for most of week 2 because I was struggling, but I still graded people as it helped me learn. I’ll have to divvy some out or something. As it turns out, when we give points to prefects (cadets who are volunteering as piscine staff) when they grade us, that’s how they earn their correction points that fuel the economy of correction points for cadets as well. So there is an entire ecosystem with a near permanent shortage during the whole of the program. I would shift the design a touch to renew some points like one a week or something, still keeping it a shortage but more manageable. I’d have to look closer before actually developing a solution, but it also may be functioning exactly as designed. I guess I’ll find out if I ever make it to being a cadet.
My head count lately is around 75–85, but for the test on Friday 108 people have signed up. So I think there are still about 100 of us or so, which means my counts before have been off between about 10 to 20 based on how many I’ve personally seen leave lately.
I find myself a little angry about another article about the piscine that’s gotten some traction lately. I wasn’t mad about it at first, but he sort of put such a positive spin on all of it that I feel it has taken some liberties with the truth making it seem easier and more attainable than I personally feel it is. Hopefully this is only my pessimism speaking, I would rather him be right, but I don’t think that’s the case. He came from a background of having a degree in comp sci, and feels that it didn’t really help him (saying it only helped him the first week), I think he is just blind to how much it helped him. I know how it feels to want to take full credit for an accomplishment, to discount the privileges and advantages one has entered the game with. Rich people do it all the time in fact there are entire psychological studies based around when people start with privileges they are blind to it and feel it’s fair (see the study about unfair monopoly gaming). In his defense he has earned all he’s gotten, and should rightfully be proud, but I’m angry about how the very thing I’m currently struggling with would be sugar coated as easier than it is thus discounting my own current struggles. This is hard, really hard, one of the hardest things I’ve done, and I think it’s really hard for those who come from a coding background too, but I also think that they seem to be incorporating and learning the material faster than the rest of us with less coding experience, to not acknowledge that feels unfair and heartless.
(edit) I just talked about not comparing myself to others and then immediately went on a rant about people minimizing a struggle, ironic, and I apologize, please ignore my complaining.
I need to lighten up.
Assignments for day 12 are as follows.
- Makefile with display file function
- cat command clone
- tail command clone
- hexdump command clone
- last command clone
