This week we watched a video by Shereef Bishay. Although the video was recorded about a year an a half ago, he explains the Dev Bootcamp experience from how it started to how it still works today. That experience can best be described by the title of this week's blog: Chefs in the Kitchen. The meaning behind this is that instead of a traditional learning environment where the curriculum is detailed and served to you like a meal in a restaurant, at Dev Bootcamp, the student is placed in the kitchen and invited to get involved in the creative process with the chefs.

By inviting you to be part of the creative process the experience helps to develop your creator mindset. With this you take the leads given by the instructors and explore and develop your skills from that point. This helps put you in charge of your education. After you leave Dev Bootcamp, you will will be responsible for your own education anyhow, so this is an opportunity to start on learning how to learn things on your own and how to bring passion into that process.

But it's not all about struggling through this alone. Interaction with your fellow students through pairing is required. This is because developing empathy and general people skills is helpful in the workplace. And the job you get after Dev Bootcamp will probably require pairing, so it is an opportunity to get comfortable with that here. It also makes the struggles at DBC easier when sharing with your peers.

My take on this is that the experience is pretty much what I expected from what I researched before I applied. Right now I am in the Phase 0 material, and while working full time it is a lot to handle, and no time for exploring. But at this point, from the video, I know that I am learning the basic fundamentals and I do not need to worry about going beyond that, yet. It is a lot of material and it is hard to find time to pair, let alone do anything in your normal life. But on the other side of that is the people who put the material out there and have to check what we create, and have to repeat that every 3 weeks for a new group. That's a bigger effort. For me, the big effort will be in reaching out to my fellow students to pair. For one thing, it is hard to think of pairing when you are working through the units on a Saturday or Sunday night and the deadline is looming. And in my current job, I am alone and there is no one to work with, so I am used to working through issues alone. I am still nervous and excited about the experience ahead. I am really looking forward to being onsite and with my fellow students.