Month: August 2020

Agile, squads, scrum master, story points, Jira. Are any of these words ringing a bell for you? If so, lucky you! You are probably skilled with completing projects for company and working with a team of people on a consistent basis. However, I felt like I was flying on a magic carpet singing “A Whole New World” as all of the topics and concepts were being introduced to me. What is absolutely amazing is how a task is completed. The process that the company implements to get work done just seems so efficient and I have never experienced anything like it.
What is great about this experience is having mentors who are willing to spend time talking to me and explaining everything so that I can understand. During my three weeks, they met with me each day and answered all of the questions that I had. They were very patient and used many analogies and examples to help me understand some of the more nuanced terms in their company. This week I have began learning about automated and manual testing.
What am I doing you ask? Well, I am working with Fidelity to build a curriculum for their Quality Assurance Engineers. Although the summer is over, my work has really just begun. I will continue to meet with my mentors on a regular basis in order to build this curriculum. After this is completed, we will be moving forward to building a curriculum for their full stack and T-shaped engineers. Stay tuned!

I will be honest and say that I was not thrilled about attending the Virtual Summer Institute. I am not a pessimistic person, but the thought of sitting in front of my computer for a week doing virtual sessions made me cringe a little on the inside. However, this has been the best virtual experience that I have had. It was engaging and fun (I also learned some new ways to make my potentially virtual classroom experience more engaging for my students this coming school year). There were many activities that we participated in that allowed us to get up, move, laugh and learn a lot about our fellow fellows. I have already made plans to do the virtual scavenger hunt with my students when we begin school in the fall.

I also really enjoyed the conversations that took place. We had several sessions on cultural relevance and issues regarding equity. These conversations are very much needed and to hear educators who are passionate about addressing these issues is uplifting. My cohort is full of some pretty amazing and talented individuals and I am looking forward to being able to continue to work with them.