The first week of Hack Reactor has come to a close, and I wanted to write about something I learned beyond coding.

When I chose to go to Hack Reactor, I did so with the desire to become technically proficient. In that regard, I’m more than satisfied with the rate of learning here. But, I don’t think technical proficiency is what makes being here special.

Something I’ve gained that I don’t think I came here with the specific intent of learning, was the improved ability to communicate and empathize with a partner.

As a paired partner, I’ve come to realize the importance of establishing a safe space to express ideas, not just for my partner, but for myself as well. I’ve learned there are times when two individuals have separate ideas, and the best one is not either of them, but rather the convergence of the two. Finding that convergence is not about selling either side on who’s right.

It’s funny how in life they always tell you there’s no wrong answer, and yet whenever someone gives an incorrect answer in a typical classroom, they’re either told they’re wrong and why, or the professor may move on to a next student’s guess.

At Hack Reactor, I’ve seen instructors and assistants spend time being patient in helping steer students to the right answer, without ever letting students feel belittled or wrong. How much better could people learn when they’re not just told, but shown, that their wrong answers will eventually lead to the right ones?

Something that really stuck out with me was earlier this week when Marcus had a student with anxiety about answer a question on closures. The student seemed to know the answer, but due to anxiety couldn’t verbalize it. Marcus never lost patience, never allowed the student to feel like this was anything less than a safe space to express their thoughts. What struck me was Marcus took some time to describe how a potential conversation for addressing the anxiety could go (there wasn’t time to run this exercise in person), and he put himself in the student’s shoes and described how the conversation could have gone. I can’t say for sure it was accurate to the student, but I felt like it was a very close portroyal of how such the scenario could have gone, and showed such empathy for another person’s thought processs. I saw that, and told myself this was something I would push to be able to do as well, and it’s been the focus of my time here this week.

Today, my partner Xin told me that because of our partnership, he learned a lot about having engineering mindset. He complimented me on my determination to constantly overthink and question why I might be wrong. I was really grateful to hear it! I didn’t express it, but throghout the sprint I had been deliberately trying to push him to articulate and draw out his thought process, especially when his answers contradicted mine. He told me that previous to our pairing, he didn’t like to pseudocode, and he saw how much better development went when we took time to structure our design. To hear appreciation for it was great, and is probably my favorite memory from this week.

It’s been a great week! I look forward to 11 more :)