HAVE I BECOME AN EDUCATION JUNKIE?

So this is it. No more student. I've finished and submitted all my CodeClan continuous assessment work for my PDA. It's just a matter of waiting for my certificate to appear in the post and I’ll have a Professional Development Award in Software Development.

I guess it can go in the drawer with my Being In Electrical and Electronic Engineering, my Diploma in Design and Innovation, and my Certificate of User Interface Design and Evaluation.

Have I become an education junkie?

Anyway, it's a good feeling and I'm pleased with what I have been able to achieve. The Careers Lady at school should be eating her hat by now, given she suggested my only hope was trying to get into the back door at a college. Oh, how we laughed!

I went to Fortrose Academy on the BlackIsle for my secondary school. A great little school although I didn't really appreciate it at the time, I had fun. I stayed all the way through to my 6th year and left with a jolly array of subjects including 8 Ordinary grades, 5 Higher’s, and a Certificate of Six Year Studies.

The big players of Maths and Physics are there along with Technical Drawing and Art and Design. I guess I was destined to be an Engineer. My qualifications became bigger and better from here on in...

RGU - BEng Honours Electrical and Electronic Engineering (1993)

When I finished school in 1988 I headed off to Aberdeen and enrolled in Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology (pre-University Days) to study for a Bachelor in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I had sufficient qualifications to get in without an Interview (or go in via the back door). It was a four-year course with honours. I did the first 3 years and a chance conversation with a lecturer suggested that Shell UK were looking to take students as a part of an industrial placement. I applied and was lucky enough to get a super rare industrial placement. I said goodbye to my fellow classmates and went my own way with Shell for a year. I returned and completed my honours year in 1992 and graduated in 1993, RGIT had now become RGU so I was leaving with a University Honours Degree…

Open University - Diploma in Design and Innovation (2001)

Roll on a few years and while browsing the Open University website a course in Design and Innovation caught my eye. It was a 2-year Diploma and could be studied remotely with Tutor Marked Assignments and some exams. It was all about product design and how to evaluate products and innovate new ideas. The course was quite pricey but I approached my boss at the time and Aker Kvaerner agreed to pay my fees and sponsor me. So free education so long as I did not leave within two years. This course I really enjoyed and learnt a heap about product design and innovation. The course was a real inspiration and I really took to the method of teaching, where you were actively following a set course and had to submit an assignment roughly every month. and then at the end of the year, there were a couple of exams. I graduated with my Diploma in Design and Innovation and had another certificate.

Open University - Certificate in User Interface Design and Evaluation (2009)

A few years later while back browsing the Open University website a course in User Interface Design and Evaluation interested me. At the time I was heavily involved in creating a new User Interface for Topside Control Systems for offshore, so my thoughts were hey this might help make better control system user interfaces. Another discussion with my boss and Aker Solutions was sponsoring me and paying for the course, More free education and of course I was tied in for another two years. This was another great course with Tutor Marked Assignments and an exam at the end. I graduated with a Certificate in User Interface Design and Evaluation.





So this was the winding road to my main qualifications and brings us back to this year and my PDA in Software Development with CodeClan.

I have done many other shorter courses over the years in various subjects. I did another couple of courses with the Open University paid from my own pocket, First up Digital Photography (I couldn't pass this by my boss for sponsorship) and second a Certificate in Web Design (again I couldn't pass this by my boss for sponsorship either, although I did try).

Some other training I was lucky to get over the years as part of my job where I have a certificate includes:

Rockwell Automation - Control Logix Programming - Accelerated. This was a week-long course where I learned to use Rockwell PLCs and program them in a classroom environment.

Wonderware InTouch - This was a two-week course where again I was trained in a classroom environment in a facility in Livingstone. Excellent product and one of my favourites for creating quick and robust SCADA applications.

ICONICS Genesis 32 and 64 - Separated by a few years I have had formal training in the development of both Genesis 32 and more recently Genesis 64 SCADA products.

Introduction to Functional Safety Understanding and applying IEC-61508…

So to the Careers, Lady in Fortrose Academy back in the ’80s who suggested I would not be able to get into University and suggested that I may be able to squeeze in the back door of a college. Not cool but thank you. Your pessimism probably helped push me to achieve more.

Robbie Williams sums up similar career advice here, I may not be on stage and screen but hey Careers Lady I've been to University and more...

CODECLAN - I AM A GRADUATE OF SCOTLANDS FIRST AND ONLY DIGITAL SKILLS ACADEMY

So I am writing this from home in Aberdeenshire, I have left Edinburgh and my CodeClan learning experience has finished... After 16 weeks of full-time study, lectures, homework, projects, and no life I have graduated. Go me! I did it and have a certificate to prove it. I am a trained coder... A certificate from the Scottish Qualifications Authority should also follow shortly. I am one of about 100 graduates from Scotland's first and only digital skills academy. How cool is that!

Now I have finished, the first thing I would say is I miss the routine and the people who have spent so many hours over the 16 weeks living and breathing code and hanging out with my cohorts. Looking back and having come from 20 years in an office environment it was an odd experience at first but I soon got used to it.

I imagine what it is like to work at Google, People huddled around laptops, dressed down on Friday every day, in chill-out spaces, and table tennis rooms. With hindsight, we were fully absorbed into a little CodeClan cocoon and the environment was set up to learn to code and do it supported by your tutors, support staff, and fellow cohorts. It was a brilliant place to study and work.

Before I go into what I have learned here are key some figures from my time:

• 16 - I studied for sixteen weeks
• 109 - I created one hundred and nine GitHub repositories
• 26 - I participated in twenty-six paired programming labs
• 23 - I completed twenty-three homework exercises
• 3 - I completed three x week-long projects
• 104 - I traveled by train one hundred and four times
• 22 - I traveled by bus twenty-two times
• 42 - My typing speed increased from 24 wpm to 42 wpm
• 3 - I have learned 3 new languages (Ruby, Java, and JavaScript)

So what have I learned in 16 weeks? It's quite a lot of hours but quite a short time to become an expert.

So let's start with the Languages:

Ruby is the first programming language we learned. Looking back probably my favorite of what we did learn, it's simple and forgiving, most relaxed and Arrays and Hashes accept whatever you want to put into them. We learned all the fundamentals of a programming language here: Conditionals, Functions, Arrays, Hashes, Loops, Classes and Multiple classes,

Java was second up and a compiled language, we used Android Studio to code in Java. Initially just used the Android Studio interface to go back through programming fundamentals in this new language, then off into programming Android apps that could be downloaded to Android devices or Android Simulator

JavaScript was third and probably the most versatile that we learned and is currently popular. It's not the same as Java which I had assumed before learning it. We used Javascript to add functionality to our apps and the front ends.

I guess also HTML and CSS could be considered a language, and we did some training on both these to make web pages and make them look cool. In addition, we also had some training in Canvas which gives the ability to draw shapes and pictures within an HTML page.

Frameworks

We learned a couple of frameworks, React and Ruby on Rails, which helped structure our code and automate quite a lot of the boring long-winded scaffold coding.

Computer Science Theory

We learned quite a lot of computer science theory throughout the course, and one week near the middle was dedicated to computer science theory. Learning about the 4 Pillars of Object-Oriented Programming (Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, and Polymorphism… and that was off the top of my head). Algorithms, Computer Architecture, data structures, parallel programming, and restful routes.

Test-Driven Development

Here we used add-ons in the programming languages that would provide test scripts to test our code. The mantra pushed into us was to write the test scripts first before you write your code. So in a separate structure, you would write the tests, have them test what you expect the results to be, and then have the test fail, then write your code to pass the test.

SQL

To persist the data used within our code we were given SQL skills, enabling us to create a database add tables, seed it with data, and have our code interact with the database. reading and writing to the database such that if the code is restarted the data has persisted.

Unix

Right from the start, we had a small intro to Unix, I had used it before but not for a long time so it was a good refresher.

Git and GitHub

This is our version control system and online storage for our code. I have used version control systems before and this is my new favourite and it is free so long as you keep your code open to the public.

Agile

Each morning we had a standup going around the cohort each throwing a ball among us discussing what we had done, learned, and if we had any problems. A great way to start the day and good for a routine. Everyone needs to participate, instructors included.

And many many more things…

So what Now? I need practice. What I have been taught has been frantic and intense. I am not an expert in coding yet, but I have a good or brilliant foundation to improve on.

An interesting Google estimate out there suggests that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something, so I fall quite short of this. But I have notes and a new passion for writing code and learning so I can only improve.

If you are wondering should I go through the CodeClan experience? I say if you have a spare 4 months and like learning, have an interest in coding, and are ok to give up your evenings and weekends and any free time you have for that time. Then Yes go for it.

Would I do it again? Yes most defiantly. It's a real sense of achievement when you finish. There are moments of joy and terror on the way through, however... Joy when you work hard to get something working, and Terror when you are given a task and you have no idea what you need to do or how to do it. This happens over and over again and it starts to become the norm.

>> If you have any other questions ask them below or email me and I will reply.

Thanks again to Code Clan, its instructions, and support staff. And to my fellow cohorts… Well done you ALL Graduated and I'm dead proud. It's been real and one of the best things I have ever done... Wife and Children aside. Thank you!

<< This ladybird book is from when I was a kid in the '70s, and interesting to read to see how things have changed was it my destiny to work with computers. Oh, and I am now fully converted to Mac over PC...