Blog 17 - Interview 4 Reflection

What its like interviewing a master

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  
     I learned that it's important to love what I do. And I picked that up from the way Eddie spoke of his work. That changes the way I see my project.2.  How will what I learned affect my final lesson?
     I'm going to make it more about the career than the learning language. Make it about something more important.

Interview sound here

Fourth Interview Questions

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?
      - I plan to interview Benjamin Bracero or a co-worker of his at an equal or higher job position. Benjamin is a Senior Dedicated Systems Engineer at Microsoft and his job is to take new software and set up infrastructure for it at businesses that need it.

2.  Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. Your focus should be finding answers to your EQ.

1.      What is the most useful web application for all audiences and how can those audiences be reached
2. How would you approach this question?
3. What sources would you look into or try to look for in order to find answers?
4. If you could give one solid answer, what would it be (if at all possible)?
5. I have three working answers at the moment and would like to know if you had any input or opinions on which would be the "best" answer?
6. When a client asks for something you know you can't do, what do you turn to first?
7. What is the hardest aspect of customer service that you deal with when speaking to new clients?
8. What is your main focus when building a product for a client?
9. After how long did it take you to make that your main focus?
10. Would you personally focus more on design or functionality?
11. Have you ever encountered a product that was very functional but lacking design in every way?
12. When you first learned, did you focus on front end or backend language?
13. How long into your learning process did you decide to learn Jquery?
14. Did you ever consider other career paths with your skill-set?
15. Would you ever take your skills to a different firm?
16. What is the most joy you find in coding?
17. Where do you think I should start with my career path?
18. What steps did you take to find a career in college?
19. What first attracted you to computer science?
20. Where would you personally start over and change your steps?

            

Blog 17 - Interview 3 Reflection

- I needed to dress nicely to even get into Ms. Lu's building before she had to leave me for a call..

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  
    - The most important thing I learned from this interview was that success won't come fast. Even with her pretty astounding degree, she was jobless. She was anxious to work and didn't understand the industry she was entering. It took her years to get to a management position at Microsoft, and there was still better opportunities with Northrop Grumman. Even before she started working at Microsoft, she didn't know that she would find a lot of joy in trying to break programs. Which tells me that patience is the number one trait I need to maintain.

2.  How has your approach to interviewing changed over the course of your senior project?
    - Well it was difficult to get my interview window with Ms. Lu, however I'm happy with the time I did get. I was promised a 10 minute window and I'm a little bummed that I got 4 and a half but even that tells me a lot. It was very possible for me to shift my focus towards security by finding a new mentor but I'm happy that I didn't do that and won't do that. Ms. Lu is a very busy professional and the amount of work she constantly needs to deal with. In terms of my project, I'm not going to touch anything near security like I wanted to for a portion of my second independent component.




Link to my interview:
https://soundcloud.com/j0shua-sanch3z/interview-with-caroline-lu

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

I like to think of myself as a James Franco when I interview

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

      - With my mentor, I learn how to write different areas of code and see what they equate to when programs are run. As practice we make small applications that do one thing, for example give all the traits of a human and differentiate people, and spend hours working on the code.

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?  

     - My mom helped me find my mentor Brian, she heard at work that one of her friends has a partner whose job is to program and recommended me right away. I met up with Brian, gave him the rundown on the Senior Project and asked if he would like to take somebody under his wing and he was up for ti.

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person

     - My comfort level is a solid 8/10. I can ask any question and never expect snarky responses on how basic a question is, when I write code on my own Brian will let me try my best before trying to correct me, and we meet at a coffee house so we do our lessons over blended ice coffee. This is completely because I spend a lot of time with Brian and have just gotten comfortable with the way he is, and he to I.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

     - For what went well, I would say how excited my mentor got. He definitely showed me a side that I'm not used to seeing and has pure enthusiasm about what he does. I need to improve on my vocab with the subject because some stuff did go over my head at first listen. But this will be fixed with more experience.

Link to my Interview #2 Here

Blog 5: Interview 1 Reflection

- How I feel on computers after my interview with Benjamin Bracero

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

       - In this interview I learned that only certain questions are useful, and that questions similar to each other can be dropped because it is likely that a good interviewee will talk for minutes and stretch over similar topics. Next time I'd definitely sit and think of all answers that can be brought up so questions don't get repetitive.

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

      - I got directions to go for contacts, as well as my name passed around one of the corporate offices at Microsoft. The most useful is the recruiter at Cal Poly, whom I will definitely  try my best to get a hold of.

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

      - My interviewee, Benjamin Bracero, is the Senior Dedicated Systems Engineer at Microsoft. His job has him travelling the country setting up applications and software for companies and requires him to be extremely competitive in his craft because of the other software developers that can release a similar product.

Link to Interview 1

- The Interview

The following is the link to the Soundcloud bit:

https://soundcloud.com/j0shua-sanch3z/benjamin-bracero-interview

The following is the link to the transcription:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W0RhVX8S-q4qnquIrEHPWF6dQ6XuaiRihQZLgpf3OhI/edit

Blog 3 - First Interview preparation

-Interviews to me always feel just as awkward as any jib interview

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?
     - I plan to interview Bejnamin Bracero. Mr. Bracero is the Senior Dedicated Systems Engineer at Microsoft, making him an expert in his field. Mr. Bracero handles all IT work for companies that use his software and is the one to update, train, and architect the use of programs.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?  
      - Why do you think it is important for developers to be slightly fluent in languages they may never need to use?
      - What influenced you to follow the career path that you did?
      - If you had the chance to go back and change your career path, would you? And what path would you take?
     - What do you find to be the most rewarding at your job?
     - What is something most people forget to touch up on when following the career path that you did?
     - What are similar career choices to specialize in? And in those career choices, how long does it normally take to complete schooling and training?