Learning languages has always been easy for me. I started learning new languages when I was 5 years old and my parents put me in a multilingual preschool and there I started learning new languages for the first time. I feel like the best way to learn languages is to just try and make mistakes and after that learn from the mistakes you have made. I went on an exchange during high school in a new country with a new language and by the “trial and error” method I learned a new language easily in a year. I think with English many people feel like they don’t have a good enough skill set to be using the language, because so many people speak English and it is all around us all the time. What people don’t understand is that English is not their first language and therefor we shouldn’t stress too much about pronunciation and just be proud that we have another language to communicate in besides our native language. I understand that it’s natural and good to still want to improve your English skills and there are many ways to do it. In my opinion the best way is to just have courage and use the language as frequently as possible, but if that feels too uncomfortable or impossible there are other ways to do that as well. I find watching tv shows or listening to podcasts a really good and pleasant way to do that because you can choose something that interests you, that way it doesn’t feel so much like work or mandatory. I myself have used these methods for many years and will continue using them. I’m interested to hear what kind of learning methods have you guys used during this term? I have learned many skills that will help me in the future during this course, mostly I have gained from the group work, and learned how to create a product from start until finish. I have already owned good communication skills and language skills in English and I feel like language skills in general are my strong suit.

Chapter review.

 This week, I read the second chapter of The Pragmatic Programmer, which discusses a pragmatic approach to programming. I chose this book because it sounded the most interesting to me and it offers valuable practical tips for developers. I wanted to learn more about the best practices in software development to help me further understand the processes behind it. 

The chapter covers several methods of working, including Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY), orthogonality, tracer bullets, prototyping, and estimation. I found the DRY principle and orthogonality particularly interesting. DRY means that there should be no unnecessary repetition in code or systems, making maintenance easier and reducing errors. Orthogonality, on the other hand, refers to designing different parts of a system to be independent of each other, making them more flexible and less prone to changes. 

The Tracer Bullets approach is all about building quick, functional solutions early on instead of endlessly changing plans. This allows for faster feedback and makes sure that development is moving in the right direction. This is particularly useful in agile software development, where rapid changes can save time and resources. 

The ideas presented in the book seemed logical and useful. I gained new perspectives on how software development principles can be combined in practice. I feel that the things I learned from the book will be helpful to me in the future, and it helped me comprehend the various methods of software development.  

Most of the terms used in the text were completely new to me, which is why reading the chapter felt a bit hard at first. I made a word list for myself which had all the new words, and after that the chapter was actually really interesting. I enjoyed learning new words, and I feel like those words will be useful to me in the future.   

Reading in English comes naturally to me, and I actually read a lot of books in my free time, and all of them are in English. I usually enjoy reading fiction books, but now after reading a chapter out of the “Pragmatic programmer” book I might even start reading more books from which I could learn more about stuff in our field.  

My English learning process is going well so far. I have started reaching my goal of learning new vocabulary,and using the right word order in sentences. Even though the course is halfway done I feel hopeful that I’ll still learn more. 

Thank you for reading my blog again, I hope you have a great week ahead of you! 

Learning from advice.

 Hey, it’s me again! Welcome to my second blog post, I hope you are doing well. Today I wanted to write about a few different things with you, my readers.  I wanted to talk about getting advice and what do to with it, and a little bit about my learning journey with the English course. 

Getting advice has never been my strong suit. Especially when I was younger, I would take offense when someone gave me advice.  I think it has something to do with being really critical of myself and my work, but since then I have learned to accept and use the advice I am given to help myself out in different kinds of situations. I feel like many people have or have had the same problems with getting advice, and I think it is good to learn to recognize if advice that you get is useful or not. If you are given clearly bad advice, you should just dismiss it and continue with your day.  

One piece of advice I have gotten that has really stuck with me is, “You learn from your mistakes.”. I have been able to use that advice many times in my life and I will probably be using it for the rest of my life.   To me that advice reminds me of how making mistakes teaches us more than it takes from us. At least I learn the best when trying things and when making mistakes correcting them. For example, when doing school assignments, I once returned a code that had a mistake, and the professor of the course told me about it. After I knew what was wrong, I changed it and learned from my mistake. After that, I didn’t make the same mistake again, because I remembered the process better.  

I feel like I could use this same advice even on this English course and especially while using new vocabulary that we are learning. It is after all better to try to use a new word that you have learned and making a mistake and then correcting it, then not even trying to implement the new things that you have learned to your work.  

On the subject of the English course, I wanted to fill you in on my learning journey and the goals that I set for myself for this spring. So, my biggest goal was as I mentioned last time learning new vocabulary specific to our field of studies. I feel like I have started to learn new vocabulary week by week, with the help of the readings and English lessons. I do still feel like I have a lot of learning to do, but I’m getting there! 

I hope you have an amazing rest of the day and that you enjoyed reading my blog again, I sure did enjoy writing it! 

My first ever blog post.

 

Hi, and welcome to my first ever blog post, I hope you enjoy reading and maybe learning about me a bit more. When I finished high school, I thought I would start studying languages or business in university, but unfortunately I didn’t get in when applying. Now I think it was a good thing for me to take a break from studying and to work for a few years. I worked in multiple different kinds of jobs and tried to find something that was interesting enough for me to study more about, but without luck. I had never really heard about information processing or thought about it as a possible thing to start studying, until last spring when I started to research different schools and university programs on a deeper level and got interested in information processing. I don’t have any skills in the field but am interested about it, because I feel like our studies have multiple layers on it and there’s always something more to learn. Another thing that got me even more interested about is the fact that there are such good job rates for you after you finish university. I feel like the skills that I have that could benefit me and others the most are my social skills and my language skills. I’m not afraid of speaking out my mind or help someone else to voice out their concerns and thoughts when needed.

I feel like blogging has a lot of really good advantages to offer and of course not all of them suit everyone or serve everyone’s needs the same way. To me personally I feel like I would benefit the most from having a community in where I could exchange ideas and ask for advice when in need. It would be great to have the opportunity when for example developing something new to be able to tell about the difficulties and the positive outcomes to likeminded people and also read about the same type of things other people have done. At the same time, while being able to express and process the evolution of a project, you might even find someone passionate enough about the subject to come and join you or maybe even fund a part of the project. But that’s just an ideal situation…

I’m really excited about the English course and expect and hope to learn more words specific for information processing, and hope to being able to use them later on in work life. Other than that, I’m also hopeful about learning to write more coherently in English.

Thanks for taking the time of your day to read my blog <3