I had a good week.
Remember a couple weeks ago when I was working on that internal tool (the first thing I was assigned?) Well, this week I had the chance to demo it to the company's AVP that is in charge of the team, as well as a couple directors and a few other people. It was a little nerve-wracking, but I think it went well. It was super quick and I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, but I think I did a good job of explaining the tool and how it works. I also got some good feedback on it, and some ideas for how to improve it.
Confusingly, I am still recieving a lot of praise over the fact that I apparently onboarded and started working on actual work so quickly. Honestly it feels pretty surreal considering the fact that I was pushing code to production on my third day at Caribou. Guess that's the difference between tiny startups and massive corporations.
Regarding the CI Challenge, our team met up twice this week and I believe we have some very solid ideas to bring up to our mentor next week.
There honestly just wasn't much work for me to do this week (despite asking daily for something to do). I ended up spending a lot of time outside of work working on improving my LeetCode skills, as I recieved a couple of OA's from companies that I would like to do well on (Uber, Cisco). Prior to this week, I have not spent any significant amount of time on LeetCode, so I am not very good at it. I have been super stressed about it, and likely won't be able to relax until I have completed the OA's.
The pattern recognition is the hardest part for me. I can usually figure out a way to solve the problem, but it is never the most efficient way. I have been trying to work my way through the NeetCode Roadmap as well as trying some of the CodeSignal example problems found here, to learn to recognise some of the basic patterns found in majority of LeetCode questions. I am struggling a lot right now, but will keep working on it and improving for the rest of the term.
Here is what my stats look like right now (I had about ~15 problems solved before this week):
I am hoping and praying that I will be able to get through these OA's and get some interviews. Worst case scenario, if I bomb them, this week has been a good wake up call that I need and will need to be spending more time on LeetCode.
Fall 2024 Goals Update
I went bouldering 3 times this week. That's it. In my defense, it was Thanksgiving on Monday (everything was closed), and it was reading week at Brock (pool was closed, since all the student life guards went home).
Last Sunday, me and Dylan went bouldering at Climber's Rock in Burlington. It was a solid session, and I was able to complete another V5 (that's 5 total, if anyone else is counting lol). It was another slab, which makes me start to believe that I am one of the few people that actually enjoys and excels at slab climbing. Most people (including Dylan, who is a much better climber than me) seem to hate and struggle with slab climbing.
The V5 I completed (the pink one in the middle, not on the left)
Personal Life Update
Badminton is kind of a hit or miss at this point. Me and Ruby both enjoy it, but the courts are always packed and we end up spending more time waiting than actually playing.
I was hoping that it would be less busy during reading week, but it was actually way busier. We actually just ended up leaving as soon as we got there, after seeing how many people were also waiting to play. Not exactly sure what the best thing to do is, since going earlier isn't really an option (I work until 5), and they seem to be busy all day (even when we try going right before they close).