I’m a father of an almost 2 year old. Watching him learn and develop has been a huge source of joy, entertainment, and sometimes frustration. It has made me think a lot more about the process of learning. Recently, I attended a webinar about child-led discovery learning. The premise is that children learn best when they’re allowed to explore things for themselves. In the webinar we did an exercise where the facilitators asked us to pick up 5 things around us and stack them. They then asked how we chose to stack them. Parents reported putting them heaviest thing on bottom, starting with a flat surface, putting the smallest thing on top, putting things into a cup etc. Toddlers aren’t great at building towers because they haven’t learned these things yet, the best way for them to do so is to explore and try things. I find that this continues to be true for me in learning coding. Things I learn through doing and trying things seem to stick a lot better than things I learn through passively listening or reading.

Becoming a father while at school and working full time has definitely added another layer of work to my life. I feel like I have to be pretty on top of my time. I finish work around 5 and go get him. Then either my wife or I makes dinner. We let him play a bit before giving him a bath and then we put in to bed around 7:30 to 8. After that I spend whatever time I need to get my homework done and then after that I watch a little TV. This has humbled me to people who were already parents in the program, but also made me had significantly less empathy for people in the degree who don’t have kids and complain about the work load or say things are so hard. I am glad I landed a tech job prior to having the kid, because after school is done this quarter I am ready to chill and do family stuff for the next year before I start seeing what other offers I can pull down.