Another successful three years (well, three years and five months) working in an area I love; technology and adult learning. This was a great three years where I utilized my research and experience in integrating agile technologies and techniques into education. We managed the complexity, and risk, of integrating an additional 40 students per semester into the program, I taught over 200 students JavaScript, Node.js, SQL, PostgreSQL, Mongodb, GitHub, and how all these fit into FullStack development. It was definitely three years and five months well spent.
Three year successes
My career success seems to occur in three year cycles, I've written about this in the past. It would seem that my time with Keyin College follows the same, I have just finished another three year cycle. Background to this three year theme (with some focus on adult learning) can be found here;
Gratitude
Steve Taylor for encouraging me to participate in the early program design and for supporting me in becoming program head while we onboarded 60 students a semester.
Christa Mitchell for filling the role of career counselor while I was being onboarded to Keyin. So much to learn so little time. Also, for acting as my proxy when important items needed to be escalated to senior management. I know I can be demanding as an employee, I believe we should all be heard and an organization never knows where their diamond on the beach may be.
Sushanta for being good at want you do and your follow-through is exceptional!
Eric Bailey for helping me understand the overall technical architecture of Keyin's network, infrastructure, and approach to IT. Couldn't have made sense of things without you!
Maurice for being 5 hours older than me and providing the wisdom I needed to understand Keyin College (Or understand the best I could).
Roy Brushett and Will Durocher for those brainstorming sessions four years ago where we covered many important topics that defined the overall FullStack curriculum. Where Agile methodologies fit with Software Engineering and with Pedagogy, our use of O'Reilly for text books (saving students and Keyin considerable $$), the programming languages to be used, where source management (GitHub) fit within our Agile approach, Which board (Kanban or Scrum or both) we would use, etc. So good, great to be involved with the initial design and too see it through to teaching many courses as the whole program stabilized.
All the Faculty for allowing me the privilege of being in your service. We reduced risk and successfully went from 18 students to over 50 in one semester. Job well done. Thanks for your support. It was an honour to be your program head.
And of course, the Students! Honestly, I learn more than I teach. Your questions, your feedback, all our 1 on 1's, the tutorials, and encouraging me to develop workshops on an introduction to and intermediate github. Students are the best! We wouldn't be here without you!
Next Steps
I am being drawn back into the technical realm. Give teaching a break again for a while, focus on shipping software and building a team to exceed expectations. I am good at this so why not lean heavily into a startup, manage / mentor a team, leverage my knowledge of big data, database design and administration, draw upon the family (and personal) history of engineering, or even consider a director or executive position (if someone will have me, I'm so much better in a supporting role).
If you need someone with my background or experience please reach out. Thanks again Keyin College!
