My seventh week as a Mission Techie.

This is now my seventh week in the Mission Program. It’s nice to know that we are nearing graduation. It’s as if it was just yesterday when we (co-techies) first met and telling our goals that we want to achieve after program to each other.  So far, all the goals that I put in my list during the first day are being met.  I remembered that I said “I want to develop skills and knowledge from the field that I have chosen (Networking).”

All days of this week was so productive. We (my co-techies) learned how to disassemble an iMac with the supervision of Leo. I find the process difficult, but challenging as well, because you need the proper tools and people to work on just one computer. For example, the screen, you need another person to hold it while detaching it from the base because some of the screws keep falling while doing the process. It was tedious, but the feeling was so rewarding after you did it [No wonder why iMacs are so expensive (smile)].

Another thing that I enjoyed this week is the Mock Interview. A mock interview by the way is a pretend or fake interview wherein a recruiter is giving you questions and you have to answer it similar to an actual interview. It was funny because I screwed up my first mock interview. My mistake is I try to memorize my “elevator pitch” line by line – Because of that, I easily forget everything and ended up pausing for each question that was thrown to me. What I learned to prevent that from Ms. Olivia is to memorize your elevator pitch by bullet. In that way, you can easily say it with your mind and it will come naturally. Hopefully, I would be better on my next mock interview.

Also this week, we were ask to make an essay regarding “Social injustices and equality” with Mark during financial capability session. I was making my third paragraph in my essay, when I realized that I’m doing a dramatic story rather than an essay. I have to rewrite everything again and submit it before next week. I know, I am really a crazy guy sometimes (laugh).

One more thing that I have enjoyed this week is the crimping of rj45 (registered jack 45) cables. Crimping is the process wherein you compressed the rj45 modular plug to the wires from the utp (unshielded twisted pair) cable so that they will connect to each other. The video shows that it was easy but in reality it is difficult in your first try because you have to make sure every wire perfectly connects to the plate. I know it because I’ve done it once back from my country.

Lastly, we studied the conditional if-else statements in Java programming with Mark. This lesson was one of my favorites because it is an upgrade to normal ifs statement. Because if you only have “if statement,
you have to put all the conditions that are possible to make you program running smoothly. But what if there are one thousand or one million possible conditions, would you put all those statements in the program (No, right)? But by adding “else” statement you are telling the computer that all other conditions that I haven’t stated yet, please do this. It’s like summarizing all those conditions into one block of statement, which I find really helpful and powerful.

I think that is all for now -- two more entries to go before graduation (yay!). I will keep you posted more on the life of a Mission Techie. Please stay tuned (smile)!

-Switch and Tower Port chop