Introduction to students

1. What is IT?
How and where to learn it?

3. Agenda
 What is IT?
 What is a goal?
 How to find an improvements areas
 Documenting
 How to get to your goal
 Best practice
 Q&A

4. What is IT?
 The broad subject concerned with all aspects of
managing and processing information, especially within
a large organization or company

5. Fundamental knowledge for IT engineer
Scripting languages (bash, python,…)
Frameworks (MVC, Angular, …)
Core technologies(Java, C#, C++, JS?),
Principles Paradigms Algorithms
Operation systems
fundamentals
Data
Structures
Math

6. What is a goal (Self improvement as a
goal)
 What is a goal? (dictionary descriptions)
 The terminal point of a race
 The end toward which effort is directed

7. The terminal point of a race
 Build a list with all goals you have collected
 Find priorities, no equal priorities allowed
 Estimate each one
 Estimate available time for grow
 Build plan
 Follow

8. The end toward which effort is directed
 Build a list with all goals you have collected
 Find priorities, no equal priorities allowed
 One by one find a small activity you should do each day to get to
your goal
 Stop on a reasonable amount of items
 Do each day

9. How to find an appropriate goal
 Feedback. Ask a friend/teacher for the feedback
 Develop own projects and relay on a project needs. Historical
data and data analysis
 Code review – gold bullet 
 Personal gaps in a fundamental knowledge.
 Career path. Each #positionname has some specific knowledge.
Career paths are shared by companies sometimes
 Personal wishes

10. A bit of bureaucracy.
Should you document your goals?

11. Gap
 Where are we right now (X)
 Where should we be reaching a goal (Y)
 Gap is (Y)-(X)

12. A bit of bureaucracy.
Should you document your gaps?

13. SMART/SMARTER principles
 Specific – target a specific area for improvement.
 Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of
progress.
 Assignable – specify who will do it.
 Achievable - I like it more.
 Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given
available resources.
 Time-bound – specify when the result(s) can be achieved.
 SMARTER - Evaluated and Reviewed

14. Specific
 Five 'W' questions
– What: What do I want to accomplish?
– Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
– Who: Who is involved?
– Where: Identify a location.
– Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

15.  How will I know when it is accomplished?
 Indicators should be quantifiable
 How: How can the goal be accomplished?
 When?
Measurable + Assignable + Time-bound

16.  Does this seem worthwhile?
 Is this the right time?
 Does this match our other efforts/needs?
 Are you the right person?
 Is it applicable?
Realistic

17. Gap description
 Gap – Want to get knowledge of algorithms and data structures
 Comment - Getting experience in a Algorithms (search (binary and graph),
sorting (merge, quick), basic analysis). Data structures (list, queue, stack,
trees, graphs)
 Actions:
Me:
 Go through the (https://www.coursera.org/course/algo)
 Go through the (https://www.coursera.org/course/algo2)
 Go through the (Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition, by Thomas H.
Cormen)
Mentor:
 Check all lab exercises done for both courser courses to have correct,
clean, readable code. For all labs usage of data strictures should be correct
and optimal.
Evaluation criteria:
 All lab tasks for both coursera courses done and appropriate certificate
acquired. Verbal test with mentor passed.

18.  Experts opinion and user groups
 Certification paths and prerequisites
 Stanford (introduction to computer science | programming
methodology from Mehran Sahami)
 MIT (http://ocw.mit.edu/)
 Coursera specializations and separate courses
(https://www.coursera.org)
– https://www.coursera.org/course/algo
– https://www.coursera.org/course/algo2
– https://ru.coursera.org/course/linalg
 ItunesU
 Udemy
 Pluralsite
Best practice – finding a gap/goal/plan

19. Best practice – code challenge
 Topcoder.com
 HackerEarth.com
 Codebyte.com
 Projecteuler.net
 http://www.reddit.com/r/dailyprogrammer
 https://codility.com/train/
 Spoj.com
 CodeChef.com
 CodeEval.com
 HackerRank.com

20.  Reading as a base but not the only one activity
 Read
– Стив Макконнел. Совершенный код
– Гради Буч, Объектно-ориентированный анализ и проектирование с
примерами приложений, 3-е издание, 2007 (rus translation is shit)
– Бертран Мейер, Объектно-ориентированное конструированию программных
систем, 1995, 2-е издание (Лучшая книга по ОО-технологиям ever!)
– Эрих Гамма и др., Приемы объектно-ориентированного проектирования,
1994
– Фриман и Фриман. Паттерны проектирования, 2003
– Мартин Фаулер, Рефакторинг. Улучшение существующего кода, 1999
 Create reading lists
Best practice – READ

21. Best practice – part 3
 Exit criteria is “must have”
 Practice as “mast have” condition
 Review as “must have”
 Ask for a help from a SME
 Specific in every point.
 Do not mess with goals
 Do not overkill - do not try to put everything (for example for a
junior to senior in Sigma Software). It's better to have 3-4 well
defined goals than 20 not defined.
 Do it once for a half an year
 Share
 Try to find background projects to play with.

22. Eugene Yakovlev
PM, Head of Odessa Office
Sigma Software