So, after about 2.5 weeks off, I’ve switched from WEB23 (full-time) to WEBPT10 (part-time). Its still a full-stack cohort, and its the same material, but the pace is slower and the schedule is different. For those of you who are curious about the differences, here’s what I’ve learned and experienced so far:

Schedule

First, the schedule is different. Part-time is essentially twice as long as full-time. A 5-day full-time week is a 10-day part-time week. Also, we work for about 8 hours, full-time. With part-time, its something like 3-4 hours, and its fuzzier.

Full time looks something like this:

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thurs	Fri
Careers lecture
Lecture	Lecture	Lecture	Lecture	Sprint Challenge
Guided project	Guided project	Guided project	Guided project
Project	Project	Project	Project
1-on-1 meeting	1-on-1 meeting	1-on-1 meeting	1-on-1 meeting	1-on-1 meeting
Standup meeting	Standup meeting	Standup meeting	Standup meeting	Standup meeting

Part-time looks like this:

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thurs	Fri / 5th Day
1-on-1 meeting	Lecture		Lecture
	Guided Project		Guided Project
	Project	Project	Project	Project
		Standup meeting		Standup meeting
Careers lecture

 

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thurs	Fri / 5th Day
Lecture		Lecture		Sprint Challenge
Guided Project		Guided Project
Project	Project	Project	Project
	Standup meeting		Standup meeting

Lectures are about 2 hours long, regardless of full or part-time. Careers lectures are about an hour long. With both types, guided projects happen as part of the lectures. With regard to projects, full-timers try to have them complete and submitted on the same day that they’re received, although, I generally took 2 days to finish mine. Part-timers have 2 days by default. Its fuzzier if you factor in time for those who work full or part-time, have kids, or have other responsibilities, in general, but overall, there’s more project time available for part-timers.

With full-time, TL hours happen in the afternoons/evenings during the week. For part-time, they happen on the weekend. One of the big trade-offs is that, overall, part-timers have a little less class/lecture time, but they essentially have twice as much time to work on each lecture’s project as full-timers do.

Meetings

Coming from full-time, I was used to seeing my team every day during standup. I also had a 1-on-1 meeting with our team lead every day. This helped us bond very quickly and work well together as a team/unit. The experience is very different in the part-time group. I just had my first standup meeting last night. Only the TL and 3 other people were present. The others had been excused because of some other commitments. At most, we’ll meet as a team twice a week, and 1-on-1 meetings with my TL will occur every two weeks.

Naturally, I can reach out to anyone I need to, if I want to speak with them more frequently, but in comparison to full-time, it feels something like a ghost town. I’ve noticed something of a disengagement due to this, from my first few days. In WEB23, our team’s chat was frequently updated. We shared resources, talked through coding issues, and just generally got to know each other and joked and supported each other. There’s not much chat in my WEBPT10 group’s channel. Maybe its due to personalities, but I think its also due to a more spaced-out meeting schedule.

The general WEBPT10 Slack channel is similar. There isn’t much engagement outside of lecture time. So are the after-hours, chat and help channels.

I don’t really want to do a direct comparison, but the TL’s methods are also vastly different. My old TL was very hands-on and supportive. He was also super-regimented. The new one is supportive in a softer way, and doesn’t get into technical discussions or share resources the same way at all. Maybe my opinion will change over time, but on Monday night, I was able to scroll up and read through the entirety of the group’s Slack channel in under 10 minutes. That would have maybe put me through 2 or 3 days of history with my old group’s channel.

Lecture

This is going to vary considerably based on the instructor, but I have quickly come to the conclusion that Britt Hemming and Christina Gorton really knew their material and went the extra mile to help us understand it. I already did the Advanced JavaScript unit with WEB23. I’m doing it again with WEBPT10, because I want to drill it into my mind. Its a completely different experience with my current TL.

He’s way more laid-back, less-structured and doesn’t go into examples with the depth that my previous 2 instructors did. During the last lecture, he told us that some things might be possible to do, but Britt and Christine would have actually gone in and walked us through the things that he theorized about. I don’t think that he’s a poor programmer, but he might be new to teaching and less comfortable with coding on-the-fly with a big group, so it feels like he’s cutting corners. Its interesting too in that we had less breaks with him during the lecture, but I feel like we covered less material.

I’ve actually been watching the WEBPT9 lectures from Sean Kirkby and other lectures now. Because we have 2 days, I can afford the time, and I look at it almost like if I was having a lecture per day, like in full-time. Sean’s detail and regimen appeal to me. He also gives a more historical vantage of a lot of topics, which even Britt and Christina didn’t do. I think its because he’s been a developer for 25+ years, which also means that he was in the industry for the same period that I’ve been in I/T. A lot of what he explains is relatable to me.

Initial conclusion

My overall feeling so far is that I’ve moved from the A-team to the B-team. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, myself, and the pacing works for me, but coming from WEB23, there were a lot more resources shared, more engagement from the cohort and the individual team and the TL, and it felt like we challenged each other more to work harder. I didn’t always meet these challenges, but I was able to benefit from seeing them and reviewing them. I’ll have to give this time and see how it works in the long-term.

What I really wish is that there were a mid-point between full-time and part-time. I want the connectedness and support of full-time with the pacing of part-time. If there was something like a half-time, in which we had 2 days to absorb topics, but still met with our team and had 1-on-1’s with our TL every day, I’d love that. It would give me time to review while a topic is fresh and still offer all of the socio-educational perks that I loved in WEB23.