4.12 Systems check – ActiveRecord

10h Today was a very representative day for my Launch Academy experience. I came into the system check feeling ok, but not great about my level of understanding. The ‘meets expectations’ criteria ended up being pretty straightforward, and the ‘exceeds expectations’ criteria felt like another 30% more work. The tricky thing about this week was the activeRecord validations. It’s not always super easy to understand and remember how to do a validation on both the model and the migration/table. I finished and I felt really confident that I got at least 98% of the criteria correct, but there is always that tiny voice of doubt in the back of your mind. It is also a pretty high bar because if you miss a single thing on meets, then you automatically get a ‘does not meet expectations’ regardless of how much you completed on exceeds. In other words it is very black and white, so it can cause some anxiety about making sure you read every. single. word. of the instructions.

I ended up getting my score late in the evening and I was really happy to hear that I got another ‘exceeds expectations!’ One more systems check to go. The day continued to be a very typical system check day because as soon as my worries about passing the test were relieved they just reappeared as worries about getting started on next week’s curriculum (rails!) That’s a positive stress at the very least, because it motivates me to study as opposed to just worrying.

I really like the validation that passing the system check gives me, but I’m trying to not get too dependent on it since there won’t be anything similar in the real world. I don’t want to be the developer who constantly needs to be praised. That sounds unfun.

Tell me what you think.

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