It’s been a hectic, jam-packed, exhilarating two weeks at Hack Reactor. As our third week comes to an end it’s time for me to take a moment to lean back and meditate on the plethora of things I’ve learned.

Hack Reactor’s rapid iteration teaching style takes some getting used to, and a side-effect of that is a warped sense of time. The level I was at on Monday is so drastically different from the level I’m at in this moment that it may as well have been a month ago. This seems to be a common feeling amongst my cohort.

Last week I touched lightly on sprints, which are the focal point of HR’s initial six weeks: two-day coding projects designed to immerse you in a particular coding concept. In week one our sprints were interpolated with lectures but we’ve shifted away from this, allowing us much more time at the pairing stations exploring the code. Our sprint topics were also more challenging than last week, focusing on inheritance, algorithms and the D3 library in week 2 and plunging into servers and backbone in week 3. Backbone was infamously difficult for many in the cohort to grasp, but by the end of the week I feel I have a much better understanding of the MVC model.

The end of the week is relieving not only because we get a day off but also because we generally feel significantly more confident with coding than we did six days prior.

My sprint rhythm thus far has generally been to move full-speed into the project in the first day, then finish basic requirements by morning of the second. This leaves me with plenty of time to review code or explore the extra credit sections (which are always included, and sometimes even have a ‘nightmare mode’). It’s a good system that allows for differing skill levels; some HR students already have a fair amount of CS experience while others began coding only half a year ago. I generally fall toward the middle of this spectrum.

In week 2 we also began one of my favorite segments of the day, toy problems. Every morning is kicked off by a short problem similar to what we may be asked during a job interview. As a lover of puzzles I enjoy this single hour dedicated to a) discussing solutions and algorithms related to the previous day’s problem and b) hacking away at a brand new snippet of code. Of note was our latest problem, where we had to set every word in a paragraph to change to a random color every second. Maybe not the most practical exercise, but good practice for working with jquery and DOM-related events.

The atmosphere and sense of community at Hack Reactor is extremely welcoming, and likely contributes to everyone’s success and ability to absorb the material. Everybody is here for (more or less) the same reason, which is to become amazing javascript software engineers. Staff helps especially to foster positivity, and class shepherds are often walking around to check in with pairs. I’ve never once felt uncomfortable with the people here, which may or may not be raising my standards for future jobs.

There are many aspects of student life to talk about and it’s difficult to list them all here, but just know that I have loved my experience and development as a programmer so far. Look out for my next check-in, where I stray away from the usual and tackle my first technical blog post!