The end of training

So! I passed my exam with 87%. Hard to believe I'm a certified pega systems architect now. Really feeling chuffed about that, It feels great to have a proper certification under my belt.

This means I'm off to telford on Saturday,  cutting it close, only just managed to get a place in time. My placement is with a team of other gateway consultants, most of which I've been through the academy with.

We're in Brighton right now ready to celebrate getting our employment contracts with netbuilder,  but not just that, being certified in pega AND the fact we're going straight to work on the client site. Which involves, quite a nice bonus.

Christian in recruitment gave me a bit of a nudge to update and I've been meaning to so, here we are :) I will be sure to update with a bit of how life is on site. Although I might need to change the name to 'adventures of a netbuilder consultant'

Here's a picture of Christian who wants YOU for the netbuilder academy.

Week x

Hello!
Its been a while. I just remembered this blog exisited again so decided to come back and check in. Turns out blogger have android app which makes this slightly more convenient. My phone has turned into my number one gadget since coming to worthing.

So I'm in the final weeks of my training with netbuilder, last time I checked in we were about to embark on the experience that is netbuilder gardens. I won't ruin the surprise by telling you all about it but..., all im gonna say is I hope you like gnomes.

We've been doing pega recently and I'll be taking my exam on Wednesday. The photo attached with this is something I like to call the pega wall and personally I think it's a work of art. We've started recreating netbuilder gardens in Pega..., In my solution I'm selling a 9000 pound diamond encrusted gnome. Although I've been so busy studying for the exam and trying to get the system hooked up to a database that you can't actually order it... yet.

I'm feeling confident about the exam so hopefully next time I write I'll have good news.

Week 5.. or 6..

So, it has come to my attention that someone has actually, through the power of the internet, actually..., found and-gasp.., read this blog. I did abandon it a bit, but seeing as it's got a new lease of life, I'll try to update it a little more.

As I was saying it has been a while! Last post was week 1, now i'm nearly on week 6. We just finished our Java module and that was fairly intense, I would compare it to learning how to ride a bike by strapping yourself to a motorbike and rolling down onto the motorway. If that sounds a little extreme, forgive me, because even though we went pretty fast, I've learned a hell of alot. I've gone from "hello world" to a Jukebox with SQL connection, swing and unit testing in about 3 weeks. I'm quite amazed actually that i've managed to achieve so much.

So an intense, but very valuable few weeks.

Tomorrow we will be doing some more business training with some of the folks from Capgemini, it's gonna be a class nearly twice as big, so that will be interesting, the Java has been mostly individual work so i'm looking forward to doing some team activities.

Yesterday I went to a local pool hall by the seafront called 'Slick Willys', with Gareth(General boss of us man) and some other GCs (Gateway Consultants), quite a nice place, some people might call it a dive but, personally, thats how I like it. There was some talk of having a pool table ect at the NETbuilder offices which sounds pretty awesome.

Today is a sunday so i'm using that as an excuse to relax a bit, I seem to have given myself eye-strain from staring at these damn 'computer' things all day so I've taken to keeping my eyes closed when I can, but that can be rather boring so I might of been squinting at you tube a bit. I've come across some cool programming/it channels if anyone is interested I recommend;

The New Boston - for programming. The guys got a good presenting style and is good at simplifying quite complex concepts.
Eli the Computer Guy - for more broad concepts in IT, such as cloud computing, servers, security ect. Maybe not essential learning but good if you're curious and want to fill in some blanks.

One thing I have found out since I came to the NB academy is that i'm not quite as good at cooking as I thought I was.., it's possible I just underestimated my laziness.

For this reason I have mostly been living on sandwiches, I am contemplating actually cooking today.., but.., if I can't put it between two slices of bread.., whats the point?

Anyway i'm going to go contemplate that in a nice dark corner that doesn't hurt my eyes. Just watched a great video, check out this kid, what a wizz, not to mention.., a real life sheldon cooper :P

Adios.

Day 3 Week 1: Thursday

We always cover so much in a day at NetBuilder so really we've done loads. Things that pop into my head are BNMP diagrams

Looks exciting right? - Well they are. I made one for ordering Pizza! 

I joke but it seems like it will be good introduction into programming as it has alot in common with it.

I'm watching the Hobbit right now, this has nothing to do with NetBuilder or the Academy, but none the less, it's good. Lots of CGI. 

We also did about interviews with the client, the basics of that is..., be nice to them or else. There was also business functions, services and processes..., the value chain, business drivers...

We're working on some interview questions for our hypothetical business architecture task at the moment via facebook. It's actually been pretty productive considering I've only got one other team member to join in so far.

The rest of the guys on the course are all great by the way, there's a few I haven't talked to as much as others, but everyone is friendly. It's probably the first time i've been surrounded by people who are taking something as seriously as me, which is a welcome change. Plus it's a pretty small group and i've always preferred working in small classes.

Anyways, lots to do, so thats it for now. Adios. 

Welcome to my blog!

Well, basically in class today the course leader (?) general boss of us man, Gareth suggested we start our own blogs to document our time in the NetBuilder Academy. I quite liked the idea, thought it would be good for me to keep track of what was going on, and just generally felt it could be a good way to blow off steam. So here we go.

I met NetBuilder the graduate recrutement expo at the NEC Birmingham, I talked to literally every company there but I did remember NetBuilder as being particularly friendly. They're a IT consultancy company, well they're alot of things, but I'd be here forever if I tried to tell you about it all, so I suggest you check there website out for more info.

Oddly, the degree I did was Graphic Design for Interactive media, so I didn't fit in easily into many of the natural niches for graduate programs. But (thankfully!) NetBuilder were willing to give me a chance, as they called me up not to long after the expo, for a telephone interview.

As luck would have it, I had decided to move house around this time, and when I was called for a telephone interview, I had managed to cram about 15 mins prep in before hand. Because of this the telephone interview was probably the hardest part of the recruitment process for me, in fact i'm fairly sure I nearly blew it, but managed to claw my way back with some well timed questions about the company and the graduate gateway scheme. I got a call 10 minutes later, telling me I had an assessment day, in a week, which panicked me a bit but hey, if in doubt, say yes. So thats what I did.

I actually had a interview on the same day as my assessment day for Frankie and Bennies, but I figured the IT sector was more lucrative then the italian chain restaurant one. To this day I still think wistfully about how I could be bringing out birthday pasta (I think they do birthday pasta? they do birthday something) to eager customers.

So I got everything sorted for going down to Worthing for the assessment day, booked myself a hotel room and proceeded to study my ass off (which by the way is going to be recurring theme in this blog). The assessment day itself was a pleasant surprise, it was challenging but nothing as stressful as what I'd been imagining. By the end of the day, I felt things had gone pretty well, and I was optimistic about the future.

I was accepted into the scheme and I'll spare you the drama of what it took to get me down here, but down here I am. Though I'm still paying for a room in Leicester as I write this blog.., which makes my wallet weep a tiny bit.

Worthing is a great little town, and I'm loving being by the sea. I felt a little lost the first few days but yesterday was my first day actually going into the NetBuilder offices and things definitely picked up from there as I got some focus about why I'd come down here.

We've started with business architecture which is something I don't know much about. There's alot to learn. 

On the first day we covered testing, scrum, the waterfall model, the V model, a bit about NetBuilder as a company, we started a practical exercise about how to improve a hypothetical company, looking to develop our consultancy skills. We did alot more too..

Today we did how to talk to the cilent. It was really interesting but I have to admit.., I'm getting pretty sick of writing at this point so I'm gonna leave it here. I know it's been a ramble, the rest of my posts should be alot shorter. 

Now, I should probably shower....