Leah Filkin

7.15 AM 

Wake up

It is a Thursday today. I have a cup of tea at home and carpool to work with my friend who works nearby.

9.00 AM

Arrive at work

I set up for work and say hi to my graduate cohort. On Thursdays we all come into the office (other days we can work from home) so its nice to see their faces in person again. There is a company wide meeting (across Australia and New Zealand) being held so there are more people in the office than usual. There is a barista set up in the kitchen, so I go and grab a coffee.

9.15 AM

Work on presentation

Each Monday one person in our cohort does a presentation on something related to Data Structures and Algorithms (within code / programs). I am doing my presentation on Monday, and it will be about the data structure HashTable. I begin researching for the presentation and setting up slides to present with.

10.30 AM  

Company meeting

The company-wide meeting begins. There are talks from executives and the CEO, who span across Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland. All three locations watch in unison and share company-provided breakfast and coffee.

11.30 AM

Stand up

My cohort has a "stand up" at this time every day where we talk about what we did the day before and what we plan on doing today. This includes cohort graduates in Melbourne and Sydney. Even though we are in three different locations we work in unison and talk to them online every day.

12.00 PM

Mentor meeting

I have a daily meeting with my mentors where we pair on coding challenges and other things. They are both established developers in the company although one of them has become a software architect as he is an incredibly talented developer. Becoming a mentor is voluntary so both my mentors are always eager to help me out even if they have busy schedules and lots of other meetings. Usually we meet at 10:45am (8:45am their time) but because of the company meeting we postponed. Pairing involves one person typing and the others "navigating" i.e. telling the typer what to put down. You swap positions every time a feature is implemented. I find this really useful and fun because I get to see how they would code things vs how I would.

12.45 PM

Lunch

I sit down and eat lunch with the other Auckland graduates. We try to have lunch together unless one of us has a meeting during lunch time.

1.30 PM

Presentation writing

I go back to writing my presentation. Usually I would have some coding exercises to do, but because me and my mentors are pairing on my current exercise, I do not work on it alone in my spare time.

2.30 PM

Pool time!

Us four Auckland graduates have a pool competition going on, so we decide to play two games. Me and my teammate lost both times so now the tally is 4 - 1, and me and my teammate are losing!

3.00 PM

Presentation writing

For the rest of the day I work on my presentation, as I never knew what HashTables were until I got assigned the topic. I thought it would be easy but its actually a lot more complex than I thought!

5.00 PM

End of work day

I leave the office to go home after a day of work.

6.00 PM

Gym

I participate in a gym class that I go to every Thursday. I really enjoy going to the gym after a day of work. I feel like, after sitting down for majority of the day, moving my body feels good!

7.30 PM

Home

I get home and make dinner. I like to finish my day off either visiting friends or just relaxing at home. Today I decide to play some playstation games online!