Need Advice: "Developer Training" doesn't feel helpful and I am not sure what to do
I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place and I would like some perspective and/or advice from other developers or programmers to help decide what my next course of action should be.
I got into software dev around the beginning of the pandemic when my institution hired a new supervisor for a new team called the Application Team (subset of ITS) specifically for creating customer business applications on campus for different business needs. It started as taking over support for customer Microsoft Access Applications that were initially suported by a contractor for over 15 years.
After getting to the start of the 2nd year, we had trouble keeping other developers on because the pay isn't high enough to keep a new developer on longer than a couple months. Needless to say, this opened up an opportunity for me to start learning C# and .NET and gave me an ability to get promoted with new responsibilities. It was always understood that I will be learning on the job.
That being said, fast forward to the last year or so, I am the most senior developer (under my supervisor - who has 40+ years of experience) and we were able to promote non-IT people to beginner developer positions - with the idea my supervisor will help train them in how to do software development and the full software dev life cycle etc.
Now, to where I am struggling. My supervisor is holding 2 weekly meetings, at 3 hours a piece, where he goes through the development of a real product we need to implement for our institution. I was asked to join these meetings because I could add some additional value but also because since I am still relatively new to development work, we thought it might be good to reinforce some of the stuff I've learned on top of learning new concepts we are building out for the first time(like apply business rules with a MVC type of paradigm).
The main problem is I am struggling with these meetings because they are so basic and I find it hard to pay attention and stay focused and engaged through our meetings. Some of the stuff I just can't learn by watching 3 hours of demonstration, it's not a good a way of learning for me. I personally need to see a demonstration, then I need to apply it to my own situation and "play" with it to make sure I fully understand. Simply watching someone do all the work and talk through the process isn't effective for me to learn - at least to a point. Especially if we don't have "work" to do that helps reinforce what we are learning in the sessions. I feel like the new developers are getting more out of these sessions than I am because I just don't find them all that helpful, even though I do see nuggets of good information from time to time.
Does this sound like a situation where I just need to "man up" and accept I am going to have to go through this 6 hours every week, even though the benefits feel marginal at best and a waste of time at its worse. The last training sessions and this one has been watching him debug a business rule for almost 3 hours between 2 days and I just don't feel like this is helpful or I am learning because I can' stand to pay attention for longer than 15 minutes. It's making me wonder if I made a mistake switching to software dev a little bit. Maybe I need an attitude adjustment. Maybe I need to speak to my supervisor about the training, but I feel he's more focused on our new developers right now. I do agree that some of this is very important and I need to be involved with some of the training due to the decisions we make as a team but I feel like this time could be better put towards self taught training.
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read and reply. I really appreciate it.
Honestly, meetings like the one you describe don't sound like they'd be helpful for anyone, especially not beginners. You say you "feel like" the new developers are getting something out of them, but have you actually asked them? My guess is, they're just as bored as you are, but doing a better job of hiding it.
Agreed this sounds horrific to me. I wouldn't be able to learn that way, I'd probably end up resenting it
Honestly, appreciate you all confirming this. Makes me feel less crazy or less of the problem. I was at the point that I felt like I needed to go get tested for ADHD cause of my inability to focus on these presentations at times.
Thank you for responding. I think you may be on to something in that sense regarding the new developers. I think they are still so new in software dev that they probably aren't even sure what is the most effective for them but the reason why I say they are probably learning better than I am is due to the fact that they worked (watched) him design and create business rules DLLs and standards which we didn't have when I first created my first program (I started about 2 years before others, while the team was still brand new and we couldn't get devs from outside to stay longer than a year).
Is the atmosphere appropriate to you taking a laptop with you and doing some personal research/training while the lecture is happening? You can be involved when necessary and catch important tips but otherwise can treat it like self-led learning time.
Thank you - I appreciate the response. That is what I do but I felt like I wasn't being very helpful in both situations because I was attempting to multitask and I am honestly terrible at it. Recently, I've tried to try my best to focus on the content, thinking I was struggling due to multi-tasking but I think it's just the way he's teaching. He is an amazing supervisor/boss so I know I can talk to him but I feel like I need to come to him with concrete suggestions before doing so. I don't like raising problems without solutions personally. I do appreciate the thought though, maybe that is what I should revert to doing.
ehhhehehe
Seriously though, maybe the guy is not meant for teaching. A lot of amazing performers in industry suck at teaching the relevant skills, and vice versa.
lol fixed- thank you. I think you are on to something there - I don't necessarily think he is a bad MENTOR but I don't think he's taught programming before so he doesn't have a formal system for teaching us. I am wondering if there might be a way I can try to work with him to try to make what we are learning/teaching easier to digest for myself cause i am certain it would benefit the other devs.