Dev Academy is over, for my cohort at least. A fresh batch of students will be arriving to start Phase 1 in just over a week.
Getting back to normal life is weird. You’re with the same group of people, learning intensely for 10-12 hours almost every day, for 9 weeks straight. Dev Academy somehow doesn’t feel like normal life, almost doesn’t feel real, but it’s much more real than normal life in some ways. Everyone is so honest and open. It’s so supportive, and you’re surrounded by the most incredible people.
The last day of Dev Academy was really touching. We presented our final projects in the morning. Richard, Andrew, Taylor and I had created Skirmish, a multiplayer war game played on Google Maps. I can’t do justice to the presentations, so I will post the video once it’s available. I was really impressed by the level of quality of each of the final projects, especially from the technically weaker team.
After that, we took our first field trip of the course, and headed up to Central Park. We did an exercise where everyone divides into two parallel rows, facing each other. Each person is in turn blindfolded and walks between the two rows. Each person standing quietly gives the blindfoldee a piece of praise as they pass.