Unemployed for a month

Maria Ines Montenegro — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:13:09 +0000

After I got laid off, I decided to write down my experience while being unemployed. It was my first full time job as a backend developer and the company went through some restructuring; hence, my first time being fired as well. Having no job all of the sudden was quite scary and uncertain. I felt sad and unmotivated for the first few days but nothing a crying and journaling session couldn't fix. My main concern was establishing a routine that could help me stay productive while job hunting and not giving in to laziness. So I made a journal where I kept track of a daily to-do list and recorded some insights I discovered while struggling to stay disciplined and motivated. Through this post I'll be sharing what I learned as the weeks went by.

1st Week

Day 1

Should I set an alarm? Should I take a week or some days off before I start looking for a job? Should I take a shower? These are some of the questions I asked myself the first Monday I was unemployed.

I strongly believe that having a daily routine is essential for your productivity and even mental wellness. As I was going to be without a job, God knows for how many months, I felt the need to establish some ground rules in order to stay active.

RULES:

Wake up at 7:30 am
Take a shower right after waking up
Sit down at a table (not the couch) to get things done: online courses, job hunt, freelance
Write a journal entry
Go to the gym at least 4 times per week

I decided to take a week off just to focus on redefining my short term goals and think about what kind of job I wanted to apply for...

2nd Week

1st day of my routine

Didn’t get up early…well I did but then went back to sleep because I was very tired. Turns out the more you sleep, the more tired you are.

1st day (for real)

I followed my rules and I actually got things done. I enrolled in an online course and finished updating and fine-tuning my resume for future job applications.

The rest of the week ran smoothly; I got to read lots of articles, apply for some jobs and prepare for interviews. I live in Guatemala, interviews for CS related jobs are not typically the whiteboard ones and mainly consist on sharing what you've learned. Part of my preparation was going through my resume and making sure I felt comfortable talking about every single item. For me, writing down paragraphs to synthesize my working experience is very useful as I tend to get nervous when speaking to interviewers. Having a structured and complete narrative is crucial so I also practiced answering common personal interview questions such as strengths, weaknesses, challenges I've had, and most importantly explaining why I was currently unemployed. These are some posts that helped me prepare:

3rd Week

Got my first interviews! Some observations:

Review basic concepts about every skill you put on your CV (in my case, I didn't remember some basic stuff about databases)
Admit when you don't remember or don't know something
Don't be so awkward (try to hide your RBF)

Interviews can be draining. Especially if they ask you heavy introspecting questions such as: What would your best friend say about you? How would you describe yourself? and so on. Although personally I don’t like answering such questions, I find it useful to every once in a while actually do think about your qualities and the relationships you are cultivating. Another thing to have in mind while being interviewed is the work environment; take a look around and imagine yourself actually being there on a daily basis.

I was feeling kind of overwhelmed…I negotiated a freelance, had to keep doing an online course, and was currently on two job processes. Some days I didn’t have anything to do and just roamed on the internet and other days I got lots of emails and phone calls. I tried to keep everything organized, kept my to-do list up to date and scheduled all the appointments on my calendar.

4th Week

During this week I kept waking up at a reasonable hour, not always at the same time though. I focused on getting some final paperwork and completing some evaluations for a job offer. Huge part of this month was making decisions; what freelances to pursue, what jobs to apply for, and ultimately, what job offers to consider and negotiate. Even though I spent plenty of time running errands, I always made sure I sat down at a table with my computer at least once a day to go through my to-do list and write on my journal. I kept reading and listening to podcasts but also made time to reconnect with some friends.

Takeaways

Dealing with uncertainty has always made me uncomfortable and anxious. During this month I experienced living day by day and being ok with not having a clear plan. I learned a lot about myself through job application processes; from deciding what kind of job I wanted now, to reconsidering my personal qualities and reflecting upon past mistakes. Self-discipline and organization were key in order to accomplish my goals; this is what worked for me:

Establish a routine (this can be an iterative process)
Use a calendar and reminders
Update to-do list
Journal everyday

But mainly, no matter how you structure your days, my advice is: don't overthink and just start getting things done.

Trapezoidal Rule in F#

Maria Ines Montenegro — Sat, 19 May 2018 19:13:28 +0000

Numerical is approximate; analytical is exact.

A numerical method is a tool used to find a numerical solution to a problem which can be difficult to solve analytically.

Mostly done by computers, this approach is a complete set of instructions that are executed in order to find a solution. With this being said,
the Trapezoidal Rule is a numerical method used to find definite integrals. The most common application for this method is to find the
area under a function in a given set of intervals. Finding this area is typically done using Riemann sums, but this method proves to be more exact because it uses trapezoids instead of rectangles.

Reimann sum
Trapezoidal Rule

In this case, I implemented this numerical method using F# which is a functional programming language. First, I chose the function to integrate; in this case sin(x):

let f x = System.Math.Sin(x)

The algorithm has to receive the intervals (a,b) through which it will find the area and a number (N) of trapezoids to form.
With these parameters, it can now calculate the length of each trapezoid:

let h = (b - a)/N

By Mkwadee at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The formula for this method is the following:

I created two functions in order to calculate the formula above:

let rec sum_recursive (xi:float) (h:float) f (N:float) (iter:float) =
    if iter = N then
      xi
    else
      let xi_1 = xi + h*f(h*iter)
      sum_recursive xi_1 h f N (iter+1.0)

let trapezoidal (a:float) (b:float) f (N:float) =
      let h = (b - a)/N
      let left_side = h/2.0*(f(a)+f(b))
      left_side + sum_recursive 0.0 h f N 0.0

This method can be used for things like: finding how much fluid is flowing through a specific area, calculating the work needed to move an object at a certain speed, or even finding the center of mass of an object.

Overall, learning to program a numerical method has enabled me to relate mathematical concepts, that are normally just seen in class; with programming, which is something I actually use in my day to day life. Furthermore, this was also my first time working with a functional programming language such as F#; which I ended up enjoying.

Here's my complete code
Hope you find it useful!

References

Understanding the trapezoidal rule
Trapezoidal Rule
How to approximate area with the trapezoid rule

DEV Community: Maria Ines Montenegro