Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 35 seconds.

There's something about programming for the clever, critical and logical person that makes it alluring and addicting. There are people out there that will always think that there is a better or efficient way to handle a task at hand.

I personally have frequent anecdotes wherein I really don't want to do redundant tasks and I use coding to automate these tasks for me. And just that mentality influenced my interest in wanting a career that encourages me to code. From then on, I know I wanted a career in Software Development or Software Engineering.

I eventually got a job in this field but I really had no clue about the practices and tools being used for this discipline. I essentially know how to code, but some of the terms aren't even familiar to me. But there really is a lot to consider before you can finally deploy your code.

I'm grateful that fresh hires are trained in my previous job and they accept that new recruits may come from different backgrounds. They know that a baseline or synchronization is needed before we are tasked with serious work. During our onboarding training, I'm very intimidated by my colleagues at that time cause I felt like I was the odd one out. I had an undergraduate degree for Electronics and Communications Engineering, not Computer Science. So in some sessions they would already know what are being taught and I would be in awe with the different tools used.

So for anyone who is feeling the same I did, I'd like to give a gist of what was being taught to us during our onboarding. I'm not going to write it because, well, we're tech people. We don't like to read a lot. So I'd like to promote this video playlist that essentially discusses the different tools and different practices in the field. I hope this gives you an insight of what you can expect if you take a Software Engineer or Developer job.

The YouTube channel is named Missing Semester. This is a class taught at MIT and in their site they shared their intent for coming up with the lessons:

Classes teach you all about advanced topics within CS, from operating systems to machine learning, but there’s one critical subject that’s rarely covered, and is instead left to students to figure out on their own: proficiency with their tools. We’ll teach you how to master the command-line, use a powerful text editor, use fancy features of version control systems, and much more!

To get an idea of what they teach, these is the title of the videos the published:

• Course overview + the shell
• Shell Tools and Scripting
• Editors (Vim)
• Data Wrangling
• Command-line Environment
• Version Control (Git)
• Debugging and Profiling
• Metaprogramming
• Security and Cryptography
• Potpourri

Don't be intimidated if you don't know any of the words! Test it out by watching the first video!