MakerSquare Day 58: And so it begins... or ends... or ends and begins. Or maybe just goes on (12/5)

So, today was our last official day at MakerSquare, and after some teary-eyed goodbyes, it became clear that a lot of people will probably be around on Monday.

Because even though we're done with one step--the immersive, 12-week course--we've got a lot more to do, both in terms of our development as web developers and in terms of our job search.

That said, I think it's important to take a moment to appreciate how far we've come, both individually and as a group. I remember back to our first day--well, I don't have to remember it, I can just point to my blog post about it here. Back then, we were told to parse a list and the class largely responded with "what a what now?" We were told to model a recipe and I thought about striking a model pose.

Well, OK, maybe we weren't that clueless, but we were pretty close.

And now, after 12 weeks of constant and steady work, all of us had several projects that we could show off pretty successfully. Many of us have already posted about our projects (on reddit and elsewhere) or posted our projects online for everyone to use (more or less). We have portfolios.

Some of us even have interviews and contacts; and all of us have pretty good prospects for the future.

So, I have a bunch more to do today and beyond, and I fully plan to keep up with my blogging. On a more limited scale of course. As we move away from the daily blog, with me memorializing my time at MakerSquare (for potential and actual students to check), I hope to transition more into helpful bits of code I've discovered or made; and a record of projects that I'm working on.

I hope the last 12 weeks of blogging have been helpful or interesting. The last 12 weeks have been both for me.

Also, one last comment about our last day: a week ago, a classmate of mine said that we should have a high-five graduation ceremony, where everyone got to play one song and go around the room high-fiving everyone. At first, I wasn't sure about this idea: is that really how we wanted to go out?

So let me offer this advice for you: if someone asks you if you want to play a song that's meaningful to you and high-five everyone after working really hard for 12 weeks--you say yes.

(For those interested, the songs ranged from triumphant for finishing the course; to hopeful for how we're going to get better at this; to joyful. I can't help but jump to Icona Pop's "I Love It," which was one of the songs on repeat during my finals weeks.)