Jen Lu, Full Stack Developer at WorkHands, on Making Apprenticeships Simpler

Intro

Welcome back to another episode of "Interviews," where we dive deep into the world of apprenticeships and how we're making the journey simpler for everyone involved. I'm Patrick Cushing, and today's guest is a very special guest who has firsthand experience navigating the apprenticeship landscape. Jen Lu, a full stack developer from WorkHands, is here to share her unique insights. Jen was the first apprentice in WorkHands' registered apprenticeship program in Virginia, and she brings valuable feedback on how to enhance the apprenticeship experience, especially when it comes to online learning. Stay tuned as we explore Jen's journey and get her thoughts on what could make online apprenticeships more effective and engaging.

Highlights

• Primary Question: How to Make Apprenticeships Simpler?

• Discussion on Apprenticeship Online Class Experience

• Desired Structure and Instruction

• First Area: Class Experience

• Initial classes were purely in video format which provided lack of interaction

• Later classes through Berkeley extension provided more of a structured environment with a presence of an instructor

• Interactivity with assignments, grades, tests, and engagement with professor and students, improved the learning experience

• Second Area: Feedback and Suggestions for Improvement

• Importance of feedback for company growth

• Preference for live instructor sessions where engagement is a requirement

• Reversal of course order - structured learning first, video learning later

• Closing Thoughts and Reflections

• Recap on different formats used by online learning

• Acknowledgement on the importance of feedback and momentum building for apprentices

Transcript

Patrick Cushing:

Everybody, this is Patrick Cushing again with our Making Apprenticeship Simpler interviews. And today I have an incredibly special guest, Jen Lu from the WorkHands engineering team. Jen, I would love for you to introduce yourself, give us some background on your experience with apprenticeship.

Jen Lu:

Hi, I'm Jen. I'm a Full Stack Developer at WorkHands and I did a web developer apprenticeship also at WorkHands, which was really interesting.

Patrick Cushing:

Perfect. So you have a fantastic perspective on apprenticeship. What can we do to make things simpler? Because all day long she works on WorkHands. She was our first apprenticeship apprentice going through our official registered apprenticeship in the state of Virginia. Jen, I have one question for you that I ask of anybody in the apprenticeship ecosystem. If there was something you could make simpler about apprenticeship, what would it be and why?

Jen Lu:

For me, all of my classes that I did for my apprenticeship were online classes. Personally I wished that they were maybe a little bit more structured and provided an instructor that was overseeing everything. The first set of classes that I went through were purely just videos that I had to go through, which I thought were really informational. And I got a lot of good resources from that. But I didn't feel like I was really interacting with the actual material until I got to the second set of courses which I did through Berkeley Extension. And those actually provided an instructor where they had assignments and grades and tests. And it really felt like I was interacting with the professor and some of the other students. And it was just more of a structured environment for me.

Jen Lu:

And that was a lot more helpful when it came to my learning experience.

Patrick Cushing:

Perfect. Fantastic feedback for us as we generally look to grow the company as a registered apprenticeship sponsor and build our team in house. I think it's great feedback for anybody who's using online options for the related instruction. And now typically I would ask folks if you had a magic wand and could make this go away, make this simpler, how would you do so? And in our case, I think it's great feedback for WorkHands. As we have more apprentices, we will try to skew more of the content to options that have a live instructor, have a bit more back and forth engagement instead of some of the examples that are a bit more static. But rather than just put words in your mouth, Jen, if there was anything else we could do to make it simpler, aside from just maybe front-loading those courses or swapping them out, is anything else you think that could be done to make that experience of online learning a lot better for apprentices across the country?

Jen Lu:

Not really. I think just personally, if I could go through it again, I would have just reversed the order that I did the courses so that the instructor led courses were in the beginning and then the video courses were in the back. Then I'd have that structured learning first and then I could go off and do my own thing with the video learning.

Patrick Cushing:

Sure. Like build some momentum, get used to mixing coursework and the actual work work all at the same time. Perfect. Well, Jen, fantastic reflection on online learning for the apprenticeship system and for WorkHands as we look to improve the way we run our own apprenticeships. Thank you very much for your time and I'll see you in a few minutes at the next meeting.

Jen Lu:

Thank you!