When I accepted the Software Crafter Apprentice position at HolidayCheck, I thought it would be like in university again. I thought there will be a set of tasks that I need to learn, in order to success. I was wrong in so many ways.

First of all, expecting to have a path drawn by another crafter to follow, has nothing to do with craftsmanship concept. One of the most important thing about craftsmanship is learning. Namely, learning how to learn, learning what to learn and finally figuring out the path to the craftsmanship -of course- with guidance.

Secondly, there is no finish line! After six months, I might become a Software Crafter, but the learning will live on. Learning something new, applying something new, will always carry the crafter to become a better crafter than the previous day. With this in mind, a software crafter will always be an apprentice of future her/himself.

At my previous experiences, the companies were all about rush. I got my hands-on production code usually within a week. Subconsciously I have adopted this rush and I tried to rush my learning at very first days.

Now I know what is really important, I finally found peace. I figured out that I don’t want to repeat my first year ten times, but I want to improve myself each day by learning something new. When it comes to learning, rush has no place.