In fall 2022, I served as an Xpert for the New Media Institute. An Xpert is a student who has has an area of “xpertise” and has shown outstanding skill throughout the NMI classes, therefore is equipped with assisting other students.
As an NMI Xpert, my area of “xpertise” was app and web development. In this role, which counted as class credit, I was available six hours per week through Zoom to help NMI students with any questions or problems they had concerning their app or web development projects. If the question or problem they had wasn’t one I could solve, I directed them to the correct resources where they could find a solution. In addition, I was responsible for various deliverables, like a biweekly critical learning journal, a document with FAQs, and an in-depth and comprehensive tutorial that answered a FAQ and would be valuable to NMI students.
Serving as an NMI Xpert made it clear that teaching others is the best way to learn. By helping students solver their development issues, I was able to practice many of my skills and recall things that, due to lack of practice, I was beginning to forget. In addition, when revising people’s projects I had to be patient and detail oriented since, I realized, everyone has different ways of coding. This experience taught me how to view developing and coding from different angles and perspectives. As I got more practice helping people, I became much more efficient spotting problems and coming up with solutions.
By writing the required deliverables I learned how to translate development and code into words, which is not as easy as it sounds. Acquiring iOS and web development vocabulary and terminology is something I didn’t expect to learn as an Xpert, however, it is one of the most valuable skills I gained in this course.
Overall, this experience was a great opportunity to enhance my development skills, become an efficient problem solver, and learn how to communicate with developer jargon. Furthermore, being an Xpert allowed me to meet many more members of the NMI fam and form further connections!