brainbaking/content/about.md

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Hi, Im Wouter Groeneveld About Me.jpg true

And I'm currently an experienced multiclass ...

... Baker

I hold a professional bread baker's degree so naturally I love to think of myself as a real baker. I highly respect the craft and enjoy kneading dough with my hands. I specialize in sourdough bread, as you can read at my bread baking blog. I've written a book on the science of sourdough bread (in Dutch).

... Researcher

I am a PhD researcher at the Faculty of Engineering Technology, KU Leuven. My academic research focuses on identifying and amplifying non-technical skills in software engineering education, primarily targetting creative problem solving. I sometimes blog about my work.

... Programmer

I'm an experienced software engineer and took on various roles from agile coaching to technical lead. I hold a Master of Computer Science. I also dabble in open source, have a peek at https://git.brainbaking.com/. Im a big Test Driven Development advocate. I teach software engineering techniques in both industry and academia.

... Writer

I like fountain pens and journaling. I love jotting down stuff and possibly converting that into blog posts, academic articles, books, or any other medium where I can express my enthusiasm.

... Teacher

Transforming knowledge into well-digestible material is my mission. As they say: the best way to learn something is to teach it - I couldn't agree more. Besides various formal teaching assignments at KU Leuven, I've also coached software developers in different companies, and occasionally organize bread baking workshops.


Buy Me a Coffee

If you found my work amusing and/or helpful, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi or via PayPal---if you don't mind I'll use it to drink a cup of tea instead. I also like to hear your feedback via:

Thanks!


What's a multiclass?

Multiclassing in Dungeons & Dragons (yes, I'm also a nerd) allows your character to advance in more than one class. Instead of playing as the conventional mage or fighter, you can be both. This concept neatly summarizes my vision of a profession.

There are multiple concepts all defining the same thing:

  • Emilie Wapnick uses the term multipotentialite. A multipotentialite is someone with many interests and creative pursuits.
  • Philosopher Johann von Wowern wrote in 1603 about polymaths: knowledge of various matters, drawn from all kinds of studies [...] ranging freely through all the fields of the disciplines, as far as the human mind, with unwearied industry, is able to pursue them.
  • Another lovely term is renaissance men: a person with many talents or areas of knowledge. Da Vinci is the prime example of such a man. Of course I couldn't possibly live up to these expectations. The notion of a homo universalis might also be stretching it a bit too far.

I used to be only good at programming because I thought, as a Computer Scientist, you specialize instead of generalize. But the more I worked with computers, the more my hands itched to do something else. So nowadays I love to go wide and pass on that enthusiasm for knowledge on any level.


Where good ideas come from: books

I keep an active Goodreads account where I manage everything I've read and want to read. I invite you to join the community there. Marking a book as read and writing a (short) review never was that satisfying...

I used to be almost exclusively a fantasy reader. Now I mostly read non-fiction on the most diverse topics, but I do have a soft spot for things like philosophy, art, mindful food and software engineering.

These are the latest 12 books I've read: