The October 2025 Toastmasters Pathways Update

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When Toastmasters introduced Pathways, I created a reference set of tables to make it easy to understand what was in each level. After all, club officers needed to know about all the paths not just their own. The 2025 update changes things enough that it was time to do that again.

As a preview, below shows the projects and their requirements. My full deck is on speakerdeck and shows more details like the required project names for each path and the names of the successful club series, better speaker series, and leadership excellence series options.

There are two versions:

  1. For presentation purposes – includes some UI changes before the reference slides. (I could just barely deliver this in 7 minutes)
  2. Just the reference slides

More important skills/traits in becoming a computer programmer

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One of students on the FIRST robotics team I mentor asked “what do you think is the most important skill or trait in becoming a successful computer programmer?”. I wrote a paragraph about persistence, problem solving and attention to detail commenting I’d choose problem solving if I could only pick one. I also immediately thought this would make a good blog post. So expanding on my top three and also commenting on how these are all important even as AI does more of the coding.

Persistence

Persistence because it feels like you are an hour from being done for days if work. Often when something doesn’t work, there are many possible causes. You have to do experiments to rule causes in or out. Getting frustrated is stressful and doesn’t result in the problem getting solved. Persistence lets you keep plugging away at it. This is especially important when there is a tight timeline or a production system is down. You know you have to get it done quickly even if it feels like you have no idea how close you are.

AI impact: Not taking the first answer to a question or the first code that gets created is a form of persistence. Adding details and trying new things to get what you want still matters. Similarly, I’ve gotten AI to give me leads I might not have thought of by using a variety of prompts.

Problem Solving

Problem solving because that’s essentially what we are doing. Getting a computer to do what we want. Taking a bigger problem, identifying smaller ones, coming up with alternatives on how to solve it – all of these require problem solving ability. I’ve often said that I enjoy doing software development because we get paid to solve problems and do puzzles. While they aren’t called puzzles, once you identify the constraints and rules, getting a solution that fits in them feels a lot like a puzzle.

It doesn’t have to be programming either. I am volunteer coordinator for the NYC FIRST Robotics Competition. Making as many people in their volunteer assignments is an interesting puzzle I get to do every year. I’ve used that skill a few times at work when creating teams for team building activities – creating rules to maximize networking while keeping the teams balanced according to a variety of factors.

AI impact: As you advance in your career, problem solving becomes more important. When you start out, the problems are smaller and tasks come with clearer instructions. I think AI makes problem solving a larger portion of the job earlier in one’s career. You spend less time on syntax and more time in specifying what you want and figuring out why it doesn’t work.

Attention to Detail

Attention to detail because getting one line of code or one setting wrong makes the entire thing go klaput. Whether it is reading an APIs documentation or identifying small differences or thinking of every edge case, attention detail is a key skill. Last week, I was in a rush and trying to figure out why my unit test was working on my machine but not on the build server. I suspected a typo but was tired and didn’t see it. I was also too worn out to think of case sensitivity. (If i had, I’d have done a text compare). Instead, I asked a teammate who is the most detail oriented person on the team. I wasn’t even done explaining what was wrong when he said “does the case matter.” Yup!

AI impact: In the past people used books and reference sheets. Then search engines. Now AI. With all of these, you have to deal with situations where noticing small differences can make a huge difference in your productivity.

What does ChatGPT “think”?

After writing this, I asked ChatGPT to see how my answer as an experience professional compares. ChatGPT noted the most important skills for a beginning/early career programmer are ones to help learn, build confidence and develop good habits early. ChatGPT then identified seven.

The top three were the same as the ones I picked. After that were curiosity/willingness to learn, basic technical foundations, communication/help seeking and enjoyment/playfullness.

I agree with these. I didn’t put technology in my answer because the language you learn isn’t the important thing. Technology changes quickly. I do agree that the foundations matter because it enables you to work with any technology.

Interestingly two of the items showed up in my explanations of other items showing I clearly think they are important: help seeking (asking my teammate about the casing issue) and enjoyment/playfulness (we get paid to solve problems/puzzles)

FIRST Mentor Ready and Volunteer Ready Training + Data Protection Event Training

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FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) release a new online training program for mentors and volunteers. I would have liked more detail on what to expect so writing it down here.

It is easy to get to the training. You go to your dashboard at firstinspires.org and there is a big “Training “FIRST Training” button on the “My Teams” page. The button is also on the volunteer Registration Tab; at least after you volunteer (I don’t remember if it was there before)

Some of the trainings expire. You can see this on your certifications tab in the training tool. I also noted which ones they are here.

Mentor Ready

The first page says you have to do 4 milestones plus the completion and that it take approximately 90 minutes. Not sure how they got 90 minutes as the modules are listed as 15, 60-90, 15, and 15 along with the quiz. Even if you don’t count the quiz, this gets you to more than 90.

It took me a little under an hour, but I’m a fast reader and already familiar with much of the material. (I’ve been mentoring and volunteering a long time). The milestones were:

  • Milestone 1 – Welcome to FIRST – this was estimated at 15 minutes and took me 8. There were 3 Youtube videos embedded that you could watch at 2x speed. (You might have been able to skip them; I didn’t try that). One of the videos you can choose between 4 different ones and pick the one you find most interesting. Two of videos had content to reader lower on the page which you could watch while listening to the videos. Since these were embedded youtube you could also go to different browser tabs and listen.
  • Milestone 2 – Youth Protection Program – This one is long. It says 75 minutes up front and then inside the video says 60-90. It took me 44 minutes. A lot of it was a series of short videos. You cannot speed them up or go to another browser tab during these videos. And since they are short, you also can’t let it play in the background and listen as you do other things. There are two optional modules at the end: one for vendors and one for parents. I skipped those and went straight to a 5-10 minute tests. You are allowed to get one question wrong and you get three attempts. I didn’t get any wrong on my only attempt. This expires August 1, 2026
  • Milestone 3 – Data Privacy – It is listed as 15 minutes, but took me 4. It was just reading and knowledge checks in each part. If the material was new to you, it would take far more than 4 minutes of course. This expires August 1, 2027.
  • Milestone 4 – Role of a Mentor – Also listed as 15 minutes; this one took me 5. It was also just reading and a single knowledge check.
  • Milestone 5 – Mentor Ready Completion – This took maybe a minute. It just clicking. There’s no content in here. The first time I clicked it, I got an error message “This page can only be accessed after you have completed the prerequisites. Welcome to FIRST, Youth Protection, Data Privacy for Mentors, and Role of a Mentor”. I was puzzled because I did take all four modules. The problem was that I hadn’t first clicked on the Mentor Ready training path to start it. I went back and did that. Everything was reflected that I took. Phew.

Volunteer Ready

Volunteer Ready consists of two of the four Mentor Ready milestones – Welcome to FIRST and YPP. You don’t take them again. I just had to enroll in the path and immediately complete it.

Dat Protection for Event Volunteers for the 25/26 season

This course was in my list. I don’t know if it is from signing up as a volunteer (I judge FLL and FTC) or if I’m already in the system as Volunteer Coordinator. I suspect the former is what triggered it because I submitted my volunteer application today.

It didn’t say how long it took but I spent about 35 minutes on it.

This uses a player that pops up in a new window. You control playback speed in the bottom left corner. It mostly videos (you press next 22 times). The right nav shows what will be covered on each one including the knowledge check quiz. And you can go to other browser tabs/windows and listen.

For the six question quiz, you must get a perfect score but have unlimited attempts.

The material was similar to the mentor one so felt redundant doing it again. Some info was different like the mention of VMS, engineering notebooks, etc though. Also this one has a specific year in the title suggesting it has to be done each year.