Choosing my bootcamp
Last week I completed my first week of software engineer bootcamp, and here are my first reflections. As a little bit of context, I am on the fast track Manchester Codes part-time bootcamp , designed to take you to full stack engineer in 6 months. The curriculum is designed around 2 evening classes, a Saturday drop in and an advised minimum of 14 hours self-study a week. Manchester Codes have their own learning platform which is accessed via the Slack channel. Slack is the main tool used for communication among teams in the tech industry so it’s important to be familiar and comfortable it.
Prior to signing on the metaphorical line with Manchester Codes, I did a lot of research. This decision to switch careers has been about 12 months in the making (I am a full-time PA). I’ve been aware of coding bootcamps for a good while, as I have friends who have taken this route as well as friends who went into software development through the more academic route. So why take on this 20-hour weekly commitment on top of my full-time job now? To be honest: COVID-19. I am at home all day every day and although work has been stressful (and continues to be so) without the hustle and bustle of office life, I quickly realised how unhappy and unfulfilled I am in my job. It was time to make a proactive decision.
I feel, at this point, I probably owe a bit of an apology to the staff at Manchester Codes for the rigorous way I questioned and queried what the course would be like. Several Google hangouts, one virtual class, and a whole practice module later I made my commitment, and I am happy to say, no regrets so far!
What did week 1 look like?
Having completed the “Introduction to Programming” module on the Manchester Codes platform and being added to our cohort Slack channel, we were all very excited to get going. The cohort itself is 15 people and it is worth noting here that Manchester Codes have adopted a hybrid model for now (virtual teaching with face-to-face as an option), having previously been fully face-to-face. This was a huge factor in my decision as I am 1 hour away by train from their Manchester base.
Every class starts with “stand-up” where we go around and reflect on what we have been working on, progress and any areas for improvement/help. I really enjoy this because it creates a safe environment where you can share struggles but also celebrate the successes. For me, the team feeling was strong straight away. The cohort also has a buddy system, so you are paired up and support each other, another thing I really enjoy.
After stand-up we started to individually work through the Programming Foundations module, which started with several videos and collated articles about effective working and learning, being a junior developer and building an online presence. I particularly loved this TED talk from psychologist Carol Dweck, so much so I ordered her book, Mindset. To me, the in-depth quality of this welcome page was incredibly positive as it shows the curriculum is designed to support you in a holistic way.
Next up, was setting up our development environment. This is where we all felt like we were getting to be proper coders as we installed node.js, npm, git, VS Code with ESLint and generated SSH keys. Mind a little bit blown and slightly concerned I’d broken my Mac; it was time to start playing with the Command Line.
Okay, call me geeky, but I have been loving command-line interface (CLI). It’s quite exciting what you can get the Terminal to do with a few key taps. The learning material on the platform guided us through several commands including how to navigate, create, read and manipulate files and directories. We then moved on to some slightly more advanced commands; pipes, wildcards and shebangs before being thoroughly warned about sudo (superuser) mode which can in fact delete your entire hard drive! All this knowledge was then put to practice in a practical bit of work which we eventually pushed to GitHub.
My brain is tired (and excited) just typing about it!
My Key Take Aways
Step Away - One thing I wasn’t quite prepared for were the highs cracking something and the lows of struggling, in turn. I have found stepping away from the computer invaluable; sometimes it is just not the right time to try and solve that one thing.
Consolidate your learning – I am a note keeper and a kinaesthetic learner. Reading off a webpage does not work for me, and I will never learn well that way. I consolidate my learning by writing it down, verbalising it and practically applying it. Though I am signed up to this bootcamp and doing all the work within it, I am still tapping into Codecademy and FreeCodeCamp when I need or want to.
Ask for help – generally people don’t want you to fail, and the whole Dev community are helpful and love solving a problem. A problem shared is a problem halved right? Stack overflow is about to be in your top 5 websites, believe me. Also, everyone has stuff going on, what you struggle with, someone else will help you out and vice versa. It’s a marathon not a race.
Be brave – I really need to trust myself a bit more. Sometimes I know the answer but I’m too scared to see an error or fail message, so I look it up first, feel satisfied with myself and then type it in to my terminal. My learning would be so much better if I just went for it, and compared to how I was feeling on Tuesday, this has already improved.
The learning feels very fast paced, but I completely love it. Here’s to week two!