On ‘Making It’

The journey from 0 to now.


So I just finished posting all the previous entries from my blog over on Tumblr. I’m making the leap to Medium for a few reasons — it seems a bit more popular in the circles I’m getting into and Tumblr looks a little dated compared to this. I just view it as an intermediary before I just get my own site again.

BUT — just wanted to let you all know I have been busy. I’m quite a bit further from the last time. Makes sense, seeing as that was almost 3 and a 1/2 months ago since I last wrote a post.

I’ve applied to App Academy and Dev Bootcamp. I went through all of the application process with App Academy and didn’t get in, but that’s OK. All the work I did is still beyond useful and I honestly enjoyed most of it. I took an entire month off of my current day job just to focus on my learning, and mostly to catch up my Ruby skills with my Python. At this point, I’d say I’m more advanced in Ruby than Python and that’s interesting! I’m hoping to revisit Python again to get a grasp on it soon, but I’ve just been wanting to focus on Ruby since that’s what both App Academy and Dev Bootcamp use.

For App Academy, I did the initial coding challenge and was asked to do the prep work that they ask already accepted students to do since it seemed like I needed a bit more time on learning how to code. They said after I finished the prep work, the next step would be to have an interview. So I took that entire month off of work and got a ton of stuff done and turned in all of the homework and … then they asked me to do a second coding challenge and said after THAT coding challenge, then we’d interview.

I did the coding challenge and the next day I got a form letter rejecting my application with no offer to interview. That’s cool, though. App Academy seems to function by telling people one thing, with little respect for their time and gives them the run around. I get why — it’s hella competative and honestly they can reject anyone for any reason. Their payment model is the best in the accelerator program industry, and as a result, their application process is a bit ruthless. I understand I’m not in the position of power in the situation so my feelings about the matter are fairly unimportant — App Academy doesn’t really care that they lie to some of their applicants and tell them one thing and then do another. They have little to lose. But I figured I’d write this just so anyone applying knows that you may have a similar experience.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t go to App Academy. If I’d had the same experience of being run around and gotten in, I would have DEFINITELY gone. Mostly because of their payment model and I’m just looking to start doing things that I love — although if I had gotten into App Academy AND another program, I would have had a hard time deciding because honestly, if they don’t respect my time and effort as an applicant and are either blatantly lying to applicants or so disastrously organized that they can’t keep straight what they’ve told folks, I’d be a little concerned going there.

So, now, after being rejected from App Academy, I have taken a few weeks to regroup, not lose motivation, rethink my options and get rested after a month of 6+ hours a day of straight work and learning.

I applied to Dev Bootcamp and got offered an interview (I think everyone gets an interview) and the email says to literally expect anything. It asks you to work through CodeAcademy’s Ruby track and read the first few chapters of Search Inside Yourself, along with a slew of “optional” prep work. I’m currently reading Search Inside Yourself and enjoying it, although it’s emphasis on capitalism and it’s strong focus on people who only read books that they think will make them better workers is super alien to me. I’m definitely excited about loving my job, but I can’t imagine only taking the time to read a book on mindfulness because of its applications on worker productivity. It’s definitely funny reading things written for an audience that very isn’t me. Not that I’m not enjoying it — I can definitely separate it’s given lens and make it applicable to my own. I’ve read Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence a few times over, so I feel like I’ve had a pretty good introduction to Search Inside Yourself.

I’m about a quarter way through CodeAcademy’s Ruby track — I’m mostly treating it as review since most of it is things I already know. The things I’ve worked through at this point are:

  1. Beginning Ruby (Chapters 1..11)
  2. Ruby Monk Primer
  3. Ruby in 100 Minutes
  4. TestFirst Ruby by Alex Chaffee
  5. JumpstartLabs Event Manager
  6. Chris Pine’s Learn to Program (Chapters 1..10)
  7. Michael Hartl’s Rails Tutorial (only started reading it)
  8. Zed Shaw’s Learn Python the Hard Way
  9. Zed Shaw’s Command Line Crash Course
  10. CodeAcademy Ruby Track (about 25%*)
  11. CodeAcademy Python Track (ditto*)
  12. Erroneous toy problems on Project Euler
  13. MOST of the linked to work and exercises on https://github.com/appacademy/prep-work

So yeah! I’ve been busy. I’m also about to start helping a friend out on an app we’re going to develop. More details about that later as it begins to flesh out. I’m also going to be expanding upon JumstartLabs’ Event Manager tutorial and hopefully making an actual tool to help voters reach out to their representatives. That’s especially important now as important elections are coming up.

Once I work through the CodeAcademy track and finish my reading of Search Inside Yourself, I’m gonna tackle some of the optional prep work detailed by Dev Bootcamp. I’m lucky that I’ve already worked through some of it. Mostly I’m going to focus on the JavaScript work because I’m also planning on applying to Hack Reactor.

My friend Charles moved in with me back in January and he has been in Hack Reactor for the past several months. His session is actually over this Sunday! He’s really been enjoying it and one thing that’s super attractive about it to me is the number of hours you spend in the space. It’s from 9 to 8 daily, and most people stay later. That’s quite a bit more mandatory hours than any of the other programs and I really like the idea of that. Also, Node.js sounds exciting and Charles has been pretty happy with the quality of instruction. So while I don’t really know much about JS and its ecosystem, I know there’s a lot of demand and honestly, I just want to start doing something I actually enjoy. I don’t have time to quibble over languages (yet).

So, with that, I bid you adieu for now! I got a lot done today (not learning related, but updating accounts) and this is a part of it. I have a sense of what I need to work on more and I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve done so far. Which is good since I will probably end up doing this for the next… large portion of my life. ‘Til next time!

Uriah

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