Makers Apprenticeship — Week 1
My first week on the Makers Bootcamp
Who would have thought that I would go from dabbling in HTML, CSS and JavaScript in April 2020 to starting as a software engineering apprentice at Apple in September 2021? Certainly not me! But here I am, on Week 1 of the bootcamp with Makers (the training provider chosen by Apple), who will provide me with the skills and knowledge I need ahead of the start of my new career. Well I say provide me with those skills and knowledge; what Makers will be doing is supporting me and my cohort, to gain what we need in order to be amazing software developers through the power of self-directed learning.
The week kicked off with introductions to Makers and to the rest of my cohort, including a session on what success looks like at Makers (the emphasis being on whether you are achieving your learning goals). We also had an introduction to Makers’ emotional intelligence curriculum, led by their Chief Joy Officer, Dana and have enjoyed daily lunchtime meditation sessions, which have really helped me to calm my mind and leave me feeling refreshed and ready for the challenges of the afternoon.
For the rest of the week we worked through the Makers Mastery Curriculum which deals with the Command Line, version control with Git and an introduction to Ruby; all the tools that we will be using over these next 12 weeks.
Within the Ruby module, there are Mastery Quizzes at the end of each chapter, each of which must be successfully passed in order to obtain the quiz for the next chapter. The Mastery Curriculum of course cannot teach every thing there is to learn about Ruby so there is an emphasis on using other resources, and not just Google and Stack Overflow but our own cohort. It has been lovely to see so much support and help being given in our cohort Slack channel when one of us has been stuck!
Prior to commencing the bootcamp, I refreshed my Ruby knowledge through the Codecademy Ruby Course and also undertook the excellent Learn to Code with Ruby course, delivered by Boris Paskhaver. Doing this before starting the bootcamp has certainly been beneficial and I would recommend to anyone joining Makers (whether as an Apprentice or through the Academy) to do a little pre-work using similar resources before starting due to the intensity of the course. As a consequence, I have been able to work through the Mastery Curriculum at a good pace, as there is a requirement to finish all parts of it by the end of Week 2.
I have finished off Week 1 feeling excited, motivated and looking forward to Week 2!
I intend to do regular blogposts throughout the duration of the bootcamp to document all of the highs and lows of the next 12 weeks. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any queries or comments.
