So you are thinking about joining a programming boot camp? You totally should! And you should totally be prepared. Or you are totally going to have a bad time.
Boot camps are becoming more and more prevalent, and for good reason. They can provide a unique, focused, fully immersive learning experience in a fraction of the time it would take for you to get a university degree. They typically provide job placement upon completion, and they can help create a cultural hub for developers to continue to learn and grow. A fully immersive educational experience with job placement in a high demand field sounds great, but not every single person will benefit from it and you need to be prepared to endure the rigors you will face.
I am about 8 weeks into my coding boot camp with The Suncoast Developers Guild, and I am here to give you a survival guide. I have had my fair share of ups, downs, regrets, states of confusion, and ‘ah-ha!’ moments, (although less of those than i’d like). So, without further adieu:
PREWORK/PREPWORK
The first step towards having a more successful/enjoyable boot camp experience would be complete all of your prework.
The more prework you expose yourself to, the easier your first few weeks will be, and in turn your entire experience. These boot camps are all about exposure. The more times you are exposed to a language, method, concept and so on, the more amount of time you have to develop an understanding of them.
Expect to hit the ground running, if you are lost in the first week, there is a high probability you will continue to be lost throughout the process. A certain level of confusion is expected but it is important to stay up to speed and that starts with the prep work.
A LOT OF TIME. A LOT OF EFFORT. A LOT OF FAILURE.
This is going to be an extremely strenuous experience on many levels. You will be meeting new people, continually learning new material, continually failing, and this is going to compose the vast majority of your day for 3+ months. It will be mentally and emotionally exhausting.
As terrible as that sounds, there is no way around it. It is the only way through. You will have to put in the work, you will will fail, and you will spend 50+ hours a week doing so. Even after 50 hours that week you may feel like you still don’t understand the vast majority of what you’ve been exposed to, and that is alright.
The more time you spend challenging yourself, the more pieces you will pick up along the way, and you will increase your odds of putting it all together. If you let the frustrations overwhelm you, it could inhibit your learning process, and that is a whole new set of challenges you do not need to expose yourself to.
OPTIMISM AND REALISM.
Two things that can help in nearly every situation. They certainly apply here. Prior to entering a boot camp, you will need to understand that you will be stressed, you will be challenged, you will have to make adjustments to your routine(s), you will not like all of it. If you are prepared and expect these challenges then they will be less daunting.
You have to understand that this is a process. It doesn’t end when the boot camp ends. Many people interested in joining boot camps do so because they are looking for a career change. Changing careers is not easy. You have to be realistic and understand this is a commitment of time and effort. There is a reason that not everyone who wants to be a software developer is a software developer. It will be a long process within a field that is continually growing, and changing. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it! So stay committed, stay positive, and stay on track!