What I Learned at Coding Bootcamp pt. 2

Appreciation

I have been using computers practically my whole life. Be it an actual PC, cell phone, video game system, even televisions, everything has a computer in it. After learning to code you realize how much these things have been taken for granted. It’s even funny to see how much more compassionate and understanding you become of bugs in a system. What may just be a small click of a button to the user, may have taken a team of coders years to build out to that point. Even on a huge codebase, like your smartphone, for example, every little thing that happens was put there by someone writing out and testing the code for it.

Open up one of the latest game apps and look at all the moving pieces. Every piece had to be designed, laid out, and animated to look professional. The smallest error will be caught and create an unsettling experience. Even when typing into this word processor, there is a real depth to almost every piece of technology you come into contact with, and a certain feeling of respect for the creators, and curiosity to dive in and see what is really going on. (If you had time away from your own projects, of course.) Check out Paul Ford: What is Code? to get a much better explanation. (It’s very long.)

It’s not even just in the software world that you gain an appreciation, it becomes true for any craft and anyone who practices them. Everything gets an added dimension once you start making things yourself. Instead of being critical, you actually become much more grateful of the effort people put in and that things are as good as they are. I’ll never forget when I was learning CSS and looking at the subway walls and thinking how it was designed like a web page with widths, heights, and border-radius. But this wasn’t just a webpage, it was a machine taking hundreds of other people and me miles through a tunnel a hundred feet underground at 30 miles per hour. This wasn’t just code, it was actual materials people had to assemble that had to be reliable every single day with no bugs because people’s lives, literally and figuratively, depended on it. Still, I feel like I’ve only begun to acknowledge what the subway actually is.

Working in computer programming has even helped me to gain a much greater appreciation in the arts and history. When I look at a sculpture, especially from thousands of years ago, it’s not just a well-shaped piece of stone, I really start to feel what it took for sculptor to make it. Then, travelling through the centuries, you start to understand the heroic effort it took to get to this far in our civilization.

Spirit of Entrepreneurship

While dreams of starting up a company, selling it for a billion dollars, and using that money to fund your own space projects may run through the modern person’s mind at least once or twice, this is not about my hopes of riding the next unicorn to Mars. Honestly, going to a coding bootcamp has reignited a sense of independence and self-reliance that our educational system does not do a great job of kindling.

What I mean is, instead of memorizing and filling out some answers on a test, doing repetitive paperwork, or filling a role in a bureacracy, it is just you against the elements and whatever happens you have to deal with yourself. That might sound a bit overdramatic, and certainly is not exclusive to programming, but that’s the best way of putting it. Being a programmer is a lot like building a settlement, you have to build it up, deal with whatever problems come up, and then create a plan to build the next thing. This goes with my last point of appreciation where if something needs to be done, you are the one who has to get it done.

Alongside the need to do something, there is also the sense that you are capable of doing anything. Of course, the bar is not so low on programming, in general, that anyone can just do it right off the bat, but once you reach a certain point then the bar on learning anything that you’d need to create your own marketable product is easily within reach. Need a map in your website? Just use the Google API. Need a better server? Just figure out how to use the cloud. Database taking too long? Looks like it’s finally time to stop talking about and actually learn a non-relational database.

In fact, the way that the tech industry and programming culture, in general, are means that everyone is working together to help. Just look at StackOverflow and how willing everyone is to help solve each other’s problems. Of course businesses in the same market will directly compete but, on the whole, tech is very supportive wants each other to succeed. Actually being able to be a part of the DIY startup culture is a very inspiring phenomenon.

There are a lot of Smart People Out There

Going to coding bootcamp really made me realize that there are a lot of smart people out there. Honestly, it kind of made me ashamed of what I had done in my own life, of course there’s no use comparing yourself to other people. Working alongside Chess Gradmasters, Postdocs from MIT, Harvard Graduates, and everyone else there who do not have such recognizable titles was a once in a lifetime experience. Since AppAcademy does pair -programming, there is no escaping having to appreciate how smart the person next to you is. Every day you get to solve the problem at hand with somebody else, and you really get to appreciate that not everyone in the world is going to vote for Donald Trump. I think that this was the best part about my bootcamp experience, just building friendships and getting to work alongside great people, regrettably for only a few months before we all went on our separate journeys.