Makers Academy Interview Preparation
When we left off, I did some research on London’s developer bootcamps, and of my shortlist, I decided to apply to Makers Academy.
I got a response within a day, saying I had been selected for an interview, which was pretty exciting, as I didn’t think my extremely limited experience and background would even get me that far. While I know that statistics can be manipulated, Makers Academy makes it clear that they are very selective, saying they accept about 1/10 applicants. [References- here, here, and I’m sure I read it a few more places.]
Anyway, I was delighted when I got an interview; in the interview email, they noted that before your email you need to do the Codecademy Ruby course as well as work through the first 8 chapters of Chris Pine’s Learn to Program; both free resources.
I was quite spooked by this, that is a lot of work to do before an interview while working full time, but it makes sense to make sure people are truly dedicated prior to interviewing them. The course doesn’t sound easy at all.
In true me fashion, I procrastinated like hell because a) doing something new is scary, b) I’m exhausted after work, c) my job is pretty busy at all times, and the past few weeks were no exception. On Thursday May 26th, I remembered that Makers Academy were changing their prices, and no longer offering a 10% discount if you paid in advance from the first of June. I got in touch with Ollie (Junior Gatekeeper) and was lucky that I’d applied before the cut off, so he let me know that I would still be eligible for this discount if I had my interview by June 7th. All the morning interviews on June 7th were taken, so I signed up for one at 1.45pm London time (10.45 pm Melbourne time).
When I got home from work on Thursday and Friday I studied until bed, on then from Saturday morning to Tuesday night I studied my ass off. I seriously didn’t do anything else. On Saturday and Sunday I was at the State Library from open to close, and on Monday and Tuesday I was at my computer at 7.30am.
I found the Codecademy Ruby course to be harder than I expected. While doing FEWD at GA, I just kind of got things; Ruby was a lot harder for me. I decided that while I had two big long prerequisites and not too much time, there was no real point in working through the Codecademy course just for the sake of getting through it without really understanding it, so I started looking for other resources. Luckily, through my library membership, I get free access to Lynda.com, and I started the Ruby Essentials Training. *PROTIP — Check if you get access to Lynda for free through your local library — there is a good chance you do!*
All day Saturday was devoted to Codecademy and Lynda, going from one to another until I understood what I was doing. Sunday at lunch I finished the Codecademy course, and couldn’t believe it! I then started the Learn to Program book, which was actually awesome!
Chris Pine (not to be confused with the Star Trek actor, or conservative Australian politician) is hilarious, and makes this book really fun for the otherwise dry subject that is a beginner’s guide to programming. I finished the chapters of the book by about noon on Monday.
I joined the Makers Academy Slack group, and put a note out saying I was finding it tough, and asking for other people’s experiences. I was lucky that about four people got in touch with me either by DM or in the main channel, and all of them were very supportive, saying they found things tough too. A couple people told me about a site called Codewars, and that you could test your knowledge on that site.
I created an account, and tried to find my way around it. After a while I’d realised their ranking system is called ‘Kyu’ and it is in reverse order. You start at 8, and the better you are you work your way up to 1. So I logged in, picked Ruby as my programming language, and tried to get started.
Holy crap, I didn’t know a single thing. I couldn’t get anything right at all. I thought I was so far along getting through the Codecademy course, the Chris Pine book, and the Lynda course, but I couldn’t even get an easy question right.
So I made sure I was doing the 8 Kyu questions, and would just look at them, not even sure of what they were asking. I’d look, and I’d google and I’d try things and never get them right. You can forfeit and see the answer, so I would do that, and see what the correct answer was, and almost always groan because I knew that.
My husband facetimed me after I’d been doing it for about two hours, and he said I looked like I was defeated and like I was about to cry. That’s exactly how I felt. But I preserved. Then, after forfeiting about 10 questions, something amazing happened, I went on to the next question and I knew what to do! I couldn’t believe it, so I put things in and it was wrong, but the error message gave me a hint, so I made a change, and BANG — I got one right!
Then the craziest thing happened, I went on, and I got a second one right!
From then on I got a lot of them right. I started getting into the swing of things. Started figuring out how to actually think like a programmer. Now I’m making it sound like it was smooth sailing and it wasn’t. I don’t think I got a single one right for a full day without some help from Dr. Google, but I got to the point where with enough time, persistence and googling, I could get 3/4 of them. Mind you these were all 8 kyu (easy) questions, but I was still getting them.
I kept going, and then I got a strange notification, I had got enough right that I was now 7 kyu.
I started feeling really good about it. Maybe too good? Was I getting too cocky?
Anyway, I kept going on Codewars until my interview — I even ended up getting to 6 Kyu, but unfortunately didn’t take a picture.
I also read every single thing I could find on the Makers Academy website and blog, every other blog that I could find from former students (which is how I found medium).
Some really helpful posts:
I also downloaded an iOS app called Human Resource Machine, which isn’t Ruby, but allows you to think like a programmer. It’s also quite cute, and is a fun game.
So anyway, I get to 10pm Tuesday, with my interview at 10.45. I have a quick shower, get dressed, take the dog for a walk, and I am freaking out. Totally freaking out.
I get an email from Nikesh (the person interviewing me, who wrote one of the blog posts linked above) a few minutes before my start time saying they are running a bit late; I respond saying that’s all good. I get another email saying to download a program called Screenhero, so he could see my screen during the interview, and I do.
At about 11.05pm Melbourne time, my computer starts ringing, he’s calling. It’s now or never.
We do the interview, and he’s very friendly. There is also a girl named Rachel in the interview,a recent graduate who’s landed a job with one of Makers Academy’s hiring partners called Thoughtworks but can’t start for a few weeks, so she’s working with them in the meantime. She too is very friendly.
The interview was quite informal, we exchange pleasantries for a bit, talk for a bit about my background, my motivations for doing this course, my experience with General Assembly, and then we go into the practical part, which, lucky for me is on Codewars which I’ve spent about 15 hours on in the past two days (so I know it back to front).
They immediately notice that I’m 6 Kyu, and have ‘119 Hero Points’ and sound impressed about how much work I’ve done, I joke that they shouldn’t expect me to be too good. He picks a question that has to do with if statements and classes, and I talk through my thought process as I answer the question section by section, and when I think it’s right I ask if it’s ok to test, he says go ahead, and for one of the very first times in all of my codewars tests, I get it right on the first time. I can’t effing believe it.
We do another practical test in a text editor, an easier one about the initialize method; my nerves hit me and I choke. It was so sad after I’d just rocked the codewars test which was even harder, but I couldn’t do this!
Failing on it wasn’t that bad, but I wished I could google things. Nikesh helps me a little, and even explains the few things I had wrong. They were very nice about it, and we talked about how making mistakes was essential and part of practical learning. They noted that in the course, everyone gets things wrong a lot of the time, and that I should get used to it.
Nikesh had to run off to close the windows since it started raining, so I got an opportunity to talk to Rachel for a bit; we discussed with her her recent experience with Makers Academy. Nikesh came back, and I got to ask some questions. My questions were ‘What do you wish you’d known before starting the course?’, and ‘if you were me, [assuming I get in] what would you do between now and the pre-course?”. They gave me a some good answers, we said goodbye, and hung up.
I felt so relieved that it was over, and so proud that I’d mostly done well, and a bit embarrassed about not getting the initialize method right, but I didn’t beat myself up for too long since they said it was part of the process, and not necessarily a bad thing.
I got to bed at about 1am, and sleep at about 2am. I was freaking exhausted the next day at work.
About 24 hours after the interview, I sent Nikesh a note, thanking him for his time, letting him know I was still very keen, and if he wanted me to demonstrate anything else, or had any other questions about me to let me know. He responded quite quickly, saying I’d hear back in the coming days.
I went to sleep on Friday night, and on Saturday morning (due to the time difference) I woke up to a missed call, a voicemail, and the most amazing email I’ve ever seen in my inbox:
I am beyond excited!!! I can’t even tell you how excited I am! Two weeks ago I couldn’t tell you a thing about Ruby, and now I’ve been accepted to ‘Europe’s leading Web Developer bootcamp’!
My next post will be about the sign up process, and the pre-course pre-work I’ll be doing.
