Lessons From Finishing a Coding Bootcamp
In November of last year, I started an immersive coding bootcamp at DigitalCrafts. It’s amazing how 16 weeks just flew by, just last week was DigitalCrafts Demo Day! I was among one of the graduating alumni that showcased projects at the event. And if you weren’t able to make it out don’t worry, I put together a small demo reel of some of my projects.
Now that it’s over I feel as though I can shed some light on a few things. And some of you may be familiar with my first Medium article floating around, this can be viewed as somewhat of a sequel to it.
The Learning Doesn’t Stop
There is a few misconceptions from people considering an accelerated learning program such as a coding bootcamp. The most glaring one is that you will gain mastery after finishing and be done with learning. This is simply not the case, especially in a field that moves as fast as Software Development. The program isn’t designed to teach you anything and everything there is to know about programming, instead it’s built to expose you to many different technologies.
Because of the varied exposure, many of us come out as a jack of all trades and when the imposter syndrome sets in we realize we can’t call ourselves a master of any specific skillset. However going through 4 months at a blistering speed of learning we have mastered one skill and that is the art of learning. In the beginning it was difficult to code for more than an hour, and now there is an insatiable hunger to learn and work on our craft without noticing the time drift by.
The good news is that it’s really open ended, you can dive deeper into any subject that interests you. This was shown in the last few weeks leading up to Demo Day as some of my classmates worked on a final project centered around their passion. One fell into the world of machine learning and artificial intelligence and another just went deep into mobile and native development. For me personally, I like to explore technologies so my portfolio is filled with varying languages and frameworks. It shows that the skills developed here is transferrable and you aren’t limited to just the Web.
It’s Not Just About The Code
Many incoming bootcamp students are looking for a career change, so the job search takes center stage at various points in the journey. Because the attention to the hunt, we have all learned a great deal about professional writing, emails and resumes. Much more than you would initially thought at a school focused on programming. But it was a necessary skillset to pick up.
Another aspect is just learning from each other as a class. Unlike college the bootcamp has people coming from all different backgrounds with a singular common goal. As such it was interesting to be introduced to artists, pet owners and chefs culminating all in one place. Because of these varying backgrounds we were able to enrich each other’s lives with aspects outside of code.
In addition it should come to no surprise, in an environment focused on learning and improvement, that it turns out many developers and aspiring developers are very much into self improvement. Discussions of philosophy, entrepreneurship and fitness arose quite frequently. There were even talks of starting a book club within DigitalCrafts, however it was quickly squashed to try and keep up with the curriculum.
Just The Beginning
I know that finishing DigitalCrafts isn’t the end. My job hunt just began and being a developer means being a student for life. But for incoming students I wanted to dispel some myths about the coding bootcamp. It’s not all roses, and nothing is given to you. You still need to put in the time to work, but you’ll come out willing to learn and push yourself everyday. And during the struggles throughout the course, your peers will be there to keep you motivated as well as provide some exterior skills that you can apply to your life.
