My reflections on ‘my career change’ and Week 1 at Flatiron School
Ok so this is being posted about 3 weeks later than I wanted but here it is…
This week marks the start of a new ‘journey’ for me (‘this week’ actually now being 3 weeks ago). I am not a writer, in fact sometimes I think I lack creativity when it comes to things like blogs so this could be dire but here goes! I am now (I guess still only ankles deep) into the start of my new career and life. I started Flatiron School’s Immersive Bootcamp.
My previous ‘journey’ of being a Physiotherapist started what seems like a lifetime ago. When you’re 14 years old and gently pushed by teachers, family members and others to start thinking about what you want to be when you are a “grown up”, you really haven’t a clue. You don’t know yourself at that age, you do not understand the challenges you are likely to face in life; you really don’t know much about anything.
So you make a decision based on stuff you like, or at least that’s what I did. I remember visiting Marineland in Antibes whilst we were on holiday in France and at the age of 7 deciding I wanted to be a Dolphin Trainer. My parents quite sensibly redirected me, so the next best thing was a Marine Biologist. That stuck with me until I became older and started to play more team sports. I sustained several injuries at a young age and ended up having a fair amount of Physiotherapy, which is where my passion for the human body and rehabilitation began. I was quite a bright kid but definitely did not apply myself (I was more interested in sports and generally assing around), so I quickly decided that although Medicine was truly what I wanted to study, it was a lot of hard work so settled for becoming a Physiotherapist.
Starting out as a Physio, I really enjoyed it. I went on to study for my Masters several years later and almost ended up doing a PhD. Unfortunately, over the years, the profession has changed, I have changed, and now we do not match well. I think this is partly that the profession doesn’t suit what I want in life: financial security, more flexibility in how, when and where I work and also that I began to struggle to work with people — by which I mean clients not colleagues (but more on this another time…cliffhanger. )
So I became one of those people — stuck in a job which, if I am truly honest, by the end I hated but not knowing what else to do. So you start reading rubbish on the internet and doing searches like “What jobs are there in the world”, searching for something that you think you will like more. Having been trained and subsequently then worked in the NHS, you don’t really have a good appreciation of what the ‘real world’ is like.
I remember reading one post that said don’t search for a job but surround yourself with people you like, and a job would find you. I am not one to get behind ‘BS’ statements like that but you know what? That is exactly what happened. Whilst training at my local CrossFit gym I got talking to a good buddy of mine about work and hating my job. He suggested that I looked into becoming a software developer and told me about his partner who had completed a coding bootcamp and was now happily employed as developer.
So I started looking into it, doing a few short online courses and working through some apps on learning to code and I really enjoyed it. Weirdly there were similarities with Physiotherapy; software development and coding is about problem solving, which is basically what Physiotherapy is, but instead of problem solving with a human being it was with a computer which I found to be far more enjoyable (I promise I am not a sociopath!).
So I took a risk, handed in my notice and secured my spot with Flatiron School. I looked into a few other bootcamps but none seemed as well set up and structured as Flatiron. Also the fact there was only a small upfront cost and then an interest free loan for the rest of the course fees suited my situation better.
I did my pre-work and learned as much as I could alongside working my current job, something that was incredibly challenging, and finished enough to get onto the course after completing my code challenge at the weekend fast track course they were trialling.
The first few days of the Bootcamp are much more about getting to know the rest of the cohort with icebreakers and small challenges and we quite quickly became a tight group. Lectures started properly on the third day and suddenly the workload grew with lots of labs being released. I knew it was going to be tough having spoken to people who had done bootcamps previously but the amount of work was quite eye opening. Most days we stayed until 10pm getting work done but through all of it, I was absolutely loving it and knew that I had made the right choice.
After week 1, you almost immediately have to take a code challenge in week 2 that makes sure you are keeping up with the content. Thankfully I passed this and booked my spot in Mod 2. The final week of Mod 1 was a pair project CLI (command-line interface) app which I will post about shortly with some learning points (of which there were many).
To wrap up:
- If you don’t like what you’re doing, perhaps think about changing things
- Surround yourself with good people who are like minded
- Think about getting yourself on a bootcamp like Flatiron school…it’s amazing
- If you’re considering the above or already have a spot on a bootcamp, you better be ready to put the hours in — it’s hard graft.
Until next time…
