A Coding Boot Camp Experience

This blog post was supposed to be published a while ago … :)

The “About the Author Section”

About two years ago, I started programming in C in university. Not because I was about to finish or started a computer science degree at this time, it was more due to inspiring people around me. CS wasn’t really a possibility for me when I was young, and my background is more business- and psychology-related. I attended some online courses at university. I also read many books about algorithms, functional programming, web development, digital analytics, and user experience. After I discovered my passion for technology, I decided to focus more on web development and quit my job at the university to improve my skills as much as possible, even though I was in my late twenties at this time. I tried out Java and Python but couldn’t really find my “path”. Well, then I packed my bags and moved to Barcelona, Spain.

The Why

I decided to attend a coding boot camp, Ironhack’s coding boot camp in Barcelona, Spain. It was designed as a short-term immersive course of nine weeks to learn web development. There are myriads of online resources, books, tutorials on the World Wide Web, but I wanted to dive deeper and gain a more practical understanding. The clinched factor to go to a bootcamp was because you can learn from experts, with other students and you are forced to leave your comfort zone.

The What

To summarise: A coding boot camp is a short-term course where you learn web development in every facet. At Ironhack you will learn Full Stack Development, meaning Front end (the way you “design” a website, the way it looks) and Back end (if you sign up somewhere, there is e.g. a database that stores your information, preferably encrypted :) ). Of course, it is not possible to become a master in any programming language (JavaScript at Ironhack), but you will gain a huge toolset to go on after that. A toolset full of syntax, OOP, classes, best practices, understanding, complexity, algorithms, problem solving skills and much more of those things you need to become a web developer. Motivation and inspiration included.

The Where

I decided to go to Barcelona and as soon as I arrived, it was challenging. I don’t really know Spanish (or Catalan) and it was the first time for me to live abroad. Alone and I knew nobody — until 8th of January, our first day of the boot camp. The whole environment at Ironhack is amazing; you will meet a highly supportive team, which helps you wherever you need it. It provides an open space to learn, or play ping pong (sometimes web devs need a little bit of fun outside of a screen :) ). There is also a UX/UI boot camp and you will meet a lot of different people. I think there is nothing comparable than to meet people with the same goal and dedication. They also offer workshops and talks about tech topics but also other interesting opportunities for you (I don’t necessarily talk about the Iron beers on Fridays, but for some of us a good reason to stop coding for a while :) ).

The Who

22 people (four inspiring women (+me) and 17 motivated men) from eight different countries all over the world (I hadn’t even heard of one of them :) — I’m really happy that I can use now Geolocation API’s :P ). Four different mother tongues, three different types of operation systems (yes, I want to use some tech words here too :) ). We all had different, interesting backgrounds but we had one common goal and motivation: nine weeks full of coding and learning along each other. We didn’t know what would happen, we didn’t know each other. In general, I’m not the kind of person who is good at making new friends, I tend to be more reluctant and introverted. However, already after the first intensive day I went for a beer with one of my co-bootcampers.

We shared the same passion, engagement to become a web dev, soon after you become friends, friends who help each other, who suffers of the same bugs (another one :) ) and motivate each other. Friends, who share pride after each project you made, and who can work together and support each other. Friends, who share this unique experience. There is nothing we missed during our time, we battled with bugs, we cooked, went to the beach, went (maybe too many times) to have sangria, we studied sometimes until 4 am, we ordered many pizzas, created around 100 GIFs :) — we had a lot of fun. I met wonderful people there and enjoyed every single discussion and every special moment. I learned a lot from all of them.

The Team

Inspiring, motivating, supportive, focused, experienced — those are the words I would describe our teacher and TA’s. The TA’s are recruited from previous boot camps so they can comprehend how you feel during the learning process (and this learning curve is really steep). And our teacher was one of the most inspiring person I’ve met in my previous life in tech, with such an amount of experience.

The How

The program consists of three modules, each of them ends with a project and final presentation on Friday afternoon.

Module 1 — The Front End

At the beginning, you learn everything you need to create stunning websites, and understand the underlying concepts of CSS, JavaScript, Canvas, jQuery and of course HTML. This module ends with an online game, created in one week by using Vanilla JavaScript (it’s not an ice cream but it took me one day to get the vanilla name :) ).

Module 2 — The Back End

Well, although I knew a little bit of databases and structures and also tried to learn PHP a while ago, the whole backend was really challenging. You have to figure out how a web application works including protecting routes, models in databases, AJAX, JSON and the MVC (just to name a few bullet points). After this module, we built our second project based on NodeJS, MongoDB, and of course JavaScript. As you have to do it in pairs, it is a great opportunity to develop good team working skills (also including Git, and agile methodologies).

Module 3 — Angular

The last module is about Angular, a modern front-end framework, currently in version 5. With all the knowledge out of modules 1 and 2, you are able to build amazing things. You can decide what you want to build and spend two weeks on developing your unique, own and interesting project. At the end of this module you know what you did the last weeks and that every single night dreaming of coding problems (yes, I admit to those things).

The Summary

At the end of the boot camp, you have the opportunity to attend the hiring week organised by Ironhack and part of the package. I am pretty sure we all will find amazing opportunities and ways, new projects to improve our skills because we all know that we are really passionate and engaged. It’s really interesting to see where everyone goes and how everyone improves constantly even after the boot camp ends.

The “End” Section

I don’t think there is an end in web development. It doesn’t matter what you like — either front end or back end — there is an unending amount of interesting, amazing, inspiring ways to learn and discover the wide world of tech. Who knows what’s next — that’s one of many reasons why I decided to change my entire life and career.

In fact, I don’t know where we are in a few months or in years, but I know that this boot camp was an amazing opportunity to jump start our career, for sure.

Thanks a lot for 2,5 amazing months :) although I don’t know how it will be now in London, I believe that we all will do something great. If you can imagine it — you can do it.