My experience as the first 15 year old Ironhacker
A little background story
A lot of people ask me “You’re 16 why aren’t you in school?” and to make a really long story short, I left Mexico to live in Miami with my dad, things didn't work out and I moved back to Mexico, it’s one of the best thing that’s happened in my life.
Entering the realm of coding
When I was back in Mexico I needed something to do until school started again, so might as well fulfill my dream of coding and look for classes. I started looking for something small to get me started. Until I found Ironhack, for the people who don’t know, Ironhack is a coding bootcamp that will turn you into a great developer in only 9 weeks. Yeah, I didn't buy it either most of us think of coding as something that only mathematicians and scientists can do but its actually the opposite. With the right amount of effort anyone can code!
I applied for Ironhack 5 days before the bootcamp and hadn’t even finished high school. But against all odds I passed the technical challenge and got accepted! After that, the general manager congratulated me on being the youngest Ironhacker across all campuses, this was a dream come true for me.
Coding, coding, coding
(if you’re an Ironhack alumni you probably wanna skip this part)
The classes
The bootcamp is divided in three two-week modules, front end (web-design), back end (all the logic for your app) and learning angular ( a front end framework) each module ending with a final project. The learning experience is amazing you have a lead teacher and a couple of TA’s, the classes are interactive so its not a boring lecture, you get to follow along the exercises in your laptop and questions are more than welcome.
The campus
Mexico’s campus is beautiful. Its based in WeWork a co-working space with a beautiful view, many rooms you can use and some great people (Plus free coffee =). They have their own classroom with small lockers you can use to keep your stuff and a projector for classes, you all get your own desk. It’s great.
The people
This is the best part of Ironhack, your group, the 16 people I studied with came from all over the world (France, Germany, Brazil and the list goes on), you will spend most of your day coding with these people and its amazing, because these people are not only your classmates, most of them will become your closest friends. Even a month after graduation with most of us busy at work, we still take time to talk to each other, ask coding questions and share our new workplace experience. Its awesome to always have the developers you started with so close to you.
This is a summarized explanation of Ironhack if you are interested in joining and want to learn more, feel free to contact me!
After Ironhack
This is the main reason i wrote this article. One month later many things changed in my life. My dream of making a videogame from scratch ( First final project) was checked off the bucket list, I am currently working as an intern in an amazing web development agency and doing freelance work (Even making some projects with my fellow Ironhackers) and I have a solid foundation in coding that didn’t only teach me web development, but also gave me the tools and logical thinking needed to learn more complex things like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. During the 9 weeks at Ironhack I complained about a lot of things always regretting my decision and thinking that I should have learned on my own, honestly I had been saying that since I was 11 and the closest I got to learning was reading the first chapter of a book that I thought was about coding. If it hadn’t been for Ironhack I wouldn’t have learned such a useful passion, I would still be a high school student who only cared about partying, most importantly I wouldn’t have the mindset I have now, thinking about my new startup, doing freelance, making money and having a presence on LinkedIn. Thats the reason why I love Ironhack so much, because Ironhack didn’t only teach me coding, it taught me the way things move in the corporate world, it put my life on the right track and most importantly they gave me a chance despite my age and the little experience I had. Without this experience I would probably be wasting my time looking at social media dreaming of one day being able to code.
Thank you Ironhack for teaching me the most important things I have learned. Especially, thanks to my fellow Ironhackers for putting up with me for 9 weeks ( Lets just say I talk A LOT) and for answering my questions no matter how many times I asked. You helped me make the best out of a bad situation.
