My Journey Finally Begins!
I’ve been learning how to code on my own for a few years now and I understand topics well when I’m learning them (or so I think) to find I’m clueless when I go to start a project on my own. I’ve found a lot of the resources out there can have great information but often do far too much hand-holding or cover too many topics too quickly. I’ve learned from sites such as freeCodeCamp, Treehouse, CodeCademy, CodeSchool and The Odin Project but nothing ever seemed to stick.
The sites that have the built-in code editor walk-throughs are nice for ease of use, but its a lot like taking a test with the answer sheet. The Odin Project is a truly well-crafted curriculum that is somehow offered for free and has a great community behind it. My problem was that I always seemed to find myself getting in over my head and not knowing how to solve a certain issue. I realize now I created these issues for myself because I did not spend the amount of time on certain topics as I should have.
After a couple of years of studying, I came across Launch School. They have a completely different outlook on learning and it really spoke to me. Launch School offered me what they call Mastery-Based learning and clearly stated that this is not one of your 3-month boot-camps, this is going to take a while. They seemed to fully believe in the teach a man to fish philosophy and that there is no quick fix to learning how to code. Not if you want to truly know what you are doing. The curriculum is based around giving you an extremely solid understanding of the fundamentals. Once you understand fundamentals inside and out, the sky is the limit to what you can do.
One of the biggest things that set Launch School apart for me was also their assessments and the 1 on 1 live interviews. They set you up with a thorough study guide to prepare for the assessment which you then have to ace to move forward to the interview. Once you have aced both the assessment and the interview then you can go on to the next section. This ensures you understand the content and prepares you for real-world job interviews. I feel absolutely useless when being interviewed so while I’m very nervous for these but I am certainly glad they are there. I could definitely use the practice.
I’m coming up to the end of my first course and will be doing my first assessment very soon. I can safely say at this point joining Launch School was the best decision I’ve made in my journey to becoming of web/software developer and truly feels like I’m now just finally beginning that journey. I’m learning a lot and can finally write several lines of code without referencing any documentation. I am looking forward to what the future brings and hope to be writing these posts consistently to share my experience and hopefully help someone in the process!
