School’s Out
Somehow, the last few weeks of the School of Code rushed by and the last day of the bootcamp arrived.
I think we were all sad to finish, anxious about what happens next, and yet we all need a break from the intensity and are ready to move on.
I have given myself a little time to reflect on the whole experience and some things stand out:
Somehow Chris managed to get together a group of people from an extremely diverse range of backgrounds, a truly diverse group whatever demographic you chose to use: nationality, ethnicity, age, gender… In all my working life I don’t think I have ever been in such a diverse group and it has been a genuinely enriching in many ways.
The culture of the School of Code is collaborative, supportive and inspirational. Everyone’s contribution is valued everyone is made to feel part of the team.
We have learnt an amazing amount of tech — not just HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, but using databases, RESTful APIs, servers… More importantly we have the tools to teach ourselves new tech — so for example for our final project my team has made an Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality app using React Native and Viro React, all self-taught during the project.
We have also spent a lot of time on teamwork skills, understanding our personalities, how we react to others, and how to apply this to working in teams.
I don’t think I can list here everything we have covered or even do justice to just how amazing the bootcamp has been. We still have demo day to prepare for and the next phase of this is to get my first Junior Developer role.
Would I advise others to apply for the bootcamp? Definitely. There was a lot of competition to get onto the bootcamp, but even that process was supportive and inclusive. I can’t compare it to other bootcamps, but I believe School of Code is the only one that is free and open to anyone and explicitly takes a diverse selection of people.
