My experience in coding Bootcamp

The benefit of joining coding Bootcamp:

Computer science college students usually spend about four years learning programming. During these four years, they cover many unrelated subjects to programming and gain limited skills to what a company looks for. Bootcamp takes a little over four months and provides important skills relevant to the professional world.

My experience as a full-time Software Engineering student at flatiron school:

When I joined flatiron, I didn’t have a programming background except for HTML and SQL Server. I found the intensity of the course to be way beyond my expectation. You are given a multitude of information in one lecture. I had to adapt to the speed and do extra work than the students with the coding background. The class starts at 9 AM and ends at 6 PM, from Monday to Friday. During these eight hours, we have lectures, an hour lunch break, sometimes pairing lab, or solo lab. At the end of every phase, which takes about two to three weeks, we have a test and a project. During these intense fifteen weeks, it is advised not to have a job but to concentrate on your class, homework labs, tests, blogs, and projects.

My Dos and Don’ts - I have been there, and I have done that:

Please don’t burn yourself because it is not a one-day race; keep a steady pace and get enough rest. Don’t overwhelm yourself with how much home-works needs to be completed but take it one day at a time. Not getting enough rest lowers your learning ability and will negatively impact you. Getting enough rest is very crucial for your brain to process the new gained information. Do what you can do, don’t be afraid to ask, and don’t be scared to make mistakes.

Students come with different backgrounds, some have a C++ programming background, and others don’t have any; Therefore, do not compare yourself to others and stress how much less you know. Don’t stress how much you don’t know because you will not know everything; you just have to know how to figure it out. Have a positive mind, work as hard as you can, and do your best to have a stress-free learning experience.

Failing code challenge:

Failing code-challenge/test can be overwhelming and devastating; as a result, some students might quit. We all have read about successful people’s failure stories. Just because they did not give up, we are calling them successful. I want to motivate you and let you know that failing a test does not define you as a failure or grade your mental capacity to learn. If you love programming, keep trying harder because many students failed and repeated and came back stronger in their understanding and graduate. Failing a test is not a failure; not getting up from that fail is a failure; Don’t give up!

What to do to prepare for Bootcamp?

• Work harder to understand the pre-work that you are required to finish before you can join a cohort.
• Try to learn a little bit of HTML, Ruby, Active Record. I will link some videos that I think are helpful, which will give you some insight into how the classes look. The school does not require these videos; they are just what I think as helpful videos to give you a head start.
• These videos are by Lyn, a Flatiron teacher, who has her videos available on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8W3IyXQxuB3Rf1v3LnKpiA/videos

• Udemy has great lectures that you can check out.