3 Months(+1) Later, Where Am I?
I went from knowing nothing about Javascript to building functional web applications in 90 days. Now what?
It’s been a long 3, now 4 months, since I dove into the world of web development after enrolling in Eleven Fifty’s Javascript cohort. I’ve met a lot of new people, I’ve learned a lot of new concepts, and been reacquainted with some old ideas that have come back to me. I apologize for not having a more timely update after my graduation at the end of October, but November was a busy month for more reasons than one. Now that I’ve got some time, I’d like to reflect back upon my time at Eleven Fifty and what my plans are going forward.
Learning to Learn
The biggest thing that I’ve taken from Eleven Fifty was not the Javascript itself in all the ways that I’ve come to know it, it’s the ability to take a glance at a piece of code and understand what it’s trying to say, without any context surrounding it. Teaching students to think in the way that a computer does when presented with a block of code is so valuable because it gives you an understanding of where the gaps in your own knowledge are. And when you have an idea of what something is missing, you can more easily understand where to search to find the answer. The understanding that “I am probably not the first person to encounter this problem, so I need to figure out how to articulate it in a way that will lead me to an answer” is huge in its own right for students going through bootcamps like the one I did.
Learning to Code at a Professional Level is Tough
Our cohort started at nearly 30 people in early August, but as you can see from graduation we were nearly half of that. Learning to code is tough, and learning to code in 3 months is even tougher. I was lucky enough to be able to focus all of my time and energy into my time at Eleven Fifty, but many, many of my classmates had jobs, families, and children that were also vying for their time. The amount of work that they were able to put into their education while juggling those other responsibilities is more than commendable, it’s courageous. It’s one thing to hop online and to learn enough to build a Hello World in React, but it’s another to learn Javascript at the level that will get you hired in a new career. I admire everyone in that boat who set themselves on that path because it’s not an easy one.
The J-Curve of Learning Still Exists, Forever and Ever
One of the things that stuck out to me the most about Eleven Fifty is something I learned even before my first day (thanks Autumn! Hope High Alpha is going well!!!) My future Red Badge teacher got up and drew a squiggly line on her dry-erase board and explained that as soon as we thought we knew something, we’d feel like we knew nothing, which sounded crazy at the time, but it’s oh so true. Once you’ve gotten to the point of “mastery” in something, software development has a way of then showing you everything you don’t know about that thing you just thought you knew everything about. We ran into this plenty of time during class, but the process has continued since graduation:
- Me: “Oh man, we did three big portions of Javascript, but my projects are looking pretty clean! I’m feeling kind of good.”
- Random person: “But have you learned how to run that code through a tester?”
- Me: “Excuse me what?”
And then you’re back at square one of the J-curve trying to figure how you got there so quickly. It gets back into “learning to learn” from above, the grind never stops, you’re just slowly more prepared each time you need to learn things.
Finding a Job is Hard, and It Isn’t Easier Just Because You Graduated
Part of the reason why November was so busy for me was my sister’s wedding, but the other part is that I was applying for jobs like mad, trying to ride the high of graduation right into a new career where I could begin my new work. I got a lot of polite “No”, a lot of never heard anything in response whatsoever, and then I had one interview. It would have been an amazing company to work for and I felt pretty prepared after the coding challenge that they gave me, but I allowed myself to think that I knew everything. I ended up stumbling my way through a few whiteboard challenges on basic Javascript questions, and even though my friends and family afterward were quick to tell me that I was being too hard on myself, I got a pass the next day, which I totally deserved. The graduation pin from Eleven Fifty doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t willing to put in the work before a big in-person interview to cover the basics that you learned in your first week. It was a reminder for me that just because I accomplished something recently, I can’t just coast on things going forward. Since then I’ve been much more intentional about setting daily time aside for learning new things while also covering the basics because programming knowledge at my current stage can fade quickly if you aren’t using it constantly.
Onto the Next Stage
So that’s where I find myself, 3(+1) months after diving head-first into a new career, right where I started: doing the hard work. With that crazy month of November out of the way I plan on keeping this a more regular thing, as a check-in for myself on what I’ve been doing and how it’s been going. Thanks for reading along the way.
