This student shares his experience after recently completing his coding bootcamp and getting his full stack development certification.
10 things I wish I knew before coding bootcamp
This student recently completed his coding bootcamp and got his full stack development certification.
“It was harder than any class I have ever taken”
He got his certification at the University of North Carolina from the instructor Jeff hoffman. The reason this coding bootcamp was so difficult is because of the sheer amount of workload.
“UNC Charlotte was offering a bootcamps and it was nearby, local and easy for me to do”
This student had the choice between two courses one was full-time and one part-time and he chose the full-time course because he wanted to get it done faster. He said that the school doesn’t recommend that you work and take these classes because it will be very difficult however he chose to work as well.
“I was able to workout a schedule with my manager and take classes full-time while working too. However, I really don’t recommend that you do that, if you don’t have to.”
So here are the top 10 things I wish I knew before coding school
Bootcamp was very tough, consistently.
As a fast learner Joxel didn’t think he would have a hard time learning this new skill. He;s always done well in school and picked up new things very easily. In this case he was not prepared for the amount he had to do. It was just a lot more challenges than he expected.
Balancing full-time class with job
Trying to balance a job and full-time class work seemed to be very difficult. Naturally the idea of working and studying seems like a lot but coding school is different. The amount of work you get is incredible. At first they tell you to expect to spend 20 hours working outside of class on homework, side projects, practicing and anything like that.
“My full-time class was from 10am – 2pm”
You should have a game plan for managing your time if you;re going to work and take a bootcamp. It’s going to be tiring and difficult to keep up and you;ll need to sleep and take care of your body.
Study time is very important
One of the things most students seriously underestimate is how much time they need to set aside for studying. Joxel says that he went to coding school with a littler experience under his belt. He knew some HTML and CSS and he has worked on many web development projects for clients in the past. So if you have some familiarity with the subject you’ll do a lot better but study time is still very important. The more you practice outside of class the easier it will be.
Not everyone makes it
In the beginning of the course you meet everyone in your classes and you feel like you’re all in this together. What ends up happening is a lot of people drop out
“We started off the class with around 30 people and by the end of the class we had only 18 people left.”
It’s typical in a fast paced high intensity environment to see a lot of drop off but don;t let this discourage you. You need to see people dropping out as fuel for you to succeed. If you let the others around you negatively impact you then you’ll never get ahead. You’re making a serious investment of money but also time so make sure you’re committed.
You may get depressed
Sometimes when things are really difficult and you feel like you don;t know what’s going on and work is piling up and you just can’t see the light of day, you might get a little depressed about things.
“I was very prideful and it was hard for me to feel like I didn;t know what was going on. It made me upset because I felt like there was something wrong with me.”
Talk to your TA’s and Instructors
Teacher assistants can be extremely helpful because the course instructors are usually really busy but the TA’s have been through it all and know almost as much, so they can be a big help. We had up to four TA’s in our class and they always provided a lot of support and they saved me a lot of wasted time. Use your teachers assistants whenever possible.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions
At some point things will get really difficult and you’ll have a lot of questions and you might not want to feel like you’re asking too many questions but you should ask as many questions as possible. You’re in a coding bootcamp to learn, and it’s really difficult so you need to get clarity and you must ask questions. Some people are afraid to ask questions and you might help other people by asking your questions.
You’ll be comparing yourself
When you compare yourself to other people in your class it can be a difficult mental strain. There will be people from all different backgrounds in your class, some inexperienced and some who are overly experienced and they are just there to see wht it’s like. So it can be easy to think you’re better than someone or less than someone. The best thing to do is not to compare yourself to other people. Stay focused, learn waht you can and do the best of your ability. The only person you should be comparing yourself to is yourself.
Aways reward yourself
Looking back he says he wishes he would have awarded himself for his accomplishments more. At the time he felt like he was so behind that he wasn’t really accomplishing much but in hindsight he realizes he should have celebrated his little victories.
The course was broken down into three segments where you learn HTML, CSS, Node, and a couple other technologies. Then we learned the back end and then used javascript frameworks, react and angular MySQL and mongo etc.
“The milestones were the projects and I would come up with a way to reward yourself for the accomplishment of projects. Just not quitting means something”
In the end Joxel is extremely happy that he took the coding bootcamp and that he accomplished this goal in his life. He loved his instructors and teachers assistants and although it was really hard to get his certificate he feels very fulfilled.