What a difference a few months makes…
Midway through this year, I realized that while I still enjoyed life, I wasn’t really “happy.” Four years of college had culminated in a marketing degree and a relatively comfortable job at an accounting firm where I worked as a marketing coordinator. I enjoyed my coworkers and, since I had already been in my “coordinator” position for a full-year, I was likely in line for a promotion within the relatively near future. I also got to travel quarterly (granted it was to our HQ in Detroit, but still… business trips are pretty cool when you’re a recent grad). However, despite the perks, it was becoming abundantly clear that if I wanted to find fulfillment in the work I was doing, I was not in the right position. Planning events (at least 90% of my job) was monotonous and stressful in all the wrong ways. On top of that, the events themselves (and thus the planning that goes in) all end up being pretty similar, so my favorite aspect of the job, the “challenge” aspect, was diminishing all too quickly. It was time for a change.
That’s when a completely innocent conversation totally upended my life. I was shooting the breeze with a friend who happened to be a software engineer and I casually asked something about his coworkers. Somehow the word “bootcamp” was floated, and a few minutes later, I had been introduced to the strange world of coding bootcamps. Needless to say, I was skeptical. How could a few months accomplish what so many people spend years and tens-of-thousands of dollars to learn? And some light research on Google enlightened me that there are certainly some folks out there who are not huge fans of the “bootcamp thing”. But I’ve always thought of myself as a bit of a risk-taker and like I said, I love being challenged. I thought, “hey, this could be exactly what I’m looking for!”
So I set out applying to bootcamps. I started out with a few on my list, but eventually chose Flatiron for a variety of reasons, the 6-month money-back guarantee being the biggest selling point. I quit my job about a month before the program started to focus on the 80-hours of pre-work that are needed in order to begin the program, and the content was no joke. Because of that experience (attempting to learn the fundamentals of Ruby online for a month), I will forever have empathy for self-taught developers. While Flatiron’s Learn.co curriculum is thorough and there’s almost always on-demand instructors available, it’s no easy task learning to code in a coffee shop without anyone in-person to go to if you get stuck. During that entire month, the thought was still very much in the back of my mind that perhaps I had made the biggest mistake of my life leaving my “cushy” event-coordinator job to become a developer. But it’s not in my nature to be a huge worrier, and at that point I had pretty much gone all-in. There was no going back and no sense in dwelling.
Finally, on November 18th, I walked into Flatiron School for the first time. Fast-forward some three weeks later here I am, having just finished up my first module and having zero doubts about my decision. I could probably go on for a few pages about my experience so far, but to be honest no one needs that, so here’s some highlights from the first few weeks:
Building a CLI app
Yep, a CLI app is pretty straightforward (and trust me, nobody’s going to be playing our fantasy hockey league anytime soon). But still, it’s pretty cool to think how far I’ve come from a few months ago, when I would have had no idea what a hash is and now I can build a functional CLI app that can pull and manipulate data from an API.
Learning to bootcamp
It’s a weird concept, leaving a lesson and thinking “I only understood about half of that, but I’m cool with it.” That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to get used to doing, though. Having patience with myself has become key, as a bootcamp simply moves too fast to try to get 100% comfortable with any one topic before moving onto the next. Fortunately, the curriculum builds off itself (funny how that works), so that lesson that only makes half-sense right now will be second nature by the end of the week.
Programming with a buddy!
The way the Flatiron modules work, the third week is always a project. And for the first module, that is a group project. Oh, group projects. While they get a bad rap, I’ve actually always been a big fan of them. It gives you a chance to not only work with someone else, but to get to know them personally (and at the risk of sounding a little too introspective, they let you get to know yourself and your own working style too). My takeaway from my first group programming project: paired programming is awesome! We were able to put our minds together, while also increasing efficiency by having one person focus on syntax while the other focuses on writing the code.
Well, that’s a few quick highlights of my Flatiron journey so far. It’s been a little bit of a roller-coaster and is already one of the most intellectually challenging experiences of my life, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’m so grateful that I still have 12-weeks left in the program (although typing that, it feels pretty like a short amount of time). Mostly though, I am ecstatic about the doors that will be opened for me as I continue to build on my newfound skillset.
