Weekend Bits: First Week in a Boot Camp

So I did it. I lasted one week at Tech Elevator, a coding boot camp in Pittsburgh. And, for the most part, it went really well.

Here is where I had successes and why:

1. Prework, prework, prework. I can’t emphasize enough how impossible this week would have been had I been under prepared. TE assigned forty hours of prework, but, honestly, I would say double or even triple that if you want to feel confident. I studied for approximately 120 hours between September and January. A lot of things I went over twice.
2. OOP. This stands for Object Oriented Programming. They say if you learn one OOP language that it’s not too tough to learn a second. Believe it. I’m in a C#-centered boot camp and for my months of studying I focused on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. JavaScript is an OOP. I took this strategy of studying JavaScript instead of C# because it seemed to me that the resources for learning JavaScript were more readily available and clearer. Plus, from what I can understand, everyone should know a little JavaScript.
3. Lean on your comrades. The teachers are fantastic at TE, but there are three of them and thirty-three students. Tom, my C# teacher, told us that it’s perfectly fine to look at the exercise solutions of others so long as we understand the logic behind it. Many of the lessons I learned this week came from my boot camp buddies.
4. I cleared my schedule. There are a handful of people who are working in the evenings. I have no idea how they’re doing it. They must not be sleeping. My shortest day has been ten hours and my longest has been twelve, so far. I’ve gotten tougher over the last week, but I’m not sure I could go work a four to six hour shift afterwards. That’s bonkers.

Look, boot camps are hard. I know my blog over the passed week has been really positive, but there were certainly times where I felt frustrated and like I just wanted to go home. I had to push through that. I had to accept that the day should have been over, but because I couldn’t figure out this problem, I had to stay until it was solved.

Being super smart or super experienced will help, of course. The handful of students that have had tech jobs or who have grown up coding are killing it so far. I’m not either of those things. I have little to no experience with tech and I’m a high B, low A student through both high school and college. If you’re like me, there is only one way to look at approaching a coding boot camp. Steve Martin said it best: “Obsession is a great substitute for talent.”