Weekend Bits: One Month in a Coding Boot Camp

It wasn’t easy.

In the summer of 2018, I had zero coding experience. What did I know? Well, I was aware that there was something called HTML and that Java wasn’t just coffee, but that was about it.

I decided to learn to code in August and spent about ten hours a week going through W3Schools Online Tutorials. Then, when I received the prework for my boot camp, Tech Elevator, I did about 45 hours of studying in three weeks, much of it covering the same territory as the W3School material.

Then, on January 14th, it began. My experience from the first month goes like this:

The first week was fairly easy. Much of what I had studied on my own I was seeing again, and for the third time. The next week was a different world. I didn’t count the hours I logged studying code, but it might have flirted with 65. I had a lot of trouble with the lesson on manipulating strings and it took me till Friday to recover.

But recover, I did. The third week was much smoother than the second and I caught up fully. I almost felt comfortable. In the fourth week we covered File I/O and I again got a little turned around. Not nearly as bad as the string study, but somewhat bewildered.

The Vending Machine capstone at the end of the fourth week was the hardest thing yet, by a good margin. My partner Argun and I worked for 10 hours on Thursday, 10 on Friday, and another 7 today (It’s Sunday. We went in on Sunday. Props, Argun.) And we still have some loose threads to sew up.

But though it was the most difficult assignment, it wasn’t a bad time. For the most part, it was fun. There were frustrating moments, but they were overshadowed by the glory that erupted every time we figured something out and Argun proudly turned from the computer screen to shake my hand. Each time we thought of something clever to add to our Vending Machine software it was like we had reinvented the wheel.

Here are some lessons learned from one month in a coding boot camp:

• You can retain more than you think. I was amazed at the long-forgotten lessons from weeks one and two that came to the surface of my mind when I needed them.
• Get good at Googling code. Everyone does it. It’s a skill just as much as learning a language.
• Learn from everyone. I’ve learned from every person I’ve been paired with, whether they were further along than me or I was further along than them.
• Turmoil is the bane of focus. Be happy with your successes and try not to get too frustrated with your failures.
• Know when to walk away. It’s easy to stay on the wrong path if you never stop running. Often after stepping away to eat or play a game, an impossible task becomes quite possible.
• Don’t trust your ego. You know a lot more than you think you know when you’re feeling down. And you know a lot less than you think you know when you’re feeling confident. The truth lies somewhere in-between

One month in. It wasn’t easy. But I am truthfully looking forward to doing two and half more months. We start databases tomorrow and I can’t wait to keep adding to the database in my brain.