What it's like joining a boot camp with no previous coding experience.
by: Idalia Ramos Full Stack Web Developer and UX Designer
As I am graduating from Galvanize, I have a chance to reflect on my experience at one of the longest boot camps in San Francisco. For the last six months, all I have been doing is eating and breathing code, full stack code. Lots of people have been asking me what it’s like to join a boot camp coming without coding experience, and I see the desire in their eyes to do one but seem intimidated by it, so I thought it might be helpful to share my story.
For my adult life I have been a dancer. I have competed, performed, taught, and even opened my own dance studio, Solo Jazz Academy. I love it so much, and to this day I continue to teach and run a dance team. After a series of injuries I decided that I should get a different type of skill, I turned to UX design, which led into coding. I had always been terrified of coding, and really thought it wasn’t for me. I avoided it like the plague. At some point though, this thing I was so scared at being bad at kept popping up. I loved creating experiences for others, but by only designing them gave them no life. I needed to be able to create and bring it to life. So I took the plunge and started looking into boot camps.
As a person that has never coded before, and as a woman and as a person of color, I felt like I had a lot of things going against me. I really didn’t want to be judged as being a ‘bad’ coder because I am a woman or a person of color. I definitely felt a lot of pressure to be good. Though I had a lot of uncertainty as you may also,’ what if I can’t learn at this pace? what if I get kicked out? So many thoughts ran through my mind. But I believed that if I really focused, and studied really hard, asked for help when I needed it, I would make it.
I thought if I joined a women's coding school it would be easier, perhaps. But at the end of the day, I joined Galvanize. Why? Well, it's a 6-month boot camp which I think it's great because you get to dive in deeper into the topics, versus a 3 month where its hard to cover so much material in such a short amount of time. Even 6 months doesn’t feel like enough, but better than 3 for sure. It's also Javascript, which is used for both the back-end and the front-end, which I appreciate being able to work in the front-end since I have UX design skills. I think it was a great decision to do a longer boot camp, we got to spend more time getting familiar with the languages, and doing tons of exercises.
Now for what it's like:
Yes, that's right. Well at least for me it did. It felt like a hose of knowledge had been turned on and there was NO stopping it. I tried to keep up with it day by day but every single day is something new and you might feel very overwhelmed, as you need to keep up with the material to continue understanding the next concepts. I studied and worked every hour I had available. From the moment I would wake up for school to the moment I went to sleep I was working, doing all of the deliverables we were assigned. Even on the weekends I coded, this was my life. My brain would hurt, I thought that was just a saying. Turns out it's real. Everything was so new, it felt like I just started understanding something when we would be moving on to the next. I felt stupid all the time. I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing half the time. This is when having the support of your friends, family is absolutely necessary. There were times that I was so frustrated and overwhelmed, feeling like I could not be good at this, that I cried out of frustration as my partner held me, it really helps.
About halfway through the program it’s when things leveled off for me. It was not that the material was easier, but you start getting the flow of things, you know what it feels to not know everything and it's ok. You start getting more comfortable with being uncomfortable. And hey, you’ve made it this far, you can do it, I would say to myself.
Words of Advice:
So here is my advice if you are thinking of joining a bootcamp.
- Prepare, prepare, prepare
- Do as many online learning before the program, ie Code Academy, codewars, read books etc
2. Know that you will not have a life for that period of time
- You will not be going out partying, seeing friends and family as much as before, but trust me, they are rooting for you and will be there for you at the end.
- It's a short amount of time in comparison to college/university, so in a way, you are saving time
3. Be prepared to feel completely lost and frustrated
- Embrace the uncertainty, and be comfortable with being uncomfortable
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help
- I hate asking questions, it’s never been a pleasant experience for me, but I had to put that aside if I wanted to succeed in this program.
- Your peers will be thankful for this, the more questions the better, make sure you understand the concepts.
4. Have someone you can turn to for support
- This boot camp would have been impossible without having the support of my friends and family cheering me on, sending me lunch at times, their hugs when I did see them.
5. Celebrate the little things
- You got a problem right? Right on! You learned something new? High five! This will keep you going.
In the end, this was HARD. Not much sleep, fun, lots of ups and down, a lot of hardship. But in my mind I was ready for this, this is exactly what I had expected, therefore I was prepared. Now that it is over, I feel great that I took on this great challenge, that I am able to build full-stack applications, execute my ideas, and hopefully find a good job. I was ready to take the bull by its horns and come out winning. I did, and you can too.