My First Week of Bootcamp

The Full Review

Written By Keisha Shepherd

Written 10/17/2019

I did it, I decided to do a coding Bootcamp! I’ve been hearing a lot of things about coding bootcamps and thought it may be a great way to get everything pieced together in an organized way. When I do it on my own piecing the puzzle together of where to start and staying on track can get everything I need can get lost. Since I’ve had a personal goal to make the transition from automated tester to developer for a while it seemed like a great step to get to the next level.

Therefore, I decided to attend John’s Hopkins Univerisity’s Full Stack Web Developer Bootcamp . I’ll admit the recruiter’s persistence and constant reminders to sign up pushed me to make this decision. And there were some things I didn’t consider before making the leap.

1. I didn't Consider the Commute
I live in Columbia, Maryland , the course is on Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM for 24 weeks. Office Hours are 30 min before class. So I should be there about 5:45 PM to find city parking and get to the classroom. Any other time of day, it’s not a big deal to get on 95 North but...to get anywhere on time between 3 and 6 pm in Maryland I’ve learned to leave around 2 hours early. Then, you can stay after class for additional help and that can be another 30 min. I’m going to dedicate 3 hours just to driving then 4 hours in class. So it’s a huge time commitment with the traffic being considered 2 nights a week. The time commuting maybe could have been saved if I did an online course.
2. I Didn’t Consider Who the Course was Geared Towards
I’m not a novice to some of the concepts offered in the course, but the course is geared towards novices so it can be a bit slow at times. Especially the first day when they went over how to use the Command Line Interface (CLI) and called it programming. So that was a bit frustrating. There was a test you had to take to be admitted to the course and I got 100% on it (yes, I’m bragging a bit) but I should have listened or asked more questions when the recruiter said that most applicants don’t score that high. And maybe picked a program geared more towards intermediate to advanced programming skills. When I walked in I was expecting a firehose of information, it’s very slow-paced, which gives me time to help others. And will be really appreciated when we start on concepts I don’t already know about.
3. I Didn’t Consider Who Would be Teaching the Course
Although I asked, the staff didn’t know who would be teaching the class. And in the first few classes, the instructor was reading the material from the pre-work and having us do it again. So, the instructor isn’t creating the course themselves, they are using slides and activities pre-made for them. Also, the instructor admittedly doesn’t work with the concepts being taught like CSS so they will not be able to teach advanced level concepts of HTML and CSS. Which is too bad but I can always ask the Google!

So, now I can get to my insights after my first week of the course and completing all of the course activities and homework. During the week there were 3 lessons to go over CLI commands, HTML, CSS, GitLab, and Github. As I did the assignments, I ran into a few snags here and there, as expected, but in doing so I learned a lot and know that because of how fast-paced technology is I will always be able to continue to learn more.

1. It Never Works The Way You Think It Will
Most things in my life, I look at the problem, think of a solution in my head and say to myself “I got this!” So that’s what I do with the homework, I look at it, research a solution, and think I can do that, and start putting together what I believe will be an awesome website. Then I click the “Open in Default Browser” and look at my HTML page and say, “Oops, that’s not right?” I’m not saying it’s completely off, but figuring out where those slight tweaks are that need to be made to make it work is where the “fun” is in programming. That challenge to get it right is really fun and when you do finally get it right you feel so good about yourself. Same way I felt with my math homework, when I worked on a problem then looked in the back of the book (yes, I went to school when they gave you books, shush) and saw that I had the right answer, it would make me super happy.
2. W3C Schools is your best friend
It feels like anything you need there is a tutorial out there for it and W3Schools.com this first week has been the best for it. I want to add a table, there’s a tutorial for it. If I want to add an element that is an orange square with a red dotted border, W3 Schools will give you the answer. I mean it felt like any random question or idea I had W3Schools had an answer for it. I found CSS to be really challenging with the homework with some advanced concepts in CSS but they have a CSS tutorial with examples where I could try things and figure it out before trying it in the assignment, which I found really, really helpful.
Background Color Saves the Day
Getting elements positioned correctly in your HTML page is not always obvious. But I was able to use background color to help me quickly recognize which element tag I was working with and play around with its size and position using google chrome developer tools. So, actually so far CSS background-color is my favorite property.
3. When in Doubt Google
Whenever I Google a question about how to do something or why something is happening, it never seems like I’m the first person to have seen this issue. And people have put together many different ways to help you get unstuck and/or solve your problem. There will be relevant tutorials, in text or video formats, quickly available to you to get the work you need done.
4. Slack Channels are Awesome
The course required that we download and utilize Slack. I have used it with another course and found it absolutely to be a great collaborative tool. Everyone in slack can help each other with any questions or issues with their work pretty quickly. I am on it a lot! And it can be a huge time saver if you have an issue because someone will get back to you pretty quickly. The instructor and TA use it in class to quickly share assignments with everyone, gone are the days of handing out paper! I love it. All though some don’t like the name because it seems like you could be slacking in slack, but I don’t find it to be a slacker at all, lol.
5. Time is Everything
Having time to put into the work assignments is crucial. And not just time, uninterrupted time is essential. But in this day and age, having uninterrupted time is difficult so I do a lot of prioritizing and time management to ensure I’m getting the things I want done completed. I also know that music can help you to study and focus and so I’ve been trying it. My first blog is going so well because I really am focused. I have Amazon Prime Music and they have a Classical for Focus playlist curated by Amazon’s Music Experts. My productivity is through the roof with this playlist.

So these are my takeaways from my first week of Developer Bootcamp. I’m very excited to see where this can go. The course offers a lot of extras as well, an awesome student success coordinator that has a pet pig, career services, and tutoring. I plan to take advantage of all of it, create the websites and apps I’ve been dreaming of, and land my dream development job!