What I Would Change if I Got to Go to Software Engineer Bootcamp All Over Again
There were times where I reflected on the past ten months of school. I wondered whether or not I could have fared better if I had taken different steps. Here are some of the things I wished I had done differently.
- Watch more tutorials.
Reading documentation was something I dreaded. It quickly became overwhelming when a lesson has 10 resources attached to it. I wanted to do my best and keep up with everything. The documentation was helpful but I actually learned more from tutorials. There is so much information out there that for me it was difficult to focus on watching tutorials because I was so busy trying to finish the resources I already started on. Many times, the youtube tutorials break it done in much simpler terms than the lesson. At least watching the tutorials and learning the basic foundation of a concept and actually understanding would have benefited me much more than digging through pages and pages of reading material.
2. Focus on data structure and algorithms as soon as possible.
What I wish I knew from the start of this whole career change was that data and algorithms is extremely important to understand. Basically, whether you get an interview or not depends on it… Not all the time but some of the times.. I had about two months of school left when we were told about data structures and algorithms. We had about a couple of meetings which were about an hour long where we did these challenges. But it was not enough for me to grasp the concept of it. Little did I know we would be facing these exact type of problems in our technical tests during the interview process. It is a very different type of thinking and problem solving compared to what I learned in school. So if I could, I would definitely have done some practice on side before I graduated.
3. Take advantage of the free bootcamp course and any other resource before starting school.
Once I started bootcamp school, I felt like I was never so busy in my entire life. While I was in the full-time program, I was constantly burnt out from studying and working on the labs and lessons every day including the weekends. The amount of information we were given every week really pushed me to my limits many times. We needed to learn a new language every month, and create an app within a week. I always regretted that I hadn’t had the chance to really learn coding before bootcamp. At least, I wished I had learned the basics of the languages so I would not be so overwhelmed. If I could do it all over again, I would definitely take advantage of the free resources available out there.
Everyone is different and this article is just my personal experience and what I learned from it. Although I can’t change anything, I am hoping this article could benefit anyone who is considering to take the same route and go to bootcamp.
