Learning to read in your 20's
While I consider myself a cognoscenti of the ABC’s what I didn't know was what went behind making those characters appear on a webpage. Over the pandemic I decided to take up a software engineering bootcamp at the Flatiron school and it has been one of the most rewarding experiences
I’ve ever been a part of. In addition to putting the commune in community, the challenging curriculum taught me alot about what I personally need to do to give myself the greatest chance at success. Before I finish languidly carving out my own crudely animated coffin with the outdated chisel of jQuery for my final project, here is what I would do better if I could do this program over again.
Creating the right environment
I’m a fan of American muscle cars so I’m ashamed to say that I never paid much attention to my environment. Week 1 of the program taught me that this was a mistake. Mental as well as physical programing environments are the foundations to success in my humble opinion. While I did do all of the required pre work in a relatively timely fashion, I didn’t do anything extra. Part of the reason was because I wanted to start in the earliest session I could and had less time with the material than recommended. I approached the material with the primary goal of completion and a secondary goal of understanding which is something I got better at as time elapsed. Had I approached the pre work with the primary goal of understanding, a lot of time I spent in week 1 relearning concepts from pre work could’ve been spent getting ahead of the curve.
Another aspect of my environment I was forced to adjust was my social one. It was very important for me to cut off anyone that would become an obstacle to me during this process as well as drastically limit my “leavehouseability”. This is one aspect of my approach I wouldn't change. Setting boundaries for myself opened my eyes to how much misappropriated energy could be reapplied into something productive and I honestly feel like Im in the the most creative space I’ve ever been in.
The last important enviroment is the one on your actual computer. During week 1 I was prompted to download a whole host of things to get my computer set up for coding and I wish I would’ve done all of that before hand class started. Missing any amount of time in a program this immersive is disastrous in my experience.
Sleep!
This is one of the most important yet overlooked apsects of coding for me. 3 days ago I stayed awake until 4 trying to fix something and ended up messing up half my code. I got frustrated and passed out and when I woke up I found the solition to the problem was damn near staring me in the face. I’m not sue the science behind it but brains don’t work unless you feed them rest.
Conclusion
I’m far from an expert but now that I have these new study habits under my belt I can embark on the path of coding unprompted with way more confidence than I would’ve otherwise and for that I have the wonderful community at Flatiron to thank.
