Date: August 17th, 2016
On July 27th, 2016 I did my technical interview with Hack Reactor, a computer programming bootcamp. On August 2nd, 2016, I was invited to participate in the PTC program. Here’s the story.
My Preparation:
First off I should probably warn people that I have a good deal of web-development experience. I’ve been running a podcast production company for the past 5 years and been responsible for solving a LOT of different software/web/design/internet marketing problems. I would be surprised to learn that my company and my history didn’t help my application process. That said, I was new to Ruby and JavaScript when I started at the beginning of 2016. So I was a virgin to hard-core web development, but I wasn’t a newbie to the internet or computers.
For the last 6 months, I’ve been studying programming languages. Here are some notable resources that I found useful:
- Codecademy – Not great, but excellent as a first step
- App Academy’s Prep Work – This taught me algorithms… the slow hard way
- Free Code Camp – This is an EXCELLENT source at the time of writing this blog. If you can only do one, do Free Code Camp
- Project Euler – This is an excellent, challenging algorithm organization. If you learn to love this, I think that’s a signal that you’ll enjoy computer programming.
After my 6 months of learning on my own, I also attended the App Academy Prep Bootcamp. I feel like it was worth it, but it is expensive and there are resources out there to learn most of what we learned without attending the class. That said, I’m not sure I would have been accepted into Hack Reactor had I not been in class with Jake and Thomas from App Academy.
At App Academy Bootcamp Prep, we learned a lot in terms of what JavaScript can do, but also we were introduced to special tools and key-strike methods. The language can be learned online from resources, but the special tools and key-strike moves are hard to pick up without sitting next to someone who knows what they are doing.
For example, I started using Atom and Script (a plugin for atom which allows you to quickly run code while in the editor), from their in-class reccomendations. I may have never learned about valuable tools like this without them telling me to download and use them.
Finally, the most important preparation is that I worked hard at this. I spent many nights and many full days entirely invested in solving hard problems and seeking out more challenges. I don’t think I’m especially smart, but I have a love for the complex, problem solving nature of computer science.
If you don’t think you can jam all night on a Friday trying to learn why your JSON just isn’t responding or why you’re algorithm isn’t even working, then you’re probably in the wrong place and should go after something different than a coding bootcamp.
Personal Tech Coaching (PTC) at Hack Reactor:
So I start the first day of the PTC program begins this evening. I’ll study all day for it now. The following blog posts will be a series of daily blogs describing the program and my successes/failures as I work my way to what I hope will be the first day of the immersive bootcamp.