Technically I was offered last week, but today I finished all my paperwork to get things on board 
I am planning to write a medium article on my experience but I will give a brief overview of what I’ve experienced during this journey:
Background:
After traveling around the world for +8 months, I studied exclusively ruby because I was planning to get into a bootcamp in SF. After +2 months of studying of ruby (with little programming experience), I got accepted and promptly moved to SF March 2016. However, the BootCamp didn’t start until May 2016. Truthfully, I ended up not wisely spending my time studying during the gap (big mistake!). Within 2 weeks of the bootcamp, I was let go. Thus, my journey with FCC starts here (May 23rd 2016 to be more specific!).
Swallowing my pride, I decided to abandoned Ruby and learn inside-out with JavaScript
Here’s what I learned:
Don’t be an afraid to help - we’re all on this together!
Think about when someone asks you for a help. Chances are, you will help them. There’s no shame for asking extra help, especially when it is something that you want to learn (trust me, I had a good share of asking for help when I was learning JavaScript!). Programming is hard so why not helping each other out? Which brings my next point:
Pair Programming
There’s a reason why most bootcamps make you pair program with others. Simply because it actually works. If you want to get things done faster, both the results and the learning process, pair up with another person and on work the FCC projects! In my experience, when I paired up with my friend on the Dungeon Crawler Game, I learned many things about React that I wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for him.
You may ask yourself, where can I find such person. Good question…
Be part of a community - attend FCC meetups
One of the things I got out of that bootcamp was that they did a really great job on making you feel that you are a part of a family. After all, most people in that bootcamp had to quit their full-time job, thus taking a huge gamble on themselves.
In that sort of environment, you can’t hep yourself but feel motivated and focused on your studies.
After I was on my own, I wanted to recapture that sense of “community” and thus, I took the initiative to start an FCC meetup in SF once a week. Not only it helped me to get out of the house to socialize while coding, but it was really refreshing to know that I am not only one struggling. It was definitely a good way for me to relieve some stress and keep myself motivated through other people’s achievements and work.
Applying for jobs
This is a section that I can go on forever, but one that stood out for me (and this is how I landed my job) was just apply regardless of experience level( Senior/Mid-level roles, etc).
- Worst case scenario: you will get rejected and move on with life.
- Best case scenario: the hiring manager sees your resume, realizes that he needs a junior developer and opens a position just for you.
The hardest part about the job process was having a company to give you a chance to prove that you are an asset to the company. With my experience, they didn’t know they need a junior developer until they saw one. I had to apply for over +200 jobs online to get this chance (note: I don’t recommend relying solely on job boards. Networking are your friends!!).
Anyway, that’s it for me…Feel free to ask any questions!
PS: Best of luck all of you! You all can do it!!
