Coding Bootcamps can be overwhelming

I’m currently mentoring a friend of mine, he’s going through a coding Bootcamp called BrainStation, doing the Web Development course online.

He’s… struggling, to say the least. No, because he doesn’t understand or doesn’t get it, sort of 🤔. Because is a lot of information to digest in a few hours.

If you don’t know what coding bootcamps are. Essentially is a coding course that you do to learn how to program, using X programming language or multiple programming languages in X amount of weeks.

I did one myself back in 2014, for 3 months learning Ruby on Rails. For me, of what I can remember, it was a lot. My family and I moved that year from Venezuela to the US, after all my life in Venezuela, I was 19. We arrived in Charlotte, NC with the final destination in Durham, NC. After 2 days, I got a referral to learn more about this new coding boot camp happening down the street in American Tobacco called The Iron Yard. I was interested and excited. Long story short, I did the Bootcamp, graduated after many struggles, depression, and just overwhelming of how much did I learn in 3 months.

After 2 months without finding a job in the arrogant city of Miami, I did a short trip to Durham, with a referral to meet this Engineering Manager from Windsor Circle. I thought it was a meet and how to help me to get a job, it was a job interview. They started asking me about my experience, what did I learned in the boot camp, and what I have done for the past 2 months after graduating. No coding challenge, just talking and grasping if I had what it takes to figure things on my own and start delivering code.

After 2 weeks of radio silence, I got an email at 3 am saying that I got selected to an intern position for the Summer and that I was the top choice for the Engineering Manager. I was proud of myself, and beyond excited. The pay was phenomenal, and it would be my first job in the US and as a Developer.

Looking back, I believe, yes, a coding bootcamp can be overwhelming but they are worth it, you learn so much about pretty much everything, and you learn new skills in different areas, you start to see the world and the web differently. I would 100% recommend, which at first can be a mistake. Trust me, it took me a while to say that I recommend the coding Bootcamp.

So, hang in there! You can do it, it is a lot of info but in the end, you can program pretty much anything, develop your apps to solve any issues you have with your life and learn something in the process.