Month: July 2013

Code Bootcamps

I feel good about this coming week. I’ve submitted my application for App Academy, Hack Reactor, and Dev Bootcamp. Finished the first coding challenge with App Academy. And also had an interview for a developer position with Varsity Tutors. 

I applied to the other two schools this weekend and had the interview and coding challenge on friday. I’ve been refreshing my gmail window(even though I think it just automatically loads new emails to the inbox with ajax) constantly to hear good news.

Even if I get the junior developer position, I really want to go to App Academy or Dev Bootcamp. Preferably the latter.

Saw a fellow aspiring developer with a similar update

I recently was reading another future devs blog and she had posted her codeacademy.com badges in an image. I have to many to mock up into an image. Well I could copy and paste it in sections. 

I’m going to do it in link form, check out my progress with both code school and code academy

Also, not sure If I’ve posted these, but my portfolio site and javascript quiz are done enough for now

Career path update

I’ve taken a short(4 day) break from studying.

“What have you been doing you slacker?”, you might say.

A month ago my cousin told me about dev bootcamp, at the time I didn’t know it was in SF. So I said, “Well that would be really cool if it was closer and not $12000”. I found a site called upstart that is basically a site where people can invest in people. I thought, hey I should start one of these, and if I don’t have a job in web dev by the end of the year like I’ve set my goal for. Then I’ll just go to one of these super intense training program that have very good employability rates. I thought to myself, Dev Bootcamp is probably the first and expensive version, I wonder if there are cheaper alternatives that still teach with quality. Searching around I found App Academy. If you want a free ride for someone to just boost you into web development, they are the guys. With 95% of their students getting employed within the first 2 months of graduating the 12 week course at a average starting salary of $91,000, I was sold. Not only that, you don’t pay them until after you find a job.(They charge you 18% of your starting salary of the job you get after you graduate). They need you to get a job or they don’t get payed. 

Your probably saying, “That sounds to good to be true”. It is true and it is to good. They receive a lot of applications because they are free of charge and they only accept about 5% of them. This is like the Harvard of immersive web dev schools, but cooler. You can sleep in the office while you are there for 3 months. So basically all you have to do is provide food for yourself and enough money to find somewhere to shower so that you don’t constantly offend all your classmates 90+ hours a week. 

I was sold, all I had to do was convince my wife to let me go IF I get accepted. Slowly telling her how awesome it was all day made it happen. I submitted my application on July 18th. They application process is structured like this:

  1. You submit an application.
  2. Within two days, they mail you a coding challenge (with resources to prepare).
  3. You complete the coding challenge when you’re ready.
  4. You may be asked to complete a second coding challenge.
  5. They interview you.
  6. Within two days, we make a decision.

So I received the email for the coding challenge. I brushed up on my ruby skills for the last 2 days. And I took the test today. I honestly thought it would be harder. This test was easy, they give you about 45 minutes to submit it. There are three problems they ask you to solve. I did it in like 20-25 minutes. So I’m feeling good about it so far, Immediately after I got an automatically generated email telling me they will check out my code and let me know what comes next. Maybe I did to well and they want to see how I do on the more difficult second challenge, maybe I did really well and they don’t need a second challenge to evaluate me. I’ll find out sooner than later. 

 

Also, I had a skype interview yesterday with Varsity Tutors for a web dev job. I think I did really well. I’ve have a 90%+ hire rate with interviews. So I usually do well. So I’m waiting for great news on both those ends this week. Wish me luck.

Progress Report Day 75

Today was my day off. I honestly didn’t even enjoy it. I’m so dedicated to learning standard based modern web dev that I’m realizing it truly is a passion and hobby of mine. I wouldn’t think about it on my day off and wish I were staring at the very screen I write this post on. The more I learn the more I want to learn. 

So 75 days of studying as much as possible. So I started tracking my time 49 days ago on the 27th of may and I’ve logged 174hr 32min. Comes to an average of 213.714 min/day, or 1495.998 min/week or 24.933 hrs/week. That’s not bad. Some days are better than others. 

Since I last posted I was taking a break from Rails to brush up on some Javascript. And brush up I did. I highly recommend the JavaScript bible(JavaScript: The Definitive Guide). That book is meant to be read slowly, At the end of it I learned a lot. I went through Richard Bovell’s learn javascript properly blog which is a sort of road map to learn javascript with the aforementioned book. Using that book along side the vast information the internet has to offer, stackoverflow especially, I’ve upped myself in the field of front-end dev a good amount.

Here is a list of before and after knowledge:

prior knowledge: .stop()  .css()  .show()  .hide()  .append()  .prepend() 

gained knowledge: .animate(), .getJSON(), .fadeIn(), .fadeOut(), .html(), .clear(), $(‘input :checked’), .children(), .on(), $.each(), .not(), arguments[], JavaScript Objects, 2dArrays,  JavaScript events, jQuery events, cookies, handlebars.js syntax, handlebars.js helpers, twitter bootstrap, javascript variable scope, and a firmer grasp on how to better implement javascript functions in general.

All of this can be seen in great detail at JavaScript Quiz Repository. Or you can just use the demo app.

Also, I forked on a little change to get my own site up. Check it out, I took a day or two to design, create images, and code up my portfolio site. It is still in beta, but basically done so I use it for job applications anyway.

My end goal is to have a job as a junior web developer before the snow starts falling here. Which is usually as early as October 1st, but not to the point of annoyance until early to mid November. If I don’t, I’m confident I’ll have something before winter ends. God clearly has plans for me here if I’m still here during winter though. 

 

So the main goal for the month(s) ahead is Rails. Specifically rails testing with rspec and cucumber starting tomorrow morning. After that I will implement some features with Devise gem and then just some plain ol’ spiffy rails. If it all gets to overwhelming I’m sure I will spend a moment or two on my portfolio or my quiz. The portfolio has some UX/UI things I need to fix as well as implementing a contact me modal. The Quiz has a few UX issues I’d like to fix and I’m definitely going to change the questions and answers. 

 

Until then, thanks for following. If your not following, feel free. If you have questions I’m always happy to answer them.More importantly, If you have suggestions, I love hearing others, just make sure you explain your reasoning.

 

Until next time,

Danny