0:13

Welcome back to another web dev podcast episode

0:15

where we help aspiring developers get jobs and junior

0:17

developers grow . In this episode , we're gonna be

0:19

reviewing springboard and , like usual

0:21

, I brought on three real graduates

0:24

from the program and , as usual , I'm

0:26

not here to sell the program and I'm not here

0:28

to bring on people that are just gonna

0:30

crap on it either . Right , we're gonna go over the pros

0:32

and cons . It's gonna be a constructive conversation

0:34

, but , yeah , let's go ahead and jump

0:36

into the intros . So

0:38

Few questions for you , eric

0:40

. When did you graduate ? Where

0:43

are you at with a job search and what industry

0:46

did you come from ?

0:49

Yeah , thanks for having me on . I originally

0:51

came from sort of like the earth science

0:53

, space and background . My

0:56

background is like geology , environmental science

0:58

, and yeah

1:00

, I took this boot camp beginning of or

1:03

middle of last year and then I graduated

1:05

end of June this year

1:07

and so I've been on the job search

1:09

around like two months deliberately , and

1:12

so , yeah , that's kind of where I'm at at this point .

1:15

Okay , cool , thank you . How about you

1:17

, daniel ?

1:19

Yeah . So I graduated the

1:21

program March of this year and

1:23

I

1:25

got jumbled in our question . Sorry , I was still

1:27

looking for work , actively

1:30

looking for a few months now , the

1:32

ups and downs kind of just going with it . And

1:35

then the industry I came from

1:37

, I was in I guess you

1:39

can call technology and electronics On

1:42

the manufacturing side . We did a few different roles

1:44

within that space .

1:46

Okay , cool . How about you Pasha ?

1:50

Yeah , like Eric , I actually finished

1:52

in at the end of June it's

1:54

this year and I

1:57

come from Mostly

2:00

customer service positions . I

2:02

used to be a sushi chef for five years and

2:04

I was also

2:06

a solar installer on the side and

2:10

which

2:12

, which played , which

2:14

I'm , which played into , like my , my

2:17

environmentalist , like

2:19

side I really really into an

2:22

environment and , and you

2:24

know , fighting climate change and and

2:27

that's kind of what I'm trying to accomplish

2:29

. With Software engineering , I'd like

2:31

to get a job , and within the green tech

2:33

space . So I've been , I I've

2:36

been actively looking , searching for roles in

2:38

that area and , yeah

2:42

, currently in my job search

2:44

. It's

2:47

been , it's been , you

2:50

know , it has has its ups and downs

2:52

, for sure , but

2:54

I've been consistently

2:56

, you know , trying to create

2:59

connections of people at various

3:01

different cool companies and I

3:04

think that's been going really well . And

3:07

and currently

3:09

I am learning a new

3:11

framework to me , I'm

3:13

learning Laravel and PHP so

3:15

I could start volunteering or

3:17

a non-profit organization

3:19

called the vegan hacktivists Okay

3:22

, cool . So hopefully that'll happen soon

3:25

.

3:25

Yeah , yeah , good luck with that . Thank

3:27

you . All right , let's jump into it . So

3:30

, essentially , let's

3:32

just jump into it with this question . So

3:35

, and I like this question , forget

3:37

what you know now about the program . You had your experiences

3:39

right , but when you were looking , when you

3:41

were finally choosing a coding boot camp

3:43

, why did you choose springboard ?

3:49

I guess I could start . The

3:52

big thing that I was looking for with a boot camp

3:54

is like is it gonna have all

3:56

the necessary things that you know

3:58

? Maybe it wouldn't take you all the way there , but it would give

4:00

you like a really good foundation to get

4:04

started as a software engineer , get

4:06

you fairly job ready . And Another

4:09

big thing I was looking for with a boot camp was a

4:12

part-time curriculum

4:15

so that I

4:17

would need it to continue to work my full-time

4:19

job . So having

4:21

something that I could do kind of remotely

4:24

and also Be able to work the hours

4:26

in with my job was pretty important

4:28

. So those were kind of the

4:30

main things I'd say .

4:33

Okay .

4:35

Yeah , my experience is very similar more

4:38

priority on the part-time aspects or

4:40

the flexibility of being part-time , just

4:43

where I was at , kind of I was in

4:46

transition out of my career and Kind

4:48

of needed some time to kind of figure things out

4:50

. So having that flexibility was definitely one of the important

4:52

features for me . All

4:55

right and full stack . I knew I wanted

4:57

. I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go

4:59

. I had an idea , but I wanted to at least experience

5:01

both sides Okay

5:04

.

5:07

How about you ? For me ? So

5:11

I was heavily influenced by a good friend of mine

5:13

who completed the course and

5:16

so , right when

5:18

we , when he completed it , not

5:20

long after he finished

5:22

it , he , he got a job and

5:26

and he shared how

5:28

much he was getting he was making on social media

5:30

from it and I was like very

5:33

shocked by it . You know

5:35

, I was still very new to the whole

5:37

, you know , software engineering space and you

5:40

know I didn't , I wasn't , they didn't

5:42

fully grasp that you can actually

5:44

get , you know , a salary job

5:46

. You know , without a college degree

5:49

, which blew my mind for

5:51

sure . And you

5:53

know I wanted

5:55

, I Knew , I wasn't

5:57

sure yet that I wanted to pick

5:59

springboard , but I was looking into other places

6:02

, like I was looking into a UC Berkeley's

6:05

they have . They have like an extension

6:07

for like a like

6:09

a web developer bootcamp and it

6:12

was like for 24 weeks but

6:14

they were charging Significantly

6:16

more I think it

6:18

was like that one too .

6:19

It was a lot more .

6:21

Yeah , yeah , you know , I

6:23

thought that was kind of shocking . So , and

6:25

the fact that it was only for 24

6:28

weeks too , so I felt like it wasn't

6:30

gonna be as impactful as

6:32

like springboard . And I decided

6:34

to just choose springboard because , you

6:36

know , it made more sense

6:38

, since my friend completed it and I , if

6:40

I ever needed help or Something

6:43

, I could always ask him .

6:45

It makes sense . A lot of people choose programs

6:47

based on personal references , which I

6:50

think should be valued for

6:52

sure . But it's also

6:54

it can be a little bit difficult because I

6:56

I'm a true believer and there's no best

6:58

coding bootcamp . It's just you got to figure out , like , what your

7:01

gaps are and like how you learn

7:03

and what you need . A supplement , like I always remember

7:05

, like , start with a self-taught path , go

7:08

through some like free courses , cheap courses

7:10

, and see like where you're really struggling

7:12

right , and use that to Kind

7:14

of decide , like which coding bootcamp is gonna

7:16

be right for you . Try to , you know

7:18

, look at reviews and see , oh

7:20

, this person actually sounds kind of like me

7:22

or they have my situation right

7:24

. I think that's a really good , relatable thing to look for

7:27

. But yeah

7:29

, it sounds like they're probably in

7:31

this is true for part-time programs a lot of career

7:34

Transitioners in this program Do

7:37

they offer like a full-time thing or is it just

7:39

part-time ?

7:41

Yeah , for full-time too Okay

7:43

.

7:43

It's kind of what you want to make it . I guess you

7:46

have the freedom to figure out , because I kind of did

7:48

part-time and full-time as it went through .

7:51

Okay , so it's self-paced . Yeah

7:54

, yeah , okay . Well , what

7:56

do you think about the curriculum ?

8:01

Yeah , actually back when I was researching

8:03

different bootcamps , I'm

8:05

was kind of lucky enough to have a couple friends who are

8:07

in the industry and I would kind

8:10

of send them some of the curriculums of some

8:12

of the bootcamp . So I was looking at and

8:15

you know , when I was really honing

8:17

in on springboard , I sent it to them and

8:19

I was like , does this seem like something that could

8:21

at least get you sort of like Fairly

8:25

competent as a developer ? Maybe there's a few

8:27

gaps here and there , but is a good , like

8:29

a good foundation . And they

8:32

kind of gave it somewhat of like a seal of approval

8:34

and say , yeah , these they're teaching

8:36

kind of like all the relevant stuff like react

8:39

. I liked how

8:41

they kind of did like two different coding

8:43

languages , like they did Python to . I

8:46

Felt like he gave some great

8:48

exposure . So , yeah

8:50

, I had them take a look through it and

8:52

they said it looks , look good

8:54

. So I went with that .

9:25

How do you guys know how long ? Well

9:28

, okay , so it's self-paced . Do

9:32

you know the estimation of the total hours

9:34

of the curriculum ?

9:37

I was trying to find the little quote that they have

9:39

. I think it says seven hundred . It's

9:41

like they're selling kind of quote . They go

9:44

with it . Seven hundred hours

9:46

of curriculum Feels like a lot

9:48

more than that , but I think that's their estimate OK

9:50

.

9:54

Gotcha Teaching

9:57

so , and I

9:59

like correct me if I'm wrong , but isn't that about like

10:01

three months For

10:03

full time , or

10:06

well , I know I mean , if you work in weekends , hold

10:10

on .

10:11

They estimate like six to nine months .

10:15

For the . But , so is that like between

10:17

like people that want to do part time and full time

10:19

? There's an average of nine months .

10:22

Yeah , they had a tracker as you went through . So

10:24

I think you could set it to six months or as long

10:26

as nine months , and then it would kind of separate

10:28

where you needed to be . So I think six months is

10:30

maybe the part time or , sorry , more

10:33

of the full time , and then maybe nine months is more of the part

10:35

time .

10:36

OK , you could fit Python in that amount

10:38

of time . Ok , ok

10:41

, cool . And , by the way , I just randomly look at stuff . I

10:44

am listening to you if I turn away . Ok

10:47

, what do you guys think about the curriculum ?

10:50

You know I , you

10:52

know I thought it was really the curriculum

10:55

was actually really Like

10:57

challenging , for me at least

10:59

, which I think is good . You

11:02

know , like I mean especially

11:04

in the beginning for me , you know , since I

11:06

was such a beginner at it and

11:09

it was . You know

11:11

, they start you right off of like little games , like

11:14

like like a memory , like

11:16

a memory game and like

11:18

Connect 4 . And

11:21

you know , I found that

11:23

very challenging , you know

11:25

, and

11:28

and . But I liked it how for every section

11:30

, they start off with like

11:33

really absorbable

11:36

videos , video content , and after

11:38

each little mini section there

11:41

is a small like thing you have to do to

11:44

fully grasp it , and

11:46

then , at the end of the bigger section , there is an actual

11:48

best . That's when they

11:50

give you the bigger project , just like a game or something

11:52

like that .

11:54

You know , it was like very like pattern driven . It's

11:56

like at the start of every unit , it's like you're going to look

11:58

through a PowerPoint , you're

12:00

going to go through a set of videos

12:02

and then kind of in that mini lesson you'll

12:04

have like a short exercise where you code

12:07

up something quick . Or I

12:11

remember one specific one was like a CSS

12:13

selector game , where

12:15

you kind of just like use different

12:17

types of CSS selectors to

12:19

get the correct information , yeah

12:22

, and then after the end of the big units , sorry

12:26

, sir .

12:26

Are you talking about games that teach you the content

12:28

or games that you're making ?

12:31

Teachers , you the content and then also the

12:33

exercise you would also be building things up to . So CSS diner

12:35

, for that Is that what it's called . Yeah

12:39

, yeah I think that's it . Okay , sorry

12:42

, I interrupt it , but I think it's a really cool

12:44

tool For sure , yeah , and then at

12:46

the end of sort of like the big

12:48

units , you'll have like

12:51

a pretty like major exercise or

12:53

project .

12:55

Okay and

12:57

I like how they kind of built on things

12:59

. So it started out Like

13:03

the web development fundamentals and

13:05

then you went into JavaScript and then

13:07

Python and Flask and

13:09

kind of built up your understanding there and

13:11

then that helped later on in the course too . So

13:14

just kind of kept building each section with understanding , which

13:17

I found really helpful with the way it flowed . Okay

13:21

, one thing

13:23

with the assignments , though just to tag it in there , some of them were

13:25

really helpful . Some

13:28

of them I found I didn't actually use what I learned

13:30

in the lesson . I

13:32

don't know if you guys found that . I know they were making changes

13:34

kind of as I went through also , so it

13:36

may have been changed for you guys , but

13:39

there were some where it's . We didn't

13:41

learn any of that in the lesson , but we need to do all this

13:43

before we can apply what we learned . So

13:47

that was a little tricky for some of the assignments .

13:51

I do remember a little that or was like we're targeting in like a specific aspect

13:54

of like JavaScript , but the lesson was like doing

13:57

something kind of like not

14:00

completely different , but just sort of like not what they were

14:02

targeting .

14:03

Yeah , yeah , the

14:05

testing lesson where we had to build like a Markov

14:07

Markov machine or something , but the lesson was on

14:09

testing . I

14:12

understood the testing but I didn't understand

14:14

how to build the machine . Yeah , I don't know if it was

14:16

from a little tricky , I don't know

14:18

if it was from any of you .

14:20

So I do have some feedback from other students because

14:22

I only bring on three and I'll share that and

14:24

just see if it resonates with you . But I think I

14:26

got the comment like it seemed like sometimes the exercises

14:28

that

14:31

were given were just like you weren't . Sometimes

14:34

they were kind of just thrown at you just so they

14:36

could give you exercises

14:40

, and does that resonate at

14:42

all ?

14:42

A little bit , I think the ones that come to

14:44

my mind at least . I think the intent was free to

14:46

do that . I'm going to answer this question

14:48

with a couple of sentences , but

14:52

really go off and explore on your own . I saw that with a few , so I'm wondering

14:54

if that's what people are

14:56

talking about .

15:01

Do they make it very clear they want you

15:03

to go off on your own ? I don't think

15:05

so .

15:05

I don't remember , just

15:10

kind of hindsight , the topics kind of anything that

15:12

way I guess . Sorry , sorry , I'm sorry .

15:14

Yeah , I kind of agree . Sometimes

15:20

the questions they give you

15:22

or the steps that they have you do for

15:24

whatever assignment they give you , they

15:29

were a little cryptic and unclear

15:31

. Sometimes it's just

15:34

super difficult to understand what they're asking for . But

15:37

thankfully they do have a little bit of a sense

15:39

of what they're doing

15:42

. But thankfully they do

15:44

Like for most of the lessons

15:46

they do have the option

15:48

for you to click on to answer

15:50

, unless

15:53

it's an assessment . So they have

15:55

assessments after each

15:58

like I don't know three

16:01

sections or something like that , where they don't give you an answer and

16:03

it's up to you to actually like fully

16:08

create your own program

16:11

or answer to it . But

16:14

for everything else , like the games that

16:16

I mentioned , like the memory game and like Connect

16:18

4 , if we're really having trouble

16:20

completing it , they

16:22

do have the option for you to download

16:25

a zip file and learn what

16:27

you can

16:29

from their solution .

16:30

Yeah , sometimes I'd use

16:32

those to figure out what they were asking . So

16:35

yeah , I do remember that happening . Yeah , totally .

16:38

Do you feel like , is

16:41

it really easy to just take advantage of all the answers

16:43

that they're giving

16:45

and like show solution and then just move on to the next part , Even

16:49

if you don't understand what you the concept or the

16:51

problem ?

16:54

Sometimes . But some of the solutions like

16:56

they wouldn't help you , because you're

17:00

kind of building the app like your specific

17:02

way , so like maybe you could get

17:04

a hint or something or you can kind of see , like conceptually , what

17:06

they want done . But

17:10

if you kind of have spent like hours building

17:12

like I know like one of them was

17:14

like make a Jeopardy game with like vanilla

17:17

JS and HTML and CSS , and

17:19

if you were building it a certain way like you couldn't really

17:21

like take everything

17:23

away unless you like wanted to fully redo it again . But

17:26

yeah , the solutions

17:28

were kind of there . If like maybe there's specific

17:31

like I don't

17:33

know concept you were kind of lacking

17:35

on and you needed just like something to

17:37

get you out of the bottleneck .

17:39

I think it's important for coding

17:42

boot camps especially to give exercises to give

17:45

you the autonomy and creativity to

17:47

come to your own solution , given

17:50

that you understand the fundamentals . I

17:53

that that's awesome , but also that

17:55

can work against students

17:57

where

18:00

you can get lost and

18:02

like you get this a lot with like cheaper

18:05

courses , where so

18:07

like a lot of a

18:09

lot of cheaper courses that are self-paced

18:12

, that are designed to like not really have

18:14

your hands held by instructors , itself paste right . It's

18:16

a lot of online curriculum

18:19

. It's designed to get you to have like very , very

18:21

, very strict requirements . Sometimes

18:24

you're in their code editor . You don't really get to get out of that and

18:26

create your own solution with your own creative

18:29

implementation , which

18:31

is a problem . And I

18:33

think you're going to reinforce the concepts a lot

18:35

more when you have a little bit

18:37

more autonomy and sometimes you start giving the students

18:39

more autonomy as you progress through

18:41

and you get past a lot of fundamentals . But

18:44

if you have too much autonomy , I

18:46

because I did see some complaints where people

18:49

were kind of struggling to get help with instructors and

18:52

so if you're giving students that

18:54

autonomy and they're kind of getting lost

18:56

and they don't

18:58

really have like quick access to instructors

19:00

. That could also be a

19:02

problem . So I actually want to talk about

19:05

that , so you have that freedom to create

19:07

some of these solutions , these games , with your own

19:09

implementation . What

19:11

happens if you just get like stuck

19:13

or lost ? How do you like verify

19:16

that you even like have all those fundamentals down that

19:19

they really want you to have ?

19:22

I think that might have been like sort of the big thing you would touch on with your

19:25

weekly mentor . So

19:27

you would kind of be like OK , I was working on this project

19:29

for the the back end of this

19:32

week . This is kind of where I'm at

19:34

, and then

19:36

that's kind of where you would get a lot of feedback , where it's just like

19:38

this kind of where you design

19:40

the app might be better if it's like this or

19:43

the reason why you weren't able to

19:45

get this feature to work , and you'll kind

19:47

of like debug with them . So that's

19:49

where I felt like you could really get

19:51

sort of like active help and

19:55

really see what you were doing wrong .

19:59

OK , I towards the end I wish I'd utilized

20:02

it more , but the was it

20:04

peer mentors or TAs ? I think

20:06

they were peer mentors . They

20:08

just had a slack and you could kind of throw out your

20:10

question , depending on the section they had all organized

20:13

and they were pretty responsive . I

20:15

really wish I used them more , really . So

20:17

hopefully we're later on in the course .

20:21

OK , Eric

20:24

, you mentioned that it

20:26

was occasionally

20:28

be hard to get feedback and know where you stood as

20:30

far as the execution or project or exercise

20:32

. So you mentioned you were able to

20:34

do that with your mentorship , but you also mentioned that

20:37

that was a bit of a concern

20:39

for you . So what do you mean by that ?

20:42

I think , in a sense of like just you would

20:44

only meet with them once per week . So

20:46

it's like , if you're kind of like wandering

20:49

through , like trying to figure out

20:51

like a project , you

20:53

could utilize like the slack and

20:55

maybe get some solutions through that . But

20:57

if you wanted really to like have

21:00

someone kind of like side by side with you , kind

21:02

of like working through the project , you might have to kind

21:05

of like wait and

21:07

I guess like other

21:09

than maybe some kind of like big overarching

21:12

concepts like oh , you're supposed to make this game , it

21:14

should do this sort of thing Like there wasn't

21:16

like clear , like a clear rubric

21:19

of like success for it . It's like

21:21

kind of like generally

21:23

get the idea of what you're trying to do and then kind of move

21:25

on .

21:27

Okay , all right , thanks for clarifying . Did

21:30

you have anything to add , pasha ?

21:34

Yeah . So

21:37

I agree it

21:39

was . Sometimes at times it was really frustrating

21:42

because when

21:44

because they only give you 30 minutes a

21:46

week with your

21:49

like official mentor , and

21:51

sometimes that definitely wouldn't

21:53

be enough and

21:56

a lot of times experience

21:58

like isolation , I felt like dealing

22:02

with the frustration of having to solve

22:05

something on your own and

22:08

the mentor was helpful , though

22:11

, like sometimes , depending on the kind

22:13

of mentor you have , like sometimes they'll

22:15

like they'll stay on with you for an extra

22:17

15 minutes or

22:20

email you later , you know , like like

22:24

to help you debug whatever your problem is . And

22:29

they do have the Slack channels and

22:32

I have had like a

22:35

couple of people who definitely were actively trying

22:37

to help me and they seem

22:39

I think they were TAs or

22:41

peer mentors . For sure , like

22:44

Daniel says , they

22:49

were sort of helpful , but eventually

22:51

, almost every time , eventually I would have

22:53

to come up with an answer myself , which

22:57

is , I think , is good though , because it kind of

22:59

encourages you to be

23:01

more self-reliant and

23:03

it helps you like

23:05

understand . You know understand

23:08

like the fine line between like when do

23:10

you ask for help for something ? So

23:13

, like , how long should I be working on this on my own

23:15

until I feel like I need help on it and

23:19

it improved my research skills and like , just

23:22

like me searching through Stack Overflow

23:24

and Google a lot , and you

23:26

know it made me feel like I got better at that

23:28

. But it was definitely frustrating at times

23:30

. But when those rare

23:32

moments where I feel like desperate , I

23:34

definitely they have like give you like 10

23:37

free Um

23:39

calls with like other

23:41

mentors like you

23:44

, where you , you , uh , whoever's

23:46

available , they give you a list of all these like

23:48

you know people in the industry and

23:51

um , and then you can schedule a call

23:53

with them . That's also like a 30 minute call and

23:56

they'll they'll . You know , whatever your project is

23:58

or whatever you know prom you're solving , they're

24:01

there to to help you , which I thought was really nice .

24:04

Okay , so you get 10 hours of mentorship totals throughout

24:06

the program .

24:08

Uh , not 10 hours , just 10 calls , 10

24:10

, 10 , 30 minute calls , but 10

24:12

30 minute calls , and

24:14

so I thought Eric said it was

24:16

.

24:18

oh sorry , it was every week , but I don't know

24:20

why I uh , just so there

24:22

was there are two types .

24:23

One is your mentor , you're connected with , and then the other's

24:25

the on-demand type mentors

24:27

, which is the 10 .

24:28

Yeah , yeah , for

24:30

some reason I was thinking like you've got 10 calls total within like the

24:32

nine months , which makes no sense . I'm just not doing

24:35

math correctly . Um , okay

24:37

, so 10 additional

24:39

hours ? I probably just um . Credit

24:41

contracts are outsourced with professional developers

24:43

. That would just help .

24:47

That's what it seemed like . I honestly had

24:49

kind of a hit or miss with the on-demand mentor

24:51

calls . Some of them were really really good

24:53

and we got into the nitty gritty

24:55

and figured out what I need to figure out . Others

24:58

didn't really seem like they wanted to be there . Um

25:02

, maybe not that they didn't want to be there

25:04

, but they're , they're , they're . They were like there was a little form

25:07

you could fill out with your question details and everything

25:09

, and it seemed like half the time when I went

25:11

into those meetings that information never got

25:13

across so it was not

25:16

as useful as a meeting for me when I did those .

25:19

That same thing was a little harsh . Well

25:22

, yeah , so it's rough

25:24

when you have , like , it's great when you have in-house

25:27

mentors and you can train them . You have an

25:29

expectation . You can lay down that expectation when

25:31

you start outsourcing like that . Um , they

25:33

can have a like , they can have a bad day , they

25:35

have a bad environment wherever they're working . They have life

25:37

, um , but it is

25:39

harder to get that quality

25:41

from outsourcing like that . But that's

25:43

also a really interesting

25:46

way to supplement that mentorship and

25:49

I can see why they do it and why

25:51

it's useful . Um

25:53

, okay , that

25:55

makes sense . That's that's interesting . So

25:57

, like we're in a time

26:00

where a lot of people are struggling

26:02

financially , we have a rough

26:04

job market , and

26:06

like I think most people have

26:08

realized that by now , and so I I

26:10

think people are really starting to steer

26:13

away from really expensive $20 , $25,000

26:16

coding boot camps I'm not taking a chance on

26:18

that and like even some

26:20

coding boot camps are dropping their ISAs , so

26:22

you know it's like a payment that

26:24

starts early or you got to pay

26:26

cash . So I think we're

26:29

going to start honestly seeing

26:31

programs like this that make a hybrid approach

26:33

of essentially self-taught and coding boot camp so

26:35

self-paced , with a little mentorship at

26:37

it and career services at the end . I can

26:40

see those pro programs getting through

26:42

the rough job market

26:44

we're going through , so it's an interesting

26:46

program and it's why I think people

26:48

should consider it . Um

26:51

, okay , that

26:53

was pretty much just my summary with that . So

26:56

it was all online material . You

26:58

had your main mentors and you had the outsourced

27:01

mentors and then you had your TAs . Those

27:03

were your , the help you could get .

27:05

Yeah , Like

27:07

on the Slack channel , that could like step

27:09

in and like if you posted kind

27:12

of a snippet of code and like why am I getting

27:14

this error , they could kind of like message

27:16

you or set up something real quick and try

27:19

to give you a hand with that .

27:21

Okay , I mean at this

27:23

point , um , even

27:25

if anyone feels like

27:27

the mentorship is lacking a bit or they got a bad

27:29

mentor or there's just not

27:31

enough hours , um , I think JTBT

27:34

is like actually really powerful supplementation

27:36

for even self-taught developers . I can't access these

27:38

mentors of these programs , um , and

27:41

I think how you ask those questions matters , because

27:43

I think sometimes people lean on just giving you the

27:45

answer and you don't really learn from it . Like

27:47

you could actually cause it seems like , um

27:50

, like you mentioned Pasha , isolation

27:52

. I saw that as a common thing that popped up . Um

27:55

, that's pretty common with self-taught and just self-paced

27:57

programs in general . You could literally

28:00

, I mean , get involved in developer communities if you

28:02

really want to pair program and some people just love

28:04

hopping on and you know , meeting at a coffee

28:06

shop , whatever but um , like

28:08

, ask chat to be D , to be your pair programmer

28:10

, like you could literally literally prompt it

28:12

to like don't give me the answer , um

28:15

, and you could just say act a little bit dumber than me

28:17

and I will explain it to you . If , like you

28:19

, like you can prompt it in a way

28:21

to make it the driver

28:23

or I forgot the other one , the

28:26

listener , the I don't know passenger

28:28

, I don't know , but with pair programming you could prompt

28:30

it to be the type of mentor you're looking for , or the

28:32

type of student that isn't quite at your

28:35

level , and you got to coach that student and that's going

28:37

to help you reinforce those concepts even more . So

28:39

, um , I would recommend chat

28:41

to be T as a big supplement . Um

28:43

, just for , like , pair programming at

28:46

like . I don't think it's kind of like AI fixes

28:48

isolation , but

28:50

it can help supplement

28:53

the group exercises

28:55

. It can't help supplement even group projects

28:58

. Pair programming stuff like that . Does

29:00

that sound like a fair recommendation to

29:02

students ?

29:04

Yeah , and I think that's

29:06

kind of something I started doing later on was

29:08

using more AI to leverage , because

29:10

I also felt that isolation at the beginning

29:12

of just I'm lost , I don't even know how to ask

29:14

the question I want to ask or what my question

29:16

is , um . So that was

29:19

kind of the big hurdle that was

29:21

hard for me to get through and probably took

29:23

half the program to figure out . Like , okay , these are the

29:25

questions I need to ask to get the information I need

29:27

to actually do something , um

29:30

, and now I can use chat GTP to kind

29:32

of figure that stuff out before I ask the question

29:34

to a person . That

29:36

can really help me take it further . So

29:38

I found it really helpful lately to

29:40

go that route .

29:42

It was definitely interesting having it

29:44

really kind of like blow up , like

29:46

as we were kind of like going through the boot camp

29:48

. Yeah , it's like , here's this whole new kind

29:51

of like tool to use

29:53

um as a developer . Um

29:55

, you know , it's definitely really interesting . And

29:58

, um , one thing that it's like very

30:00

helpful with is like especially if you're

30:02

kind of like

30:05

um , looking for jobs and trying to like supplement your knowledge

30:07

, is like I'll highlight like

30:09

a job description and say , hey , can

30:11

you ask me like three questions

30:13

that might be asked on like an interview

30:15

, and then you kind of like we'll

30:18

recite it and it's definitely going to

30:20

be a super helpful tool and a lot of those

30:22

different applications Okay

30:24

.

30:25

Are you ? Are you trying to like memorize the

30:28

answers that it recommends to you ?

30:30

No , I'll have it just sort of like ask

30:32

me the questions and then I

30:34

on my own will be like okay , if um

30:37

like if it asks me something what is object-oriented

30:39

programming then I'll just kind of like um

30:42

, spit off like what I know , and then

30:44

if I feel like I'm kind of lacking , like I'll go back and just

30:46

sort of like seek out some

30:48

resources on topics that

30:50

I'm weak on . Okay

30:52

.

30:53

Okay , so thank you . Can I have an evaluate

30:55

your response to ? I've been doing that to see how

30:58

good did I do at the third , how well did I answer

31:00

the question , kind of thing .

31:01

How do you , what's the prompt that you ask it to

31:03

evaluate your response ?

31:06

Um . So I'll do something similar where I'll take

31:08

the job and say what are some questions they may ask

31:10

and then I'll kind of type

31:12

out my sometimes

31:14

it'll be a well-developed response , sometimes a little scratchy

31:17

and just say how well formulated

31:19

is this or is this a well-rounded response , and

31:21

just put in my whole response and

31:23

ask it .

31:25

Okay , good advice Um

31:27

Pasha . Do you think this helps with the

31:29

isolation at all ?

31:32

You know , it's really funny that

31:34

we're talking about this , because I honestly

31:36

just really started using chat GPT

31:39

, maybe like a couple months ago , after

31:41

I finished the course , and

31:44

, to be honest with you , I feel like , uh , when

31:47

I was like I was coming to relate to

31:49

the realization like like

31:52

wow , I'm like really , I

31:55

don't know why I didn't use it way earlier

31:57

. Honestly , it was like it's

31:59

honestly like such a great tool Like

32:01

I , I I'm using , I've been using

32:04

it for debugging my own projects

32:06

right now and it's just like really helpful and

32:08

, um , you know it , you

32:11

know it . Sometimes it takes me to

32:14

uh like to debug a problem like three days

32:16

and then , after

32:18

like an hour or so talking

32:20

to chat GPT , like getting

32:22

down to the nitty-gritty , like you know

32:24

, like all the error logs and trying

32:27

to understand , interpret it with chat GPT

32:29

, I mean , within an hour I came up

32:31

, came up with a solution . You

32:34

know . Otherwise , you know , I wouldn't have even

32:36

known . You know it's like it is really

32:38

does feel like . You know , it

32:41

actually is like an actual person

32:43

holding your hand throughout

32:46

, like a project , which

32:49

is exactly what I felt like I needed the

32:51

whole time . You know , I feel like . You

32:53

know , I feel like me personally

32:55

, I learned way , much , way better when I have

32:58

someone like a teacher

33:00

right next to me , like

33:02

trying to solve this problem with me , but without actually

33:04

giving the answer . You

33:08

know , it's still . It spits out suggestions

33:10

of what , like an error log

33:12

, like might be saying or

33:14

might be suggesting , and it gives you a whole list

33:16

of things to consider Like

33:20

. And you know , I just thought I felt like that

33:23

was really like amazing . You

33:25

know , it's amazing to have such a tool , especially

33:28

as a developer Like it's definitely like

33:30

an essential tool for a developer

33:32

nowadays and I wish

33:34

I've used it earlier .

33:37

I think it is and I think a lot of professional

33:39

developers have taken advantage of that . The only

33:41

caution I give is just don't become reliant

33:43

and be careful about the questions you ask . Don't

33:45

have it solve all of your problems and a lot of new

33:48

developers they do that and it's yeah

33:51

, it's . I mean , it's rough , it doesn't really reinforce

33:53

the concepts . And a really good

33:55

question asked is like okay , here's the problem . I

33:57

don't get it , I'm stuck . What fundamental

33:59

concepts do I not understand to be able to solve

34:01

this problem Right and just have it outline ? It's

34:05

like , oh who , asynchronous behavior . I've heard

34:07

this before . I actually I couldn't even recite

34:09

, I don't really know what it is right , but like you're

34:12

dealing with something that has asynchronous

34:14

behavior or some component

34:16

to it to be able to solve the problem . Okay

34:18

, Do you , I

34:21

guess , like ? My final question with this is

34:23

when you have a self-paced program sounds

34:26

like the mentorship is only 30 , 30

34:28

minutes per week for the main

34:30

mentors , Do you

34:32

? I guess it's easy

34:35

to feel alone ? It's very

34:37

easy to feel alone with a self-paced program

34:39

and sometimes like you need more

34:41

than just someone to help answer

34:43

the questions . It helps to like talk

34:45

with other developers . It helps to get involved

34:47

with the developer community and

34:50

honestly , like you know , you don't have to go

34:52

through your emotions of imposter syndrome alone

34:54

. You can , you

34:56

can vent , you could share that with people , but

34:59

sometimes with self-paced programs you don't have

35:02

as much of an opportunity to do that as if you

35:04

were going in person . You have a cohort , you have

35:06

a class , you have instructors there . So

35:09

do you feel like that's

35:11

a thing with this program where

35:13

a lot of students have kind of felt alone

35:15

and , if so , are there any

35:17

recommendations you have for them ?

35:22

We get a place and sort of like a

35:24

personal discord with our specific

35:27

cohort , so like I'm in the one

35:29

of July 2022 . And

35:32

I'm like very close with a couple

35:34

of people there . So it's like those

35:37

people are kind of like directly working with

35:39

the curriculum right at the same time

35:41

. Maybe there's like a little variation , but

35:43

there's always like

35:45

a conversation going on in that

35:47

like , hey guys , I found this resource , how

35:51

are you guys feeling lately ? Like there's a lot

35:53

of that . And

35:55

one thing I recommend to people too is like really

35:58

try to find someone in

36:00

your town or in your area that's a

36:03

software engineer , a developer , and

36:05

try to like build a relationship with them

36:07

, because I think it's super important

36:10

to have like real colleagues

36:12

, friends and mentors that

36:15

you can turn to like like

36:17

text them or call them and get

36:19

some advice . I think that's super , super helpful

36:22

.

36:24

It's good advice .

36:27

Yeah , I used the Slack

36:29

channel . Others will Slack . At the time , maybe

36:32

they switched to Discord , and

36:34

there was a lot of conversations I would follow . I was very

36:37

hesitant to contribute though , which

36:39

something I would advise people going into

36:41

the program to do , because it definitely helps

36:43

, and I wish I had done it , but

36:46

just the conversations that were going on were helpful

36:49

. Sometimes they're like , okay , people are struggling , they're falling

36:51

behind , they're figuring it out too . That

36:54

was at least a little helpful to feel more community

36:56

, but

36:58

still a challenge . You got to put yourself out there to

37:00

make it happen , which can be very difficult

37:03

sometimes , what

37:05

do you think that you didn't reach out more

37:08

often ? Kind

37:10

of going back to that whole imposter , introverted

37:13

whatever you want to call it kind of thing . I'm just

37:15

hesitant to put myself out there and

37:19

, of course , realizing later it shouldn't have been

37:21

that big a deal . It wasn't that big a deal

37:23

, so eventually got there , but yeah , it just took some

37:26

time .

37:28

I guess I'm going to dig into this just a tiny bit

37:30

, because this is common . How did you get

37:32

there ?

37:34

Baby steps . Okay , I

37:38

think I don't remember

37:40

how it started , but it was just kind of throwing out

37:43

like liking a comment

37:45

or adding to a thread . I ended up

37:47

meeting someone else in the course and we started having

37:49

meetings on the side , so that helps just get

37:51

the conversation going with someone new . And

37:55

then I think I started finding

37:58

people that had the same questions I

38:00

had and then kind of getting

38:02

into those threads and that's why I started getting comfortable

38:04

asking my own questions too . So

38:07

a lot of different pieces along the way .

38:10

Okay , thanks for

38:14

sharing .

38:15

I agree with Danielle

38:17

about the Slack channels . It

38:22

does take a little bit like you

38:25

yourself putting yourself out there for

38:28

people , but I mean , in the

38:30

end I felt like it was worth it . It

38:33

did help me . Sometimes , especially

38:36

when I've had those lonely

38:38

, isolated moments , I felt like

38:40

I needed someone to relate to and

38:43

the Slack channels offered that and

38:46

you'd be surprised how many people reply

38:49

to you with the same

38:51

exact conundrum that

38:53

you're experiencing

38:56

. And sometimes people offer because

38:58

there's these peer mentors . I think

39:00

the peer mentors they are also

39:03

students in the program and

39:05

then they're like in charge

39:08

of bringing these students

39:10

together to form

39:12

study groups and

39:15

regular study groups once a week . And

39:19

that's how I met a few people and

39:22

they were extremely friendly and

39:24

they invited me to their

39:26

Skype group chat and

39:29

whenever I had a problem that

39:33

I felt like needed help

39:35

solving , they

39:37

were pretty much always there for me , even

39:39

though they were complete strangers , and

39:44

it was helpful .

39:46

Okay , okay

39:52

cool . I

39:56

think this program yeah

40:00

, this is just an interesting program . Like I said

40:02

, I think a hybrid between a coding boot camp and

40:04

a self-taught or a hybrid between

40:06

a CS degree and a coding boot camp are

40:09

going to be the two choices and

40:12

that people are going to start favoring

40:14

. But

40:17

I think the blend is important . It

40:19

sounds like the community seems

40:22

to you

40:24

guys hold it in high regards . You

40:27

see limitations that like the limited

40:29

amount of time you get with mentors and

40:31

sometimes the experiences are a little bit different and

40:35

that can be frustrating , but like having

40:37

that community be strong and even having peer

40:39

mentors be able to connect people , because everyone's shy

40:41

, no one wants to ask questions , like everyone

40:43

is . If you are the person that is asking

40:45

questions , I'm telling you you're going to make connections as a developer

40:48

, like people love that . Most people are shy . That's

40:52

awesome . Okay , so I

40:54

think we went over the curriculum , the mentorship . What

40:57

do you think about the career services ?

41:01

I personally enjoyed them . I

41:05

today was actually my last day of career

41:07

services , which I'm a little sad

41:09

about , but

41:12

I can't believe how much my

41:14

kind of online

41:16

presence or professional presence has

41:18

changed with their help , so I

41:21

think they were really good Okay .

41:25

I definitely agree too . It's like I

41:28

like to how you'd be kind of like going

41:30

through one of your coding modules

41:33

, like you'd be learning something , and then it kind of like switch

41:35

gears and you'd be doing like a couple

41:37

of days of like career specific

41:39

type of things , like

41:42

redoing your whole LinkedIn , polishing

41:45

up your resume , and then

41:47

, kind of scattered throughout the course too , is

41:49

like you'd have these kind of like 30 minute career

41:51

specific calls , so

41:54

like how to network . Someone who's

41:56

like specifically sitting down with you , looking

41:58

over your resume , trying to

42:00

find , like what makes you unique or what you're

42:02

going to bring to this new career field and what

42:04

you're going to take from , like you said , a

42:06

lot of us are career transitioners , so what

42:09

skills can you kind of bring from your current

42:11

field and bring them into software development

42:13

?

42:17

Okay .

42:18

Right , I thought it was really

42:20

helpful too . You

42:23

know the fact that they

42:26

even have , they even

42:28

offer . That is amazing , you

42:31

know . They really like , yeah

42:33

, like like Eric said , they , you

42:35

know , they look at your resume thoroughly

42:37

and they add , you know , give

42:40

you all these awesome suggestions and

42:42

how to add your

42:45

springboard experience onto your resume

42:47

and how to show it off and

42:52

I and how

42:54

to , how to really reach

42:56

out to people on LinkedIn and how to make the most out

42:58

of LinkedIn . You know is

43:01

really awesome . And they help

43:03

you research the companies that , the kind

43:06

of companies that you might want to work at . You

43:08

know . They make you , you know , list a whole

43:10

like 50 companies like

43:12

that you might be interested in

43:14

the future and you know , on

43:17

an Excel spreadsheet and they , you know

43:20

, make you research it . You know

43:23

, and

43:26

I think it's really helpful , okay

43:28

.

43:30

They also have interview practice

43:32

tied into it also , which I found very

43:34

helpful . Again , I wish I did more

43:36

, because that was definitely an additional

43:38

bonus that I appreciated . His

43:42

technical interview practice also offered technical

43:45

, behavioral , and then a project walkthrough

43:47

. I think we're the three .

43:50

And I think there was a whiteboarding interview too . That

43:53

was like . I felt like it was kind of similar to like

43:55

the technical interview , but it was like a little

43:57

more sort of like pseudo code or

43:59

like the pseudo codes a little more emphasize , okay

44:03

.

44:03

Yeah , I

44:06

was just about to ask about the interview

44:09

prep , so I

44:13

want to see if any of this resonates with you . Let

44:15

me see if I can gather it , but essentially

44:17

it seemed like some of the complaints that I got my

44:20

DMs were the career

44:22

services . I'm

44:25

just going to read a few things and see if any of

44:27

this resonates . So

44:30

the career track is not as enticing as they make it sound

44:33

. If you're much younger maybe it's helpful , but it was majority

44:35

links and articles from elsewhere and how to make a resume

44:37

interview , et cetera . There's

44:39

a spreadsheet right down 50 places you'd like to

44:41

work . There were a few calls that were helpful . It's

44:48

really hard to , so different coding

44:50

boot camps are going to offer like a different amount

44:53

of depth for career services

44:55

. I think mock interviews

44:57

at the price point isn't

44:59

the price point less than like 10,000 ? What

45:03

did it cost ? It's ?

45:05

around 10,000 . Not really

45:07

Okay .

45:09

It depends on your payment , how

45:12

you wanted to do it . So

45:15

I think it was a certain amount for a flat charge

45:17

and then another rate for monthly

45:19

and so on .

45:22

And the monthly cost , how

45:24

much is a total if you pay monthly ?

45:30

I think I remember 10K . I

45:33

think , so because .

45:34

I did .

45:35

I did the monthly . I was optimistic

45:37

going into this program , realized

45:39

it shouldn't have been and I think it was

45:41

around 10 is what I ended up with and it caps

45:44

you at a certain point .

45:46

All right . So it sounds like

45:48

the I mean for

45:50

under 10,000 . It

45:54

sounds like , with the interview

45:56

prep , I feel like career services

45:58

is pretty powerful . They offer a lot

46:00

of value for that price . There

46:03

are programs that are 16,000 , without

46:05

an ISA up front

46:07

, that won't even offer mock interviews . So

46:09

I think that's really interesting for a self-paced

46:12

program . I don't think you kind of need it

46:14

for a self-paced program because you're

46:16

going to have people with different skill levels and different

46:18

like depth of knowledge and

46:21

like you're just going to have a variety and you want to try to get everyone

46:23

kind of at least on the same page to recognize

46:25

their weaknesses and what they have to improve . So

46:29

, okay , sounds

46:32

pretty positive for career services . How

46:34

well do you think they prepare you for data

46:36

structures and algorithm type interviews ?

46:42

I'm struggling with it . I don't know about

46:44

you guys .

46:47

I was definitely feeling weak and you

46:49

can kind of like , as long

46:51

as it's before your intended graduation

46:53

date , you can schedule those interviews

46:56

for however late you want

46:58

them to go . So I

47:00

remember giving myself like a week at

47:02

least before each one and then I'm like where's it comes to

47:04

worst ? You can redo them like three times

47:07

to get a pass like

47:09

a passing grade . So

47:11

yeah , that was like I remember that week just specifically

47:14

like dedicating just to like lead code

47:16

and like learning all the different , like

47:18

sorting algorithms and data structures and stuff like

47:20

that . So maybe like

47:22

if people want to try that strategy

47:24

when it comes to that , and I'm still kind of

47:26

like there's so much

47:28

to it that you're just going to continue to like practice

47:31

those beyond the

47:33

bootcamp .

47:35

One week is nothing for that , right

47:37

? I see what you mean

47:39

, daniel .

47:39

I kind of wish it

47:43

was like , I mean to kind of like bring it up , they'd

47:46

make the cover at the very end of the

47:48

program . I felt like it would have been

47:50

a little more helpful if it was

47:53

. They had , you know , they

47:55

had a little , you know , a smaller section covering some of that

47:57

, at least in the beginning , because from the beginning

48:00

it would have definitely been

48:02

helpful , you know , especially

48:04

for law projects and but so so , yeah , it

48:06

really and it really it did stress me out a

48:09

little bit because , you know

48:12

, I felt like , oh , you know , like , since I did

48:14

all these projects , completed all the projects

48:16

, you know this should be a piece of

48:18

cake for me , but really

48:20

it wasn't . It was actually incredibly hard and

48:23

I , you know , I definitely failed a few times . I

48:28

was like I'm not going to be able to do that , I'm

48:30

not going to be able to do that . You know

48:32

I definitely failed a few

48:35

times . You know , luckily

48:37

, they give you like a practice

48:40

, an extra practice . That

48:42

doesn't count . So

48:45

, and so I , you know , I failed

48:47

three times and thankfully that didn't

48:49

like mess me up , you know , completely

48:51

, because I still had one more try and

48:56

yeah

48:58

, but I mean as far as like the actual

49:00

curriculum . Preparing for that I feel like

49:02

it was , you know it was fairly helpful

49:04

, like

49:06

like they definitely like cover a little bit

49:08

of everything . You know they

49:10

cover , you

49:13

know , basic strategies like multiple

49:15

pointers and frequency counters

49:17

and you know

49:19

, and then give

49:22

you a bunch of examples , example problems

49:24

to work with . You know they

49:27

thoroughly explain recursion , which

49:29

is really nice and

49:32

and but despite doing all those problems

49:34

, you know , just for me personally

49:36

it was it was still difficult , you

49:38

know . But that was mostly because , like I mean

49:40

, it's just a mock interview

49:42

, is a mock interview and it's like really kind of like

49:45

, kind of intense and

49:47

like they definitely , you know

49:49

, they definitely simulate that situation

49:51

really well . Like you're , you're put

49:54

on with , like like a mentor

49:56

or developer who you don't

49:58

even know , probably you

50:01

meet for the first time and you don't

50:03

know what question you're going to ask you , and

50:06

that in itself kind of raises your nerves

50:08

a little bit . And then I think that kind

50:10

of messed me up a few times , even though

50:12

, like , on my own time I probably wouldn't

50:14

have been able to solve whatever problem that gave me easily

50:17

, you know . So

50:19

that really forced me out

50:21

of my shell to really practice and

50:23

put my head down and , you know , solve as many leak

50:25

code problems that I could possibly could

50:27

until like I felt like I was second nature and

50:31

that's because of that , yeah .

50:34

A little worried that you keep saying like trying

50:37

to study a leak code type problems . It

50:41

sounds like they're . They don't really spend a lot of time on this and

50:44

I find that a lot of and

50:46

just like talking with a lot of hiring managers and people

50:48

who are

50:50

really good with the stuff , people that have worked

50:53

and been tested at companies like Facebook I

50:56

think Facebook's a little bit easier than Google but like at

50:58

FANG type companies where , like

51:01

a big recommendation is

51:04

like way too many people jump into a leak code too quickly and they sock with their

51:06

foundations , like they just suck right and

51:10

a lot of like getting better is just

51:12

realizing what foundations you're truly lacking in

51:14

understanding . But I

51:17

would argue this sounds like a weaker

51:19

like I like the Muck interviews , but it sounds like a weaker part of the program

51:21

, given how little time they spend on it . So

51:25

, like you said , Eric , my big recommendation from hearing all three

51:28

of you is like just a little bit on the side , like when

51:30

you graduate , when you finish this , you should be doing heavy

51:32

project work to reinforce everything , but

51:36

also on the side , like spending time , like really making

51:38

sure that you understand the fundamental data structures and

51:40

algorithms that you're most likely going to be tested on

51:42

and you can create practical problems

51:44

out of this . You can use chat to be

51:46

teached , literally create challenges for you , but

51:51

it sounds like you've got to like really

51:53

push forward after you graduate with

51:56

that . Okay .

51:57

Yeah , it's definitely Sorry , Go ahead I wasn't saying

51:59

it's really important to be able to do

52:01

that . I didn't say it's really pushed

52:03

towards the end . So I know I

52:05

had this note going into the program because the previous

52:08

review did made a statement about this too to

52:10

trickle them in as you do the program . Of

52:12

course that went out the window as I got into it

52:14

, but since it is at

52:17

the end , it's kind of that last push of okay

52:19

, I did everything , so now it's just this , I

52:21

can just focus on this . And

52:23

after you get through I think for me maybe

52:25

the first two I forget what they were . I got

52:27

a really solid understanding and then

52:29

my brain just burned out after doing three or

52:32

four in a row . So splitting them up

52:34

between the curriculum would have been very helpful

52:36

.

52:37

That's good advice .

52:40

I wish I could .

52:43

A lot of us wish we could have done the coding bootcamp

52:46

differently and we would all go back and

52:48

change things . But yeah , I like this

52:51

is all really good advice , and

52:54

I think an important thing to recognize is no matter

52:56

what program you go through , no matter what coding

52:58

bootcamp you go through , there are going to be holes in every single

53:00

program , and you just

53:02

got to realize what those holes are in supplement afterwards

53:04

. Just usually , even

53:06

like really crappy programs , you get an outline

53:09

, you learn how to learn Like , you get an idea

53:11

of like how to grow as a software engineer , and if a coding

53:14

bootcamp or a course or anything like that can

53:16

give you both of those , that's

53:19

really all you need , as long as you're not going to give up

53:21

. Are you going to say

53:23

something , eric ? No , I definitely

53:27

agree .

53:27

Yeah , like the big thing is like you do really need

53:30

a supplement , no matter what kind of bootcamp you

53:34

take , because there were some , some

53:36

holes , especially like one thing I really struggled with

53:38

throughout the bootcamp was like things that had to do with like setting

53:40

up your virtual environments

53:44

, kind of setting up dependencies , kind of like

53:46

the weird sort of

53:48

like oh look

53:50

, aspects of being a developer , like

53:52

you need certain libraries installed , and

53:55

usually it's pretty straightforward . But I remember right at the

53:57

beginning I was like I kind of had never even touched like the

54:00

terminal and anything like that , so that was all like super

54:02

new to me . So

54:04

definitely , if you need to like read up

54:07

on something or take kind of like

54:10

an additional course

54:13

or like some video lessons , or I remember

54:16

sitting down a lot with my friends . I remember sitting down a lot with

54:18

my software developer friend and say

54:20

, hey , like here's some things I'm struggling

54:22

with when it comes to like bash

54:24

and kind of all this

54:27

sort of like operating system

54:29

kind of stuff .

54:31

Okay , good advice . What

54:34

could they improve ?

54:41

I can go . I think

54:44

the biggest thing that I found after

54:46

I realized after was the group

54:48

work piece and using

54:51

GitHub collaboratively and doing

54:53

that whole kind of developing as a team

54:55

was definitely

54:57

something that I again could have

54:59

probably reached out and gotten involved and slackened

55:02

on that . But it wasn't necessarily a program so

55:04

it wasn't on my radar but

55:07

it's definitely something I think I

55:09

was missing and appreciated . On

55:11

the recent group project I did learn all of that , so

55:14

having that would have been helpful .

55:17

Okay , I

55:20

feel like it would have been . I

55:24

mean , I feel like it would have been . One

55:27

thing I didn't like was

55:30

so they do cover how to

55:33

deploy websites like

55:36

your projects using Heroku

55:38

, and

55:40

I mean I'm , you

55:42

know , my cohort might have been a little

55:44

unlucky , because , I

55:47

mean , heroku is pretty much the only like option

55:50

that they like teach on

55:52

there . I don't know about

55:54

now , but but then recently

55:59

, in last November , heroku stopped

56:01

being for free . Like Heroku

56:04

used to be like , oh , we give you five

56:06

deployments for free , but

56:08

then one November

56:11

hit , which was like in the middle of my course . I

56:14

had to , you know . You

56:16

know , I noticed a lot of people were struggling

56:18

in the Slack channels . They're like , oh , like we

56:21

have to pay for this now . And

56:23

, like you know , it would have been helpful

56:25

if they gave us more than just one option of

56:28

how to deploy a website . You know , it's

56:31

rather just Heroku . But one

56:34

thing that was nice , though , is that they did

56:36

offer to reimburse

56:38

you every time you deployed something and

56:40

have to pay for it . You

56:42

just have to email them to let them know , but

56:45

I know that some of my friends were doing

56:47

in the course . For

56:49

some reason , they didn't even notice the emails

56:51

that they sent out for that and they

56:54

never even took advantage of that . So

56:57

that was a little bit of a struggle . But

56:59

, and to cover and also to

57:01

like

57:04

to , you know , attack that problem with

57:06

, like , the dealing of isolation

57:09

, maybe it would have been more helpful if they offered , like

57:11

like a project

57:14

or something where you actually had to collaborate

57:16

with another student . Like they assign you other

57:18

students , you collaborate with them and

57:21

that way you learn how to use , get more more

57:23

efficiently with other people , which

57:26

is , like you know , it's

57:29

more similar to

57:31

an actual developer environment

57:33

, like at a job . I felt like that would have

57:35

been really helpful .

57:38

Yeah , it seems to be . I

57:41

think that's a great thing . I think that's actually a big hole

57:43

in the program . I don't necessarily

57:45

think that they should offer

57:48

it for the price point , but that's a big hole for a

57:51

cheaper program . I think there's tons

57:53

of value in a group project . There's tons of value in

57:55

stepping on each other's toes and dealing

57:57

with merge conflicts . And then what happens when you screw

58:00

up a merge conflict ? Like how the heck

58:02

do we reverse this ? I think that's huge

58:04

, just like the

58:07

scrum planning , I think , is really big

58:09

. And just being able to write requirements for tickets

58:11

and go over that with a team like

58:13

a lot of coding boot camps will simulate standups

58:15

and like every day , right before you

58:18

dive into your project , where touch base . And

58:20

it also gives you an opportunity to talk with

58:22

other people and say , like sometimes when

58:24

you work on a group , well , often when you work on a group

58:26

project , people have their different strengths and

58:28

so if you're really struggling with , like , setting

58:30

up an API and this

58:33

other person's like just an ace with APIs

58:35

, like they can help right , that

58:37

can also be very helpful . But just being able to

58:40

work with a team to kind

58:42

of define the requirements and understand

58:44

what the hell you're building is important

58:47

because I think most developers

58:49

that get hired that are going to be working on products

58:51

, they're user center developers . They

58:53

often eventually will be connected with

58:55

the users of the app , which is why a lot of companies

58:58

love hiring people that use the products and

59:00

our developers . That's fantastic . If you can apply

59:02

for companies like that or if you like

59:04

, you constantly use developer software

59:07

and you , just like I , really want to work for this company is a

59:09

good blend . Companies love hiring

59:11

people that give a crap about their products . Because

59:14

you're going to care about the users , you're going to understand

59:16

the user's concerns and that's going to show

59:18

in the effort that you put into your implementation

59:20

and considerations for , like when

59:22

you're deciding , like something that needs to be scalable

59:25

versus something that needs to go out and piss it off a

59:27

hundred of our customers right . Like when

59:29

you care about that stuff . That's a balance

59:31

that all professional developers are going to have to strike

59:33

and you're going to be pushing back with product

59:35

and like you want to get a feel for , like

59:38

okay , product is telling me , like this is really important

59:40

, etc . But you know , as a developer , I

59:43

have to understand that I don't want to push a bunch of technical

59:45

debt into my code base and I'm going

59:47

to appropriately push back

59:49

and explain why , and practice

59:51

explaining why , because that's a skill in itself

59:54

, right . You're going to have a lot of stakeholders

59:56

and you're going to be interacting with different departments

59:58

and when you work on a group

1:00:00

project you get a little bit of exposure

1:00:02

to that . And just communicating

1:00:05

also your updates is also

1:00:07

another thing that people need

1:00:09

to practice . But

1:00:12

also you learned how

1:00:14

to like . Usually what programs

1:00:17

will do is they'll kind of set a limited time , like a week

1:00:19

, two weeks , build this project , right

1:00:21

, and now you have to shuffle and

1:00:23

struggle and figure out okay , what

1:00:25

can we get done and what you're going to realize

1:00:27

as a developer is really important

1:00:29

lesson . You're

1:00:32

probably going to overestimate what you can get done and

1:00:34

you are going to pull your hair out in stress because

1:00:36

time is almost up and you're not

1:00:38

even close right . This is

1:00:40

the developer experience , especially as a new developer

1:00:43

, and you will learn to be able to . You

1:00:46

know , a concept I usually recommend for

1:00:48

people is over or

1:00:50

under commit and over deliver . Always

1:00:52

under commit and over deliver when you're not quite

1:00:54

sure and within a two week

1:00:56

sprint . That

1:00:58

is really important to do . There

1:01:01

are going to be some product managers that have

1:01:03

a lot of experience with professional developers

1:01:05

and the code base and they've been around and

1:01:07

they might be willing to tell you . You know what

1:01:09

. It's probably going to take you longer than that . You're

1:01:11

new , you don't know it . But they're also going to be product

1:01:13

managers that are like , oh yeah , this developer is going

1:01:15

to work 80 hours to get this done . This is awesome . Yeah

1:01:17

, go for it , take those

1:01:19

tickets right . But just being able to work on that group

1:01:22

project and talk with other developers

1:01:24

, come up the requirements , solidify them , figure out

1:01:26

what the MVP , the minimum viable

1:01:28

product is that we need to get done

1:01:30

just a very bare bones feature . And

1:01:32

the only way you're going to figure that out is to understand

1:01:35

who the hell is going to use your app . What does

1:01:37

your app solve . All of that is

1:01:39

fantastic experience . So I

1:01:41

would argue I don't necessarily

1:01:43

think , within this price point , that this

1:01:45

program should include like a big

1:01:47

capstone group project like that

1:01:50

, but I would participate

1:01:52

in a hackathon . I would find people

1:01:54

to do a group project with , because I think that's

1:01:56

going to be a really important supplementation

1:01:59

. Do you guys think that's fair ?

1:02:03

Yeah , that's actually what I did and it was a huge

1:02:05

, huge help . Added that on

1:02:07

at the end .

1:02:09

Okay

1:02:12

, so what do you think they could improve

1:02:14

, eric ?

1:02:17

I felt like some of the lessons could

1:02:19

probably be swapped for

1:02:22

kind of other , more ways , more relevant technologies

1:02:24

, like I know , there's kind

1:02:26

of like a week spent on jQuery and

1:02:29

they did preface it and saying that like hey , this

1:02:31

technology is being phased out but

1:02:33

you potentially could be put on

1:02:35

a team where they're using legacy code bases

1:02:37

, so maybe a little bit of experience

1:02:39

with this might be useful . But

1:02:41

then

1:02:44

something , for example , that is important to me , what

1:02:46

I'm trying to get better at is a type script

1:02:49

. There was kind of like we didn't even

1:02:51

touch any type script throughout the course and

1:02:53

I think that's actually changed . They

1:02:56

recently kind

1:02:58

of changed the curriculum and they added that , which I'm happy

1:03:00

about , but

1:03:03

yeah , so I felt like maybe certain

1:03:05

things are more relevant than others . I

1:03:09

definitely agree with you guys as well that having

1:03:11

some sort of kind of

1:03:13

collaborative project is super helpful

1:03:15

. They

1:03:18

didn't really encourage us to contribute

1:03:20

on open source or anything like that , which

1:03:22

I think that would be helpful . If someone's

1:03:24

kind of going through the boot camp and if they

1:03:26

have time and

1:03:30

time to do that throughout the course , that would be great

1:03:32

. And

1:03:35

yeah , I'd say that's kind of the main things at

1:03:38

the top of my head .

1:03:41

Okay , so just

1:03:44

a quick note of that and

1:03:46

then I don't even know if I have any

1:03:48

other questions . I feel like you guys did a really good job

1:03:50

explaining everything With

1:03:54

. Yeah , we on . Jquery is a lot Depends

1:03:59

what they use it for , what they taught like , for example

1:04:01

, my coding boot camp . We

1:04:03

learned jQuery but then we built the

1:04:05

virtual DOM , like a really basic version of

1:04:08

the virtual DOM for React with

1:04:10

jQuery , and we did the state and

1:04:13

we did really minimal stuff and just

1:04:15

being able to update certain parts of

1:04:17

our application through jQuery , given

1:04:19

when like state would change , that was really

1:04:21

interesting . It helped us dive

1:04:24

into React with

1:04:26

a little bit of a heads up and get some fundamentals

1:04:29

down . I think it's a really useful tool

1:04:31

when you're really struggling to understand a concept . Get

1:04:34

that concept broken down into its pieces

1:04:36

and understand the pieces and build it back up

1:04:38

from scratch . I think it's a really

1:04:40

cool strategy to do , I

1:04:42

would argue . Typescript

1:04:45

is . There

1:04:47

are a lot of developers that like it , for a

1:04:49

good reason , but for new

1:04:51

developers it has a bit

1:04:53

of a learning curve . It takes longer to push out features

1:04:55

, and I think feature work is really

1:04:57

going to help reinforce a lot of your JavaScript , and

1:05:01

then you have newer libraries that

1:05:03

are now tossing out TypeScript as well

1:05:05

. So TypeScript is still hyped

1:05:07

, and so I would argue

1:05:09

that it is in enough

1:05:11

job applications where this

1:05:14

is something you might want to supplement . So I do

1:05:16

think that's good advice . Eric

1:05:18

, just

1:05:20

don't dive in too quickly . I

1:05:22

find a lot of people just like JavaScript's weird

1:05:25

, it's quirky , and I find , like a lot of people

1:05:27

I don't even think it's the type there

1:05:29

is people struggle with with JavaScript . I think

1:05:31

just using JavaScript as your initial programming

1:05:34

language , the syntax , it's

1:05:37

a little funky , but adding TypeScript

1:05:39

to that , and especially setting up TypeScript

1:05:42

, it can be difficult and frustrating

1:05:44

. So if you have extra time , go

1:05:46

for it . And

1:05:49

there's one other thing you mentioned

1:05:51

TypeScript . What was the last thing ?

1:05:54

That they changed the curriculum to add it .

1:05:57

They changed it to add it . I

1:05:59

don't know , I'm probably thinking of something else . Okay

1:06:02

, I just want to add that extra note . Okay

1:06:04

, I feel like we went over everything

1:06:07

that I want to go over . Do you feel like we

1:06:09

missed anything ?

1:06:14

Touching on that last topic about changing the curriculum

1:06:17

, I noticed that they were very good about

1:06:19

making updates . Some

1:06:21

of it was a little strange . They changed some required projects

1:06:24

to optional , which was helpful with the timeframe

1:06:26

. But I noticed when I was looking

1:06:28

back today , actually some of the assignments are actually

1:06:31

different . So I think they've taken advice and

1:06:33

made the updates as they go , which

1:06:36

I know that's a struggle , especially with everything

1:06:38

being recorded . But I thought

1:06:40

it was a nice add that they're trying to do that .

1:06:44

Okay , Cool

1:06:46

, All right . Well

1:06:48

, that's it then . I appreciate you guys coming

1:06:50

on Before we wrap it up . Seriously

1:06:54

, thank you so much for coming on . These

1:06:56

reviews help a lot of students and

1:06:58

they helped you and you came back on and

1:07:00

that was really cool . First of all

1:07:02

, I love when people watch my videos

1:07:04

. It helps them and then you're willing to come back on and

1:07:07

pay it forward . I think you're going

1:07:09

to make for awesome software engineers . I think there's a

1:07:11

really good quality to have as a software engineer

1:07:13

. So thank you . But yeah

1:07:15

, before we wrap it up , let's go ahead and go around

1:07:17

. Eric , if people want to reach out to you

1:07:20

and anything else you want to shout out , where could

1:07:22

they reach you ?

1:07:23

Yeah , I'd say , my biggest thing is my

1:07:25

LinkedIn page , so you can find me at Eric

1:07:28

Zoring , and then I also have a personal

1:07:30

portfolio website and Donna

1:07:33

, I can give you the link , and Mr Plano

1:07:35

and Verso , and you can find me there too , sounds

1:07:38

good , how about you , daniel ?

1:07:41

I think LinkedIn really has all the different

1:07:43

pieces , so I have to look

1:07:45

at my like Daniel and Aranda

1:07:47

. Yeah , find me

1:07:49

there .

1:07:50

Okay , Cool . How about you Pasha ?

1:07:53

Yeah , linkedin , you could

1:07:55

just type in my name , pasha Loganov , and

1:08:00

you could also check out my portfolio

1:08:02

website , which is PashaLoganovcom

1:08:05

. And

1:08:07

yeah , if you're interested

1:08:10

in seeing what I do on outside of programming

1:08:12

, I'm also a graphic

1:08:15

artist and you could check out my Instagram grammar

1:08:19

commie .

1:08:21

Okay , all right , sounds good . Thanks

1:08:23

for sharing and if you enjoyed this video

1:08:25

, you like it . You hate it ? If you're watching on YouTube

1:08:28

, let me know in the comments , as usual . But

1:08:30

, eric Daniel Pasha

1:08:32

, thank you so much for coming on , thanks .

1:08:37

Thank you for having us

1:08:40

on . Thanks , thank

1:08:45

you for having us on . Have

1:08:53

a nice and normal

1:08:55

positive questions .