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./bootcampSeries/moduleOne: a retrospect

obYesterday marked the official completion of module one here at Galvanize. HTML, CS, Javascript, and jQuery made up the past 7 weeks of my life. It has certainly been an experience. From adjusting to my new routine, to meeting my awesome new classmates, to learning how to learn, to starting to delve into new technologies head-on. At risk of sounding like a broken record: it’s been crazy. I’ve really enjoyed module one, front-end development interests me and sparks my natural creative intuition. I’ve really enjoyed adding my own visual influence to assignments and pages. It’s probably too soon to tell but I think this is what I want to focus on. Back-end development still seems... scary to me. But we haven’t even began learning about that yet so I’ll just keep an open mind and see how it all goes. Emotionally, this experience has had a lot of chutes and ladders. Ladders when I accomplish a goal I set for myself, when I design a beautiful page just the way I imagined it when first establishing its <html> tags, when I show friends something I’ve made and they compliment me. But the chutes are unique. They are “formative chutes”. This immersive career experience has made me grow up fast. I spend my day developing skills meant for a fulfilling employment in the near future, I daydream about the kind of company culture I want to fit in to, I sit around imagining this great future I’m going to have. My dreams and desires have become practical and realistic. This means I no longer enjoy the things that not too long ago made up the entirety of my life aka the San Francisco party scene. I’m realizing that I’m rapidly moving into a new phase of my life which consequently means I’m outgrowing a lot of people rapidly as well. I want to be surrounded by driven, career-oriented people. This is the antithesis of a lot of the people I was surrounded by for the past few years working as an event photographer. It’s bittersweet in its own way, but I know it’s all for the best. Anyway that’s enough of that! I will be making a post soon regarding our front-end project and the virtual pet I created using all of the technologies we learned during module one!

#coding bootcamp #developer bootcamp #bootcamp series #developers bootcamp #Galvanize #gschool

./bootcampSeries/weekFour:

And just as I expected, I completely forgot to post on this blog after the first week. I really want to be better at maintaining this thing weekly so I’ll start with a re-cap of what we’ve spent the past few weeks doing!

More HTML/ CSS , Client-Side JavaScript, J-Query, Object Oriented Programming, Callbacks, etc.

The sink-or-swim feeling of the program has definitely kicked in. Concepts like OOP and Callbacks are very complex and multi-facted and there’s just no way that I could wrap my head around those concepts in a single lecture. It’s become important for me to research and study outside the classroom. The Eloquent Javascript book continues to be a powerful ally in my journey.

As far as the day-to-day goes: it’s become ingrained in my life. Waking up at 6AM is no longer novel. I’m in bed by 10PM and asleep by 11 most nights. My body wakes up like clockwork at 2AM and at 6AM every single night... I don’t quite understand it, but hey it works.

I have also been able to get into the swing of balancing health with the immersive nature of this program. Every morning I wake up with just enough time for some morning yoga which helps me feel more limber and active before a full day of sitting at a computer. I also track my calories via myfitnesspal so that I know what I’m putting into my body and can better manage my intake of nutrients. Another thing I’ve begun doing is getting off muni early and walking for 30 minutes back to my house - I wan’t to eventually work my way up to an hour of walking every day.

The hardest part of the first month has been completely re-adjusting my life from what used to be the norm for me: sleeping in until noon and staying out until 3AM. I’ve hardly gone out since the bootcamp started and my liver and wallet certainly appreciate it.

Welp that’s enough for now. Tomorrow I will have reached my one month milestone within the program *with perfect attendance might I add* - only five months to go!

#bootcamp series #web development #developer bootcamp #Galvanize #gschool #san francisco

./bootcampSeries/weekOne:

Well. We did it. We survived our first week.

On day one, we were told to savor each day and make the most out of it because “the next 24 weeks were going to fly by in the blink of an eye”. On my first day I couldn’t fathom how six months would feel fast- but now I get it.

The amount of information I’ve learned in one week is more than what I was able to teach myself in one year of self-instruction. It’s pretty crazy the amount of practical, applicable coding skills they can teach us in one week.

Last week, I was terrified of github and the command line. This week, it’s getting close to second nature.

This week we learned about: - Navigating using the command line - Using github for version control and submitting code via the terminal - Cloning, forking, and workflows for best practice regarding github - HTML - CSS and Bootstrap Html was quite straightforward. I had plenty of experience and didn’t feel like I struggled. The *concept* of CSS was simple enough, but it’s challenging trying to make specific things happen when it comes to CSS formatting because you never know how moving one element will affect the elements around it.

Today, we spent all day learning about Bootstrap - an open source collection of tools meant to simplify CSS development. Bootstrap presented its own unique set of challenges, but it certainly made it more intuitive to create and style beautiful looking pages.

I feel tired - even though I got a good amount of sleep every night this week. I can’t stress enough how staggering the sheer AMOUNT of information we learned was. My brain feels dense with new knowledge. It’s tough - but ultimately fun and rewarding.

The days go by slow but the weeks go by fast.

#galvanize #san francisco #g school #coding bootcamp #developer bootcamp #bootcamp series

./bootcampSeries/dayFour

Not quite finished with my first week yet, but the honeymoon is sure as hell over.

I don’t mean that in a bad way. However, it is clear now that the easier confidence-building sort of exercises are now over and we are quickly delving into more complicated material. It’s not frustrating. It is all explained very well at a great pace with great practice exercises that truly help you learn. Plus, if you get stuck along the way you have the instructors as a resource. This is very helpful versus practicing on my own at home and getting so stuck and frustrated that I just quit and go do something else.

Where this begins to feel foreign to me is the sheer amount of information I am learning every day as well as the way I feel so engaged and invested with it all. At university, I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention. Here, I go hours without zoning out or checking social media. It’s unusual for me to not check Instagram every 5 minutes.

My brain is starting to feel sore. But it’s a good feeling not unlike the way your body feels sore after a good workout.

I’m rambling. I need coffee.

#g school #galvanize #san francisco #coding bootcamp #developers bootcamp #bootcamp series

./bootcampSeries/dayOne

And so it begins. Today was the first day in what will be a six month journey learning how to program at Galvanize in San Francisco. I’ve been working towards getting into a coding bootcamp since January of this year. It feels bizzare to finally be starting.

Day one was about what I would expect. A breakdown of the program, name games so we could all get to know each other, and a tour of the facilities.

Galvanize as a business works in three pillars: curriculum, companies, and capital. Curriculum entails the program I am in, companies entails the office spaces that they rent out in the building to various start ups that have outgrown their garage, and then with the profits they make they invest their capital into start ups and tech companies they find promising. This focus on fostering a community was very important to me when deciding which bootcamp I would attend. Walking around the building and rubbing elbows with individuals who have experienced success in the tech sector energizes me to make the most put of this opportunity.

The building itself is beautiful. Five stories, free Sight Glass coffee throughout, various desks with high end computer peripherals, and a gorgeous open air rooftop.

All my classmates are phenomenal! As I look around, I notice that not one person is the same. Different ages from different backgrounds raised in different cultures. Various parts of the world are represented from Texas the way to Thailand. Everyone is very sociable and easy to talk to. Most importantly, I can tell that everyone is driven and here for the same reason I am: to crush it in the program and get a killer jib in the tech industry.

As far as this series of blogs go, I plan on updating then weekly as well as answering any questions anyone may have. I know that researching different bootcamps can get overwhelming and that the admissions process can seem daunting, so I hope to provide a resource to other aspiring programmers.

Our instructors say that these six months will fly by. I’ll let you know.

#bootcamp series #galvanize #san francisco #web development #coding bootcamp #gschool

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