Sunday night I wrote a post about sharing your struggles as well as your wins. #KilltheJoneses is a belief I’ve been practicing for the past two years but finally got to writing down as a way to mentally prepare myself for another dead end.
I applied to Ada Developers Academy over a month ago and was invited for an interview over two weeks ago. In the time in between, I researched the heck out of Seattle, started looking for apartments, and even found a non-profit and meetup groups I wanted to attend. I dreamed, baby. By the time the interview came around I was feeling really confident (maybe too confident).
Around 1:10PM I was called via Skype for the personality portion of the interview. The longer it went on the more I panicked. I was reliving my App Academy coding challenge. I wasn’t prepared for professional behavioral questions; I expected something chill and laid-back like Hackbright’s interview. I didn’t know I’d be interviewed by members of the Steering Committee! I could hear myself babbling and none of my answers felt convincing. By the time it was my turn to ask questions, there were only two minutes left.
Ten minutes after that, I started the technical portion of the interview with the lead instructor. The Q&A panel ADA hosted a few weeks back said the technical problem wasn’t going to involve any coding; it’d be more like a LSAT logic problem. So I studied LSAT logic problems. Let me tell you – the technical problem was not a LSAT logic problem. Caught off guard, I stalled pretty hard on some super simple math, but I made a decent recovery.
I was the first to be interviewed out of 60 candidates. Skype interviews were all held on the first day and I unknowingly chose the first time slot. After doing my interview, this made me feel worse – how were they supposed to remember me after interviewing 60 intelligent and awesome women??
Over the next two weeks I went from feeling bad about my interview, to hating myself for not properly preparing, to feeling a little bit hopeful that maybe – just maybe, to finally thinking “You know what, I can’t wait for them.” I started researching other bootcamps, opened up my search to the east coast, and started studying JavaScript to apply to Fullstack Academy (NYC) and Hack Reactor (SF). I even bought Professional JavaScript for Web Developers and took notes on the first four chapters of Eloquent JavaScript.
Then the day came. March 30, 5PM PST. I was supposed to get an email. An email with their final decision. But guess what? All that excruciatingly nervous waiting and that damn email never came. By 8PM I thought they probably didn’t bother with emailing the rejects.
But dammit, I needed closure, so I emailed them. Two hours later I got a reply.
FUCK YEAH! I’M MOVING TO SEATTLE TO BECOME A FULLSTACK DEVELOPER.
