If you look around - how many people are unsatisfied with their lives? And how many of them are willing to take risks to pursue their dream?
One of our classmates' reflection on our joint bootcamp experience has made me thinking.
What is the common bond between us in this bootcamp? We are all risk-takers. We have identified the desire to program and thus have made a huge investment in making this happen: quit our secure jobs, pay 15 grand, spend time in school where as we could see our friends and family, see our savings dwindle daily, accept an unpredictable future, unknown time span of unemployment, being pushed intellectually to the limit... When we were in our planning phase of our bootcamp, every single one of us must have considered these risks and said: "Yes, I am gonna go for this!"
And it does not end here, the bootcamp is just the very beginning of a very long journey of learning, learning, learning. We will be faced with so many technical challenges, and we will put many hours and nights into becoming a better programmer.
Is leaving security and taking risks a life skill? Is this crucial to leading a happier life? Everybody can make life changing decisions. I want X - am I willing to risk Y for this? Am I willing to invest time, money, maybe even relationships to make this happen?
The course of the week. Bootcamper log:
Monday
I have spent 9 hours at school. The day is over. Result: zero.
WTF?!
I have been working on a feature. Not even the whole feature, just a function that takes in the data, does some logic with it and calculates a completion rate (CR). The issues that I had were mainly: Date conversion in Javascript and from Ruby to Javascript.
At the end of the day I am leaving school feeling very frustrated. So many things are left undone, my app is not coming together at all, and I have still not solved the CR feature...
Tuesday
In the morning I planned out what I wanted to accomplish today. When I think about all the things that I still need to build for the MVP, my heart starts to hammer. OK, first things first. I can't abandon the CR feature as I feel like it is an important part of my MVP (minimal viable product). What I can do though, is scale it down, make it as simple as possible. Originally I had planned to have the user choose between three types of schedules. Now, I will pick the simplest schedule type and get this working. At least 33% of my goal will be achieved before the deadline. And if I happen to have time I can build on top of that.
And voila! By the end of the day my simplified feature was working. It felt so good! The feeling of victory after losing a few battles is amazing!
Wednesday
Why oh why does everything keep breaking? It feels like I keep repairing my app just to maintain its current functionality, rather than adding features. The user login/signup that I added yesterday messed up the parameters that my database is receiving and the routes. By early afternoon I had finally worked through the bugs and started to work on a new feature.
Today is Day 7 of Project Mode and due date for our MVP. We will present our "skateboard" to our instructors. A skateboard is a minimal app with minimal (but working!) functionality without styling. This said, I have noticed that most classmates have integrated styling from the start. I think it is rewarding to visually see your app come together. After the skateboard we will build out the scooter, the car, the Ferrari...
It feels like our class is losing a bit of steam, their initial speed and enthusiasm. It felt more like a race in the first days, but now that we have our MVPs working (and beyond), the pressure has lifted and we fall back to a more relaxed pace.
Friday
The first one of our classmates had to leave! Time to say Goodbye... Our weekly round of "Feelings Friday" was marked by a sentimental and almost nostalgic touch... He said a few things that were inspiring and made many of us nod in agreement.
Saturday
BAM! A really good day! Knocked out an important feature and killed my two major bugs. Hopper is a great room to get work done - it is cool, we have lots of space and screens, everybody is very concentrated, ... And in these past 2 weeks that we have lived here (most of our waking time is spent here) it grew on me.
Sunday
Today I was looking forward to integrating a new fun feature into my app. I want to hit the Giphy Api in order to render random gifs. It was the first time that I built a feature that I thought was really fun. And I've noticed that it makes a huge difference in motivation and happiness. Before I've worked on features that had to be done, nothing mind blowing (like user login, database setup, etc.) but that takes ALOT of time.
When you come too late to a lecture and there are no more seats
Then you deconstruct a sofa, take the pillow, and sit on the floor!
Everyone can make their blog presentation feel like inauguration day
Everyone needs to write and present a technical blog post every few weeks. School kicks us off into this habit and it might be important for many of us to continue long-term.
What would you expect a shop called "Very Fresh Noodles" to serve?
This is at a small stall in Chelsea Market that sells hand pulled noodles. The smell of the food is just AMAZING.
