This is the question that has haunted me since graduating from Flatiron Schools' Software Engineering Program. It's so easy to be overwhelmed, anxious, and I hate to say it, feel like an imposter...
But before I continue, let me introduce myself! My name is Corbin Arnett, I am a barista, vinyl-collector, and husband currently living in Portland, OR. Cough cough, hipster alert!. Like all great developers 😉, my love for web development first began by copying and pasting custom css into Squarespace and Wordpress sites. For the last two years I have been learning to code and in July of 2019 decided to enroll in Flatiron School with the hopes of bringing my learning to the next level.
Which brings us to the question at hand, last month I graduated from Flatiron and have since began looking for jobs.
Personally, the hardest thing that I have had to overcome is how to spend my time, what's my plan of attack? Flatiron gave me a great foundation in my technical knowledge and the tools to learn new languages and technologies but there is still much to learn.
Even though I'm very much in the process of hunting for jobs, I hope I can share a couple points on what I have found helpful in these early stages. I would also love to hear YOUR tips, tricks and resources when looking for a new job in this industry!
Focus on ONE language
We are blessed to be in an industry with so many avenues to go down, but also with so many options it can be easy to become overwhelmed by what to learn.
Start with what you love and build on to that. For me thats frontend development, currently I am learning more about what is going on behind the scenes in Javascript and hooks in React. Once I have confidence in those areas I plan on learning GraphQL.
Continue Building
The great thing about bootcamps is that you get the opportunity to build a lot of applications. Continue using and expanding your knowledge by building simple applications. Tutorials and blogs posts are great but in my experience the best way to cement my knowledge is to get my hands dirty with code.😂
Plan out your time
You can't do everything at once, we all know this. Take the time to schedule out your next week, split time between networking, building a side project, learning new things, and applying to jobs. My mistake was trying to do each of these everyday, which just added to the chaos and increased my desire for procrastination. Set a day to send emails and look at job boards, another to build a project, another to solve some code problems or share your knowledge through a blog post, etc. Find what works best with you and keep it consistent.
Take a day off!
Take a day every week, to turn it all off. Close your computer, step away from your phone and the 24-hour news cycle. Spend a day doing something that brings you joy. Go out to eat, take a hike, hang out with friends, sleep in! Fill yourself with the fuel needed to conquer the week ahead!
That's all folks!
This is my first post here on dev.to and I am excited to share my journey and more posts with you all in the future. Feel free to share your tips, tricks and resources, I look forward to reading them in the comments! Cheers!🍻
Top comments (1)
Hey Corbin. Congrats on graduating from Flatiron and moving on to the next stages of your career. Some great tips here for others of all levels. I look forward to seeing more of your posts.