And here...we...go...

#beginners #tutorial #writing #career

Introduction

Who Am I?

You know who I a...actually no, no you don't. I'm Josh and welcome to the crazy life that is attending a coding bootcamp. I'm 28; live in Columbus, OH with my Cats and Puppy; teach Taekwondo; cosplay; and many other things that will probably come up in some later posts. I hope I can give you a sense of what it is like to attend something like a coding bootcamp as well as a sense of who I am over the next few weeks.

Coding Background

I've been working in IT for about 9 years now. That is a broad subject area: My path was as such Help Desk -> Business Analyst/Project Manager/Product Owner -> Product Owner/UX Designer. While working on the Project/Product side of things I was exposed to some light coding and reading code, but didn't do much writing or gain a full understanding of it. In January of 2020 in preparation for a job interview, I took a Udemy course that focused on JavaScript/CSS3/HTML5 and that was the Beginning. Since June, I've been working on a Bachelors of Science in Software Development from Western Governors University. In September 2020 I started as a student to learn full-stack development in the Java language with Tech Elevator.

Coding Bootcamp

Current Status

I just started Week 3 of this 14-week bootcamp and I've got to say while it has been fun, it has been a whirlwind. Being unemployed since February, I've been able to take some...liberties with my daily schedule, so coming back to a proper schedule came easier than I expected, but not as much I would have liked it to.

Even with that being the case, I have loved every minute that I have been involved with Tech Elevator. I'm learning new ways to think about problems; nuances of the Java language versus C# and JavaScript; and that I CAN do this (maybe in a later post I'll go into this, but I always thought that being a developer was very much out of my grasp). The staff have been extremely helpful as well as the other students.

It truly is amazing to see how even though we're remotely learning together, even though we have varying levels of experience and personalities, that we can all come together to help each other.