Things I Wish I Did Before Going to a Coding Bootcamp

So a few weeks ago, I posted about what you can expect from a bootcamp or things that you can do to survive. Today, I thought I would give some tips and insight on what I wish I could have done BEFORE starting my coding bootcamp. Preparing more would have definitely lessened the stress of the program.

1. Be Ready to Work and Put in Time
   It's a program that's condensed a few years worth of knowledge into a few months. Expect the deadlines to be very fast and expect the workload to be heavy. Clear away any projects or extra things that you have going on and focus on this. In my experience, I decided to have a job on the weekends. I know for some that's necessary but if you can afford to take those weekends off, then I highly suggest it. Many times throughout the programs, I wished I was at school instead of work during the weekends like my cohort mates. The idea of getting behind can really get to you.

2. Try and Finish the Pre-Work
   If your program has a pre-work, do your best to finish it, even if you don't fully understand it. Our pre-work had a require amount that needed to be completed before starting the program. However, there are things after the requirement that would have been very helpful to know as the program went on. I finished a few more coursework lessons past the requirement. I didn't fully understand them but they came up later in the program and it made things a lot easier to understand because I finished that part of the pre-work.

3. Get Familiar with Shortcuts
   If you've never coded before, this is a life saver. Get familiar keyboard shortcuts will make typing all the code seem less daunting. It will also come in handy when you start doing code challenges.

4. Rest
   Yeah, I know I just said work hard but before you go into all that, be refreshed and renewed. Plan your pre-work well and don't stay up coding. You'll do plenty of it when you start the program.

5. Do Your Research on What Would Be Good to Learn for Your Program
   My program focused more on full stack engineering. What I wish I would have learned before the program was CSS and HTML. I did already know about them in the past. I played a little bit with CSS and HTML but it wasn't enough. More practice would have definitely helped when we entered the front-end realm. I'm not saying that you can't join a bootcamp without this but if you have never touched CSS or HTML and your program is web development or full stack, then I highly suggest at least learning about it. There's plenty of free resources out there.

6. Play with Code More
   Again, you don't have to be a master coder of have done code to do a bootcamp but I definitely wish I could have played around with code more. Even if they don't relate to your program as much. Maybe even doing some algorithms practice will help you get in that coding mindset. It will also help you code faster and understand concepts better in the first week hell--I mean bootcamp.

I hope this helped some of you that are considering on going to a bootcamp! Thank you for reading!