Here we are - week 10 out of 13? The course has flown by, and honestly I do feel a bit brain-dead. I want to try and recollect some of my reflections to look back on this time. Certainly it has been interesting, expanding, thoughtful, challenging and fulfilling.
Off the top of my head, here are some thoughts:
Is it enough to get a job? No way ... you will need to continue practicing and creating projects for sure. The content flies by so fast that you only skim the fundamentals and put into practice a little bit - which means your code is bloated and inefficient. An example of this is my front-end react project (I do have some critiques of how this block was structured).
The content on front end was blown by. Not only was each day a new concept, but it was (for me) certainly more difficult than back end as it introduced a new framework. While this is to be expected, it does mean that my portfolio piece does need a lot of extra help. For example, my state, use of useEffect, api calls and contexts are all over the shop and don't follow a design paradigm. Compared to back-end, where everything felt very structured and there was a comprehensive process, front-end felt like you were being 'rushed' through. I'm lucky i've had experience with CSS and HTML before hand, otherwise I can imagine someone being totally lost.
I am considering actually that most people have not interacted with the DOM or used vanilla JS to create a webpage - so in that sense, I did fly through that week. Perhaps also, it is the part of me that knew this was portfolio so I wanted every design pixel perfect -- which just isn't going to happen in this bootcamp. The great thing about these projects is that there is room to extend them and we are encouraged to do so.
I plan to neaten my front-end right up, make it actually look good and implement a few of the features that just are missing at the moment (a useless home button or post an article, just to name a couple).
Overall, the project isn't about completing a beatiful application - it's about learning how to build out a front-end that consumes an API, and for that, it's a success.
Needed?
In the end, it culminates with a front end news like web app that consumes your API backend created in the first half of the course.
Either way, out of front end and into the projects...
This is a chance to work on a group application project from start to end. It has to be full-stack, has to include some new tech and be complicated enough to be a challenge (but completable). The process follows closely the SDLC or software development life-cycle. We first come together as a group and pitch ideas. We talked about how they were CRUD applications, what was the use and most importantly for our group, how feasible it was to complete in a week. We landed on a Geography quiz game app that has a lootbox earning mechanic to make it silly.
This process does have a few growing pains... Group dynamics being one of them. It's difficult in any sense to get everyone on the same page, especially with competing ideas about how stuff should be completed. I found myself falling into a bit of a project manager role and trying to keep the group on track, as well as push people to make decisions. This is also considering everyone's experience and confidence with the project.
There is ample time to 'spike' and I do appreciate the real-life AGILE paradigm you follow. For me, it makes sense and it is a nice way to design software from start to finish. We are just about to enter the building stage of the project so... we shall see how it goes.
Back to - can I get a job?
It is clear to me at the moment, on looking at job postings and requirements, as well as discussions about bootcamp booms and what junior devs need at the moment, that the bootcamp is not enough to land you a role. You will have to continue creating projects. You will have to use new techs and get up to date on industry standards (depending where you want to work). I'm keenly interested in looking at PHP and TypeScript at the moment as there are lots of web dev/software jobs that seem to require these. I have a few fun project ideas to implement and I'm excited to keep the momentum going. Essentially, I need a job asap and I am super committed to making it happen.
Top comments (0)