Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Day 052: Personal Bootcamp Debrief

So it's Tuesday now and the long weekend has come and gone. How did my personal bootcamp go?

It was really tiring, but a GREAT experience. I didn't want to spend too much time blogging about it while it was going one since I wanted to dedicate most of the time during the weekend to coding and learning to code. I posted some thoughts on instagram during the weekend.

Day 1:

Day 3:

The plan is to do something like this once a month and maybe drag some folks from my accountability group into it as well, if they want to jump in for a day or so.

As for how far I got through the material (Angela Yu's Web Dev Bootcamp), I was at 23% of the course having just finished the Bootstrap section when I started the weekend. I ended the weekend at completing 66% of the course and am into the first few videos on JSON and API.

Sort of Daily Breakdown

I was mentally wiped out the first day since it was pretty much a continuous 8+ hours of learning and coding.

The second day was much better because I took a long break in the middle so it was like 2 medium sized coding sessions vs one big long one on the first day. It was also mostly working on a project that day (building a Simon Says game) so that added variety. I also kind of stayed up until 2am in the morning that evening watching more of the videos after finishing the project because I felt like I was on a roll.

The last day was a bit shorter (since I got in those hours in the AM ), so it was not bad in terms of total hours required for the daytime. I did do the minimum number of hours on the last day so I can enjoy the long weekend and let my brain rest for a little. In all, I did clock in bout 25.5 hours of learning and coding in the past 3 days.

What I Learned

I feel like I learned SO much! The three big things: being more comfortable with the DOM, being introduced to NodeJS, and finally learning the CLI/Git/Version Control. The next bits would be to get through the API section (which is also very cool!), moving on to databases, RESTful API, and authentication and security. I would like to finish the course by the end of this coming weekend, but we will see how that goes since it depends on how much time it takes to get through the projects.

Hi NodeJS. I am so excited to meet you!
I must say, I really enjoyed the projects in this bootcamp. When she introduces you to a concept, there is a bit of code-along happening. Then there's the pausing before each mini challenge so you can work through the concepts on your own before you unpause and she goes over it. For the big projects (what she calls "boss level challenges), she lays down the to-do's for each step and you tackle them one by one. At the end, she goes over the whole project. I opted to not review her solutions unless I feel really stuck (and am happy, but annoyed with myself to say that I peeked only once during the Simon Says challenge).

You know I already had that problem before where the initial look at the code makes me wonder how in the world I can ever get to that point. But those step-by-step to-do requests really help remind me that this is what programming is all about. They are all little steps to get to the final product. And when your app works and you look back at the code, everything actually makes sense!

What's Next? 

I know I haven't finished Angela's course yet, but I am already looking ahead. Here are my next to-do's:
I added another intro-to style course to the list, Andrei Neagoie's ZTM because he has sections that cover React & Redux which I feel is something important that is missing from Angela's course. His projects also seem really interesting too. Colt Steele's Web Dev Bootcamp course also ranked high, but he is missing React & Redux so I did not really consider it. I might consider Colt's Modern React Bootcamp course in the future though.

For Andrei's ZTM course, I will skip the parts that I am comfortable with (HTML, CSS, JS basics), use the parts I am not yet comfortable with as review on 2x speed, and delve into the projects for the experience. I am also interested in his more intermediate course, the Complete Junior to Senior Web Developer Roadmap (2019) and figured I ought to see if I like his teaching style before jumping into another 30+ hour course. Use the coupon code LEVELUPZTM to buy his course fo $10.99 without having to wait for a sale.

The focus of the list is projects, projects, PROJECTS! Which is why Wes Bos' JS30 is on the list as well as the Odin Project. I was actually slowly going through TOP Web Dev 101 as bedtime reading, so I am about 33% done with it already. It follows along nicely with Angela Yu's bootcamp contents this past weekend. In TOP, I am skipping the parts related to Ruby or Rails, but might revisit that in the future. TOP just seems to have some really great projects and the curriculum is constantly being updated (contrary to what they say on the internets).

In the middle of all this, I do intend to do the challenges and projects on FCC as well. I would like to get the full stack FCC certification eventually! FCC is kind of where it all started, so of course it is always on the list. I do admit that the website alone was not enough for me to understand the material (sometimes the wording of the challenges confused me) hence my branching out to Codecademy, Lynda, and Udemy which has been working well in helping me learn.

Okay, this post was a lot longer than intended, but it is really good to create a roadmap for myself to tackle in the next few months. This also helps to know what I am doing for my next Personal Bootcamp!


Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)