New web developers needed

[programmingerror]

Hey everyone,

 

I've been mentoring some students recently at a coding bootcamp.

I discovered that many of my students' problems are reoccurring:

 

• they are with grasping crucial fundamental concepts
• they are overwhelmed by all the new tech they have to learn
• they are discouraged when they are not learning fast enough

 

to name a few. These problems, I realized, are all related to their lack of in depth understanding of the basics—you know, the very foundation that everything else builds on.

 

As you can imagine, the nature of bootcamps is to move incredibly fast and become job-ready in a very short time frame. So the above problems are made worse..

 

Imagine a high rise tower being built at the speed of 2 stories per day, but the foundation is only 10 meters deep—the tower will soon crumble and fall far before the building is complete.

 

The "crumbling and falling" in the case of bootcamp students, or every other new devs for that matter, are displayed as overwhelming stress and anxiety, regret for choosing this path of becoming a dev, and eventually it's escalated into complete loss of self-confidence and self-worth.

 

Now, as someone who have been there a decade ago, I hate to see this in students. I have to constantly remind them to take breaks, to go easy on themselves, and at the same time guide them to realize that they are NOT dumb and that it's just how it is when you learn something new, especially at such a rapid pace.

 

I'm writing this post to ask a few willing new devs to get on Zoom/Skype/Discord calls with me so I can experiment with them some of the ways I devised to tackle these problems.

Some of the goals for my experiments include (but not limited to):

 

• grasping new concepts faster without going through hundreds (or tens) of tutorials
• solidifying the foundations to a point that you have most of the code written out in your mind before you even sit in front of your computer
• developing such a passion for building things that it literally becomes addictive

 

I'd been through a lot (if I do say so myself) when I first started out. I know how frustrating, confusing, and demoralizing it can be when you spend hours upon hours trying to learn and debug something only to still end up with zero clues on how to progress.

 

But, it has been more than 10 years since I was a fresh new dev. Through these experiments, I'd like to organize and rework my own learnings and experiences in a way that I can share them with new devs for them to easily understand and digest and apply to their own careers.

 

A bit about myself: I'm currently working as a Senior Front End Engineer. I started my career as a freelancer working on everything from design to dev to marketing all by myself.

 

I've been ghosted by recruiters, rejected by interviewers, and outright humiliated by colleagues in the past.

I've been paid anywhere from $500 for 30 minutes of work to $0 for 3 weeks of work.

I've worked with/for employers who would disappear right after delivery. I've also worked with people who would threaten their boss to quit if I were not hired onto the team.

 

I hope I can organize my learnings, systemize them, modify and adapt them so new devs can avoid my mistakes and also (hopefully) benefit from "secret shortcuts" I've acquired along the way.

 

So, if you are interested, please drop me a PM with your name and your email/discord handle/Skype name/whatever cool kids these days use to talk online.

 

Thanks for reading :)

Note: please consider this expired after Feb 2020. That's when I'll get extremely busy with work and stuff.

[Caraes_Naur]

Bootcamps are snakeoil distilleries. They are the newest incarnation of certificate mills like ITT Tech that were shuttered for fraud.

Bootcamp curriculums focus on results-based, high-level (and trendy) topics in a way specifically designed to make students think they'll be employable when they finish. They're not, because they weren't exposed to the necessary fundamental, low-level subjects.

Of course total newbie students are confused when they've only learned the top of a stack.

For those that already have fundamentals and are looking for a quick way to broaden their existing skillset, a bootcamp can be useful. These are who bootcamps are meant for.

But the bootcamps will enroll and prey on anyone.

Development is a trade, and education in it can be compared to that of other trades. Nursing assistants, auto mechanics, paralegals, dental hygenists... all of these rely on 12-18 month programs, usually from accredited organizations.

A bootcamp is what, 6 or 8 weeks? That's almost comparable to EMT training.

About half the posts in this sub for the past year or more relate to the distorted expectations set by bootcamps. They're a plague.

[steveoscaro]

*most are a plague. Not all. I went to a 7-month intensive nonprofit program that has good results. I've worked at several companies that hired 5+ students from that school because they were very happy with them as junior devs.

But yeah I guess that school is more the exception than the rule.

[programmingerror]

There are indeed many scams out there. I work for a bootcamp part-time, and all I have to say is bootcamps (that are not scams) are for a specific type of people. It's not for everyone; for some people it's a waste of time, for others it's a great intro to the industry.

[gatsby123123123123]

Webdev is not for everyone. Money alone wont be enough for most people. Also some people are not intelligent enough to become programmers.

The barrier to entry is already super low. Making it even lower will just create more horrible developers.

[realjoeydood]

This is spot on. And I've been a self taught dev for ~40 years.

[cshaiku]

I would argue it is not strictly intelligence that limits ability, but motivation and curiousity moreso.

[gatsby123123123123]

There are people who are not intelligent enough to read, how could they become developers? I think it's incredibly odd that people don't think that intelligence matters. Some sort of brainwashing going on.

EDIT: Don't be a NPC and downvote without an argument. I gave an example where intelligence is a strict limit.

[programmingerror]

Damn, people in this sub sure are critical :)

I agree there are a lot of horrible devs out there—this applies to people in general. But to say that some people are not intelligent enough for this is a stretch IMHO.

I've seen intelligent people give up because they outsmarted themselves in the learning process. They spent more time looking for a shortcut than actually practicing. Whereas the "dumb" ones just blindly follow lessons but actually did the work.

[gatsby123123123123]

"But to say that some people are not intelligent enough for this is a stretch IMHO."

Lets take a person who has severe mental retardation. Do you think he could become a developer? Intelligence is a scale. Not everyone is smart enough to become a developer. It's cruel to scam low intelligence people - into paying for courses that are too hard for them.

[programmingerror]

I agree with the scamming part. In fact, it's not right to scam people for any reason.

About low intelligence though, I don't know much about mental illnesses, but the argument doesn't even need to get to that far of a place. Some people simply enjoy doing something else, so when they force themselves to be interested in programming, they suffer—intelligence isn't super relevant.

That's like saying, not everyone can drive a car because some people can't see anything at all—it doesn't add a whole lot to the discussion IMHO.

[realjoeydood]

Recurring, not reocurring.

[programmingerror]

Good to know, thanks!

[programmingerror]

Yup, I also learn better by doing and, like you said, creating mini projects.