It’s been a week since I started my bootcamp at Launch Academy. During this time I’ve been introduced to the instructors, gotten to know a few of my classmates, met representatives from a few tech startups in the area and received an understanding of both the teaching style and a course roadmap for the next 10 weeks.
The founder and main instructor is Dan Pickett. He’s been a self-described computer nerd his entire adult life and seems to be extremely knowledgeable about, well, just about everything. The best part is that he’s always super positive and enthusiastic; its obvious that he loves what he does. Launch Academy splits our cohort of 36 into three groups and assigns each group a mentor. My mentor’s name is Sam, a goofy, easy-going guy who was formerly a musician and is also an alumni of the program. He’s only been doing web development for about a year but already seems to be really good at what he does. If I’m where he’s at a year from now, I’ll know I’m on track.
My classmates come from a wide variety of backgrounds. There are guys in their 30’s and above, as well as kids that just finished undergrad. There are people with masters degrees, as well as people that never went to college. Off the top of my head, there’s a former english teacher, a nanny, a military ranger, a barista, a musician, a peace corps volunteer, a recruiter, and a number of ex-corporate bodies like yours truly. The beautiful thing about this field is that it doesn’t matter what school you went to, or how prestigious a company you worked for; the only thing that matters is what you can do. You can’t hide behind a piece of paper from a fancy school to coast through. This is both very humbling and motivating at the same time.
The first week has been focused on learning some of the fundamentals of Ruby, the main programming language that the course will be focusing on. I’ve gone through most of the basics on my own time prior to coming to Launch Academy so it hasn’t been too intense so far, although I expect things to ramp up quickly. Dan typically gives a lecture for about an hour once in the morning and once in the afternoon, but most of the day is spent collaborating with fellow classmates on solving programming challenges. One of the things I like most about software development so far is the problem solving aspects of it. It forces you to really THINK, something I missed terribly in my previous corporate jobs in which much of the work could be based on what other individuals had previously done. The emotional swings can be quite volatile though, as one moment you’re feeling confused, inadequate, even hopeless maybe. Then the lightbulb goes off, you find the solution, and you’re overwhelmed by a feeling of triumph and fist-pumping-ness.
Sam made an insightful comment the other day, analogizing software development to making music. In music, there’s a limited number of tones, 12 I believe is what he said. Using those 12 tones, it is up to the musician to mix them in such a way to create original music. Software development is much of the same. The most complicated problems and applications are built using the same set number of building blocks; it just comes down to how you put them together.
One of the most pleasantly surprising things I learned this week is how collaborative software development really is. When most people, including myself, hear the word ‘programmer’, they tend to think of a nerdy guy typing away furiously at his computer, ignoring all human interaction, as programmer and ‘people skills’ typically don’t go together. However, it really is quite the opposite. One of the things Dan and the rest of the staff emphasized this week is how important communication and soft skills really are in being successful in this field. An important industry ‘best practice’ now is ‘pair programming’, in which two people write code together. One person typically navigates the problem, mapping out the approach and the other does the typing and coding. Personally, I found it very beneficial to have someone to bounce ideas off of and talk out the problem with, making it much less likely to end up staring blankly at the computer screen, spinning your wheels.
Tomorrow is the start of week 2 and I can’t wait to see what I’ll be learning next.
Dive & Maximize 