Sorry, I lied. We're going to talk about ADHD and coding

 

Every time I have a medication change, I watch season 2, episode 6 of Bob's Burgers. There is something about the way Gayle barges in with "Guess who's on new meds!" that gets me every time. Perhaps it is because of my own medication history. 

I haven't discussed it much here, but my genotype does not play nicely with most medications. They either don't work at all or give me horrific side effects. For most of my life, I felt like I'd been duped. I was Georgie looking at Pennywise in the gutter, but instead of promises of a paper boat, I was told I could function in neurotypical society. 

 

I didn't lose an arm or my life, just my physical health and all hope of behaving like a Normal Human Being™. After several years and two seizures, the GeneSight test rectified this for me and revealed the two medications that could treat my depression/anxiety and behave as expected.

What does this have to do with coding? In December, I had the privilege of adding ADHD to my long list of diagnoses.  Unfortunately, GeneSight does not cover the drugs that treat ADHD, so my healthcare provider and I are stuck playing the guessing game of what will actually work. 

We tried Strattera and I became like a sleeping dragon with extraordinarily high blood pressure. After work, I'd crash in my bedroom and annihilate anyone who bothered me. I use the term "bother" very loosely, as it was mostly my dear husband checking in to bring me food and ensure I was still among the living, bless his heart.  

Now I'm trying Adderall and hoping it will help my poor working memory. Working memory is what most people think of as short-term memory. While most people may be able to listen to instructions and immediately put them to use, I cannot. It has nothing to do with paying attention, it's that my working memory is so bad, I have no recollection of what I was just told. It's the same reason I may read a sentence or paragraph over and over again and have no idea what it said. 

Needless to say, this is a problem I am learning to navigate in my coding career. A lot of coding is reading, whether it be in the form of language documentation, proofreading your code, or deciphering another person's. 

My brain hates this. It causes me to make a lot of basic mistakes and I feel especially stupid when other people notice them (which happened a lot today). Here's how I'm managing it:

• I chose to stop telling myself that I am stupid. Why? Well, it isn't particularly constructive and I'm not stupid. I got here despite my ADHD, which is awesome.
  
  
• Write down everything. I do my best to keep a written record I can refer to. It isn't always helpful because I like to get hyper-focused on one thing and may forget finer details, but it's better than nothing.
  
  
• I told my boss. If you're comfortable with yours, this may help you, too. I explained that I'm in treatment to find a medication that works and I was worried people may mistake my crap working memory for not listening/caring. He was super cool and understanding about it. This helped ease my anxiety because I knew especially with the medication change that I'd be prone to leaving seemingly careless mistakes.
  
  
• Read things out loud. It will help you slow down and give you more time to process. This is especially helpful if you're facing a wall of text that looks like a blur. I will highlight with my cursor as I go along to help keep my place.
  
  
• Stop being embarrassed. This is a hard one, but when you find yourself making obvious mistakes, it is best to correct them and move on. There's no need to be constantly apologizing or explaining yourself. Your identity should not be rooted in what others think of you because people's opinions are unstable and constantly changing. You need to find your security in something immutable. 

So, that's why I haven't posted. I study a lot in a vain attempt to make up for my goldfish memory and I've been struggling with medication side-effects. 

All of that being said, I do feel optimistic. Despite my ADHD, I got through college and coding bootcamp. I can recall feeling overwhelmed/making "dumb" mistakes at previous jobs, only to excel with repetition. 

P.S. If you're struggling, feel free to reach out! I'm always happy to talk. If you also have a mental disorder, please know that you CAN  still achieve your goals! You may be wired differently and have to work harder than the average person, but it can happen! With every accomplishment, you can feel proud that you did it in spite of what can often feel like an impediment! (Disclaimer: It took me 29 years to realize this, so don't worry if you're not there yet.)

 

New Beginnings and a Mouth Full of Gauze

 

My mornings are anti-climactic, but involve an unusual step: Spackle on five layers of concealer to cover up the green bruise that's become the best of friends with the swollen lump along my jaw and cheek. 

I tell myself I do this not out of vanity, but of politeness. Wouldn't want anyone to think my husband is a wife-beater. It really does look like I've been punched in the face repeatedly, but what remains is the brutal aftermath of an unexpected surgery.

It was supposed to be a simple wisdom tooth extraction. I was awake, dizzy from nitrous oxide as my skilled dentist went to town on the tooth removal. I trust my dentist and feel like he is generally an awesome guy, but what occurred no one could have predicted. The bone my tooth had comfortably lodged itself into was calcified and buttressed on all sides. 

What x-rays had indicated would be an easy removal turned into a living nightmare as I listened to my tooth cracking into shards, unwilling to depart from their fortress. The rotating tools were brought out and I was treated to the delightful aroma of tooth and bone dust as my dentist struggled, the overhead lamp glinting off his magnifying glasses. 

I sobbed uncontrollably and finally, the symphony of saws ceased. 

"You really need to be asleep for this," my dentist declared. 

Apparently, in his thirty plus years of practice, he had never seen anything quite as stubborn as my tooth. Due to the 2D nature of the x-rays, it was impossible to predict. 

"Normally it's like pulling a nail out of styrofoam, but yours is like trying to remove a fish hook from concrete."

I was sent directly to an oral surgeon, my mouth stuffed with gauze.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I started my new job on Tuesday, still bruised, swollen, and unable to speak coherently. It's okay, though. As I've gotten older, there's very little that embarrasses me. It might be due to maturity over time, but it could also be the prescription drugs. Who knows? 

*Disclaimer: For anyone jumping in, these are drugs prescribed to me for anxiety/depression that I take in the way directed by my doctor. *

It is so nice to be working again! My boss and team seem amazing. I like that there's a culture of admitting mistakes without fear. Several times, I've seen someone admit to missing a detail or another coworker notice an error and no one makes a big deal about it. They acknowledge it, correct it (or state their plan for correction), and move on. This is a far cry from some of the other places I've worked. There would be a lot of blame shifting, screaming, etc. I like this new environment a lot! It seems like a great place to learn!

Currently, I'm working from home. I've been assigned an "onboarding buddy" and I've been pairing with him. We haven't done much coding yet because our team is in a bit of a time crunch and it's all hands on deck, but the experience is still valuable. I'm learning a lot of new terminology and how our software is used and interacted with internally and externally. 

I had to figure out how to set up the mac and change paths, etc. This took a lot of Googling because the only other time I did this it was for a PC (which also took a lot of Googling, but I digress). I hate how a lot of instructional websites assume you know what Vim is or how to change an environment variable.  This may be obvious to the seasoned programmer, but not to me. 

Next post: I will attempt to alleviate the future suffering of others by telling you exactly how to change an environment variable, install Maven, and get other common programs up and running. 

Mini-post: Killing Time with Code

 

 

I start my new job on the 18th! In the meantime, I've been working on smaller projects to keep my skills sharp!

So far I have:

• Used JFrame for the first time to make a Java-based version of Flappy Bird, which even after I slowed down the speed, I am decidedly bad at
  
• Created a command line mortgage calculator
• Decided the mortgage calculator needed some pizazz and made web application using HTML/CSS and JavaScript. Screen shot above. 
• Watched a ton of tutorials on Udemy and Code With Mosh
• Katas, katas, katas...
  

I post most of my code on GitHub, if you'd like to see anything in detail. 

A lot of the material I'm going through is review, but I'm so happy to be doing it at my own pace. Tech Elevator was great and I definitely wouldn't understand this stuff without having attended, but it is incredibly fast-paced. To be honest, I felt stupid most of the time.  It's nice to go back and see that even though I struggled, I did retain a lot of the information. 

I considered making some tutorial videos, but they'd probably go like this:

1.  Intro that no one cares about/everyone skips over
   
2.  Basic code that everyone else knows/could write more concisely
3. Cursing. Lots of cursing. 
4. Off-putting camera angles that make my face look like a potato
5. "Plz subscribe, lolz"
   

I do have an idea to make one on basic CSS layouts. Just a few tricks to get your site out of the 90's. Perhaps I'll do that later, if I get bored and feel like opening myself up to another venue of potential internet criticism.  ;)

Graduation and What Follows

 

It's funny; I had a post waiting in the wings called "Halfway Through the Final Capstone," but I didn't have time to finish it. The last two weeks were a blur with 12+ hour work days, struggling through code, and finally celebrating success. 

On December 21, 2014 I graduated from The Ohio State University and ended the day in tears. They were the culmination of over four years of anxiety and financial instability for a degree I never wanted, but was pressured into obtaining. As an adult, I must own this choice, but it doesn't change the fact the financial instability has been ever-present, always lingering in the background as I struggled through now-resolved health issues and dead end jobs (no matter how enjoyable they may have been). I'd be reminded every time the paper statements arrived in the mail or FedLoan withdrew half of what I earned in a month. 

I always insisted on paper because the Gremlin of Pettiness inside of me delighted in costing the student loan companies a few pennies in profit to send the bills via post, despite the environmental impact. Hey, I'm still growing. :P 

When I was accepted into Tech Elevator and later received the Agility Partners scholarship, I was offered hope and a lifeline. In fourteen weeks, with the support of fellow students, amazing instructors, and the team at Agility Partners, I learned skills that will impact the rest of my future. Not just my future, but my family's future. 

Mike and I were/are not destitute by any means, but what we made would not allow us to expand our family. Since we got married in 2012, we have wanted to adopt a child from Mike's home country of Ukraine. International adoption is incredibly expensive and for years it seemed impossible to even start saving. 

Tech Elevator has equipped me to find freedom from debt and to hopefully start saving towards something (someone!) wonderful. 

Thanks to Agility Partners, I will be starting at Fuse by Cardinal Health in January. Excited is an understatement. 

As time has passed, I've learned a few things about myself:

• I'm a hard worker and don't give up easily.
•  I love learning and will stand up to a challenge.  
• I'm easygoing, but not afraid to speak up when it matters. 
• I can work alone, but I also make a great teammate because I don't see other people as threats to my personal success. I will be your biggest cheerleader and also, hopefully, your friend.  

I look forward to bringing these qualities to the workplace. I'm thrilled to start working on projects that will make an impactful difference in people's lives.

 

Today is December 18, 2020. I graduated and more than a few tears were shed, but this time it is because I am so sad to leave. Thank you to everyone who helped get me here. Aside from the obvious mentioned above, I've also got to thank (in no particular order):

• Ruth and Larson who encouraged me/brought me study snacks so I wouldn't forget to eat and starve
• My husband, Mike, who has had to deal with an absentee wife and more than his fair share of household chores. He has also had to endure me laughing/complaining about technical things he doesn't understand. 
• Jane, who was more than gracious when I had to cancel some of our weekly hangouts in order to study.
• Diane, who also had to tolerate more than her fair share of my flakiness and still texted me when I'd forget what day/week it was. 

To any of my fellow Tech Elevator graduates who may be reading this: I am so proud of all of you. You have worked so hard and are going off to do amazing things. Please get some well-deserved rest and sleep soundly tonight. I hope we'll still stay in touch.  <3

 

P.S. This isn't the end of this blog. When all is said and done, I'm a writer at heart. Be prepared to hear about side projects, my new job, and general tech stuff. I'll spill all the tea about starting a job fresh out of boot camp and more. Just you wait. ;)

The Final Lecture and Bats Full of Shame

 

The last couple of weeks have been brutal because of Thanksgiving break. The instructors were forced to cram four days worth of lectures into two and its clear many students are feeling stretched thin and bitter towards Vue.js and the timing of those Plymouth colonists. Couldn't they have just waited a few weeks? 

We've spent the last three months attempting to appease angry machines. Hours staring down angry red lines and making meager offerings until someone eventually murmurs, "Oh, I think it liked that..." and we're blessed with part of a working program. 

Perhaps that is why the final day of lecture was my breaking point. We did a review and I got lost almost immediately. Eventually, I turned off my camera and cried. Evidently, I was not very subtle and was quickly joined by my husband and cat who both made several well-intentioned bids at cheering me up. I'll let you guess which one offered to take me out for tacos. 

I insisted on staying put for the rest of the review and penned a depressing message to Brian and Rachelle during one of the breaks about my lack of understanding and fear of the future. I suppose that is one of my strong points: total transparency to the point of idiocy. 

Just kidding about the idiocy part, but I do dislike dishonesty and posturing. My hope is readers can infer from the rest of my blog that I will tell the truth even if it could potentially make me look weak to others. I want to give people a genuine look at what it's like participating in a coding bootcamp and if I were to pretend it was all easy, that would be deception and unhelpful to those who may be deciding whether or not to enroll. 

In an episode of What We Do in the Shadows, Nadja mentions some vampires who failed at hosting an event and permanently transformed themselves into "bats full of shame." I relate to this concept so much, that's the name of my mobile hotspot. While I am unable to transform into a bat, I am really great at sulking/dramatic makeup.

Anyway, after some encouraging messages from my instructors and reaching out to classmates who felt similarly, I was able to shake off the depression and get excited for the final capstone kickoff on Friday. The tacos helped, too. ;)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

10.3: Behavioral vs. Technical Interviews

Prior to Tech Elevator, I didn't know there were multiple types of interviews. Software developers typically have to deal with two: behavioral and technical.

The basic goal of a behavioral interview is to prove you are not a sociopath. This is what the average person usually thinks of when interviewing is mentioned. It goes kind of like this:

1.  You sit in a tiny room with unfamiliar people and they may offer you a beverage. If you are me, you always decline because you were taught from a young age to not accept food from strangers. 
   
   
2. They will then proceed to ask you a bunch of questions about your strengths and weaknesses. You must come up with a way to answer these without seeming like a narcissist or woefully incompetent. 
   
   
3. They will ask if you have any questions for them. The answer to this should always be yes. Come equipped with at least two, but no greater than four. For the love of all that is holy, do your research and ensure these are insightful and not salary related. 
   
   
4. You will leave and cry in your car, wondering if you bungled the opportunity of your dreams. 

All jokes aside, one of the most valuable things I've learned from Pathway is you are interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you during the behavioral. I know a lot of us fresh out of cohort will be itching to accept any job and that may be okay considering COVID-19 and the fact most of us have quit our jobs to take on bootcamp, but in general, we shouldn't. 

Know what you want from a company in advance. Are benefits important to you? What about company culture or how they give back to the community? Do you want to work for a start up or a more established company? 

Personally, I am very concerned with company culture. I value a work environment in which people are respected and harassment/discrimination is not tolerated.  It should be inappropriate to comment on someone's body or start screaming at them for no reason. If there are rules, everyone should be held to them, no matter ranking or status. Failure to comply should be met with accountability. 

The above may sound like I'm being a overly sensitive, but I have stories that will make any person with an ounce of empathy cringe, including one in which, as a teenager, I managed to acquire a stalker and no one cared, but we can talk about those in another post. :)

I know I want a 401k or something similar because I have no retirement to speak of whatsoever. I'm worried that I will be 85, on my deathbed, and still reporting to management. 

So, what do you want? What do you care about? Keep those ideas in mind and decide which ones are dealbreakers and which you're willing to compromise on. 

Now that we've discussed behavioral interviews, it is time to talk about the unfamiliar beast that is the technical interview. Technical interviews are meant to ensure you are not a fraud. You will be expected to demonstrate your knowledge of coding and may even be given a kata to solve. There is absolutely no standard for these and you may even be given a technical by someone who knows nothing about coding. 

I will be honest with you: we had mock technicals a couple of weeks ago and several people cried. They can be overwhelming, but with a bit of practice, allegedly we will become comfortable with them...allegedly. 

Tips on acing a technical will go in my next post, as we've already covered quite a bit.  At this point, I've done both internal (to TE) and external mock interviews. I wasn't asked to code for either of them,  but here's one bit of advice I'll leave you with: Review your vocabulary. You may be the greatest developer in the world, but if you can't explain your code, people will fail to see how awesome you really are. 

Capstone 3: FATALITY!

Howdy, friends!

We have completed another capstone! This one focused on creating a RESTful API, SQL, and user authentication. It was an application similar to Venmo in which users can send, receive, and request money. 

After the capstone, we focused on HTML and CSS for week 9. This was nice because I have a lot of past experience with these and it was more like review. Capstones leave everyone exhausted and it can be hard to focus on new material when you've been coding for 12+ hours for several consecutive days. It felt like a refreshing break, but I still learned new things! I had never made a CSS grid before. I had also been self-taught, so I didn't realize you could use HTML for the structure of the page and do all of the styling with CSS. My previous pages looked nice, but they were inconsistent in how I styled them, which makes the code harder to read and can create problems later on. 

I've decided I definitely prefer front end development to back end. While both are enjoyable, I have a lot of fun designing sites and making them aesthetically pleasing, which I know is ironic because my blog is very plain. We used to have a saying when we were young and mean in college: "Ugly girl, heart of gold, bless her soul." That is my blog. Unattractive, but the content is quality (I hope!). 

If you're wondering about the "bless her soul" bit, it's because my friend group had noticed that some people tack that on to whatever horrible thing they said about someone else, as if that magically makes it okay. Also, the ugly girl could be anything: an unappealing, yet amicable dog or a particularly grotesque cucumber at the supermarket. It never failed, upon viewing such a spectacle, someone would mutter "Ugly girl, heart of gold, bless her soul" and we'd all bust out laughing. 

We came up with that phrase one night at Tee Jaye's. Sometimes, I miss those late nights laughing around a table and filling up on gray food. I was especially fond of the Barnyard Buster, two eggs over-easy on a pile of home fries and split biscuits. The whole mass was then smothered in "sausage" gravy, which often tasted only of flour. It was basically Heaven. 

Perhaps I am feeling nostalgic because in the wake of COVID-19, the idea of sitting in a restaurant with friends seems unlikely to occur any time soon. On the bright side, I do feel grateful for technology like Zoom, which enables us to see and hear our loved ones in real time. That's part of why software development is so exciting to me; I like the idea of making things that enhance people's every day lives. If a program can take a bit of the burden off of an individual, that's a beautiful thing. 

8.2: Coding Bootcamp: Casual Suffering Playlist Now Live!

Struggling with imposter syndrome? Been looking at code for so long that your brain has melted like the crayons your kid left in the backseat of the car? 

Settle down, my friend. Let me tell you a story. 

My parents have lived in the same home for over a decade. In fact, I, too, used to live in that home for several years. It is conveniently located about ten minutes away from me and is nearly a straight shot down Cleveland Avenue. 

My parents and I are not estranged, we see each other frequently, however, two weeks into Tech Elevator, I got lost on the way to their house. 

I just kept driving down Cleveland, wondering where I should turn. I was exhausted and only realized something was wrong when I noticed twenty minutes had passed instead of the usual ten. 

Point of the story? Coding brain is very real. Take a break and get pumped with some dancy tunes, provided by yours truly. ;)

P.S.A. This playlist is great for adults, but not necessarily for children. I wouldn't blast it for family fun time.  If you're looking for something that would be appropriate for kids, try listening to The Aquabats. They also have a fun tv show that is available on YouTube. 

Capstone 2: Dead and Done!

 Hello, all! 

I haven't posted much because I was busy working on my second capstone for module 2. It was incredibly stressful, but my partner and I created something we are very proud of. 

Module 2 was fairly short and deceptively easy at first, but the last few concepts came in like a roaring lion and knocked me back a few pegs. Here is what we covered:

• Introduction to databases
• Aggregate functions and group by
• Joins
• Insert, update, and delete
• Database design
• Database connectivity
• Integration testing
• Database security

For our capstones, we had to create a command line venue reservation program. It was intense! My partner, Olivia, and I had both received similar feedback on our previous capstones. We both had put too much in our CLI in the past as opposed to breaking it up into smaller methods called from a different class. We caught ourselves making the same mistake this time, so we spent most of Saturday refactoring things! It was frustrating, but worth it. Our code was clean and easy to read. 

One lesson I learned during this capstone is to be proud of the work completed, even if the whole project isn't finished. We didn't have tests, but were able to recognize our product was the best we could do in the time we were given. 

Capstone reviews this round were done with another team in addition to Brian. This was helpful because we could see the different ways each team chose to approach the challenge. The other team had amazing formatting using printf, which I took notes on and hope to use in the future. 

In addition to the capstone, I had to prepare for my Lightning Talk. Lighting Talks are short presentations that can be about absolutely anything. Mine was about crafting prop weapons from EVA foam. 

P.S. If you're wondering about the aftermath of my last post, everything is okay. Brian scheduled an extra session with me to go over the part I didn't understand. It turns out I don't trust myself enough. If something doesn't work, I assume I took a completely wrong approach when in reality, a small adjustment needed to be made. This causes me to write a lot of code over again when I don't need to. In the future, I will focus on refactoring what I have before I try different methods. I will also try to reach out sooner when I'm stuck as opposed to struggling to the point of despair, haha. 

5.4: Why Can't I Git It?

I feel like a girl who dies in a horror movie. Not the first one --the one that is typically offed because...well, slut-shaming, but the second. 

The Second Girl is blissfully unaware of the imminent trauma. She is busy working at a hip coffee shop alone at night, hiking, or being a good friend to The Final Girl. Basically, the kind of stuff that would make a great medication commercial if played in a series of short clips with an uncomfortable smile. 

Second Girl is just trying to live her life and then she gets knifed or eaten. She takes out the trash and ignores the faint scuttling from behind the dumpster. Then poof. Gone. 

That's how I feel. 

I'm overwhelmed and second-guessing myself. There's a voice in my head that tells me I'm too stupid and might as well quit. Java is the monster and the program being executed is me...sorry, that's a bad joke and the analogy breaks down there.

I'm telling you this because I want to represent an honest look at what coding boot camp is like. It's not always easy;  there's a reason why Redrum is one of my most popular posts to date. 

So, what set this off today? I had an issue with an optional exercise and went to my instructor for help. He explained some things but when I went to implement his instructions, my code still didn't run and so naturally I assume I am dumber than the troll in the girls' first-floor bathroom. It is late and I am too ashamed to admit to him I didn't understand his instructions, thus the natural decision was to admit it publicly to a bunch of strangers. :)

I will play around with it more tomorrow after some rest. I didn't really get to stop coding today, so I'm feeling fried. If I don't figure it out, I'll swallow my pride and ask again because I really care about learning this stuff.

Just an FYI: I know that this shroud of despair and self-doubt will pass. I will be able to look back on this post with a feeling of accomplishment, just like I do with Redrum. Eventually, I understood how to use loops and arrays. The same will happen for this concept, too. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TL;DR: Coding boot camp is hard. You will have bad days. It gets better. 

5.1: I Was Publicly Wrong and Didn't Burst into Flames

Fear and pride are two things you need to get rid of if you're going to be a (happy) software developer. 

I don't know why, but for whatever reason, I have a deep-seated need to be correct. Perhaps I think my value comes from being right all of the time or fear others will think I am stupid, but it's there. This desire for perfection has made me terrified of answering questions in class. If I am wrong, everyone will know and my value in their eyes will be diminished. 

Guess what? It doesn't matter. 

Today, I awkwardly offered to try a problem in front of the whole class. We are learning how to select things with SQL in DbVisualizer. I got most of it correct, but floundered on further refining the data, which rendered an error. 

I did not burst into flames. 

It was seriously okay. Maybe I've grown since college, but I didn't mind being wrong. Brian didn't make a big deal out of it either and showed me how to fix my mistake. 

I didn't feel like my classmates were judging me and if they were, that's on them. By taking a chance at being wrong, I got a learning experience. I won't make the same mistake in the future and hopefully neither will anyone else who may have been confused about the same thing. 

Life gets easier if you don't take yourself so seriously. Correction is a good thing; it allows for improvement. Remember that you are not your code and your value as a human being is not linked to it. Even the best software developers have to Google things and need help. :)

Capstone 1: Complete!

Last Thursday and Friday were given to us to complete our capstone projects, which encompassed everything we learned in Module 1.

It was grueling! Our task was to create a catering system program. My partner, Kristen, and I worked all weekend in addition to the days given. 

If you're wondering about the process, it looked a bit like this:

- Thursday: We designed our program, created classes, created the CLI, etc. 

- Friday: We realized we were on the wrong track for certain parts and had to redo/remove sections. It was a bit heartbreaking because we had spent hours on them! 

- Saturday: We noticed that some of the things we removed needed to be recreated. :( At one point, we realized that even though we were working with money, Big Decimal was complicating things and we needed to change every occurrence of it to double. Around midnight, we decided we were done!

- Sunday:  I was playing around with our program and came across a few errors/bizarre returns. We spent a couple of hours fixing them and called it quits. 

In the end, I'm so happy we did it. It may not be perfect, but I feel like we made a real program! I know that technically we have written several others throughout the course, but this one is definitely the largest and most complex!

Pathway and Module 1 Summary

You know what really sets Tech Elevator apart from their competition? Their Pathway program, which equips students with the necessary skills to find their first coding jobs. 

At first, I was skeptical because I didn't find the job hunting program in college to be very helpful. I went to a few career fairs, but half of the time the person I was speaking to at the booth had nothing to do with the hiring process. 

The Pathway Program is nothing like that. It is crazy the amount of work Ben and Vinny have put into it. Each week we have panels with TE alumni on a variety of topics. They give some fantastic advice and insight on everything from different career roles to dealing with imposter syndrome. 

We have worked on elevator pitches and resumes. Before this, I actually had a pretty good resume, but now I have a great one! This week we are optimizing our LinkedIn profiles. Prior to TE, I never used LinkedIn and thought it was kind of weird. Now, I'm able to see how useful it is and know the tips and tricks to get my profile to appear more in search results. 

Eventually, the cohort will go through an employer matchmaking process, which is essentially speed-dating, but with job interviews. 

Since I'm a bit behind on weekly summaries, I'm just going to list the things we covered this module. Hopefully, I'll get back into the swing of things after our first capstone, which is due Monday! 

Module 1 consisted of:

• Intro to Tools
• Variables and data types
• Expressions
• Loops and arrays
• Command Line Programs
• Objects and Strings
• Collections
• Classes
• Encapsulation
• Inheritance
• Polymorphism
• Abstract classes
• Unit testing
• Test Driven Development
• File I/O Reading in/Writing out

Quick Personal Update

 Hey! I fully intend to post more, but the past week and a half has been crazy. 

As many of you know, my cat, Kikyo, has cancer. If I've mentioned it more than once, I'm sorry, my brain is a cabbage; I haven't been this stressed in a while. 

When we first got her back from surgery, she required medication (which she did not want to take!) three times a day and cold therapy. She was and is still under constant supervision because jumping could tear her stitches. 

She has to wear a cone of shame, but unfortunately, this has triggered an undesirable result in my dumb dog, Argo. While she is wearing the cone, he suddenly thinks she is prey worthy of attack. We must keep them separate at all times and cry softly into our hands. :)

So, off to go...err,  humidify my hands.  Later, friends. <3

2.3: Find Your Coding Bootcamp Learning Style / What to Do With Your Body During Lectures

Think about the last time you were in school. How did you best retain information? 

Some people may:

• Take notes (typed or handwritten)
• Fidget
• Sit there and do nothing (listen intently)
• Practice the concepts while they're being taught

There's no right or wrong answer, but for coding bootcamp, you may need to adjust. 

For example, I like the tactile feeling of handwritten notes, however, material is covered so quickly, I frequently get behind.

If I don't take notes, I need something else to do with my hands, lest destruction ensues.  I will absentmindedly pick at my fingernails until they bleed. Sound gross? It is and I am, but I have the feeling you can relate (I'm looking at you, America, who needed literal hand washing instructions at the start of the pandemic). 

So, if handwritten notes are out for me and so is sit there and do nothing, what can I do? Well, I'm still trying to figure that out. I've currently settled on a combination of typing notes, fidgeting, and practicing concepts while they're being taught. 

I feel like that's fine enough for the lectures, but my retention isn't as good, so I will probably have to go back and copy lecture slides by hand. This is annoying, because it seems like even more work, but it is how to get the information to stick. 

You may have to play around and see what works for you, too. 

As for what to do with your body during lectures:

• If you fidget, be discreet and quiet! There's nothing wrong with fidgeting, but make sure your hands are off camera or under your desk. You don't want to distract other students.
• Don't lie down in bed on camera. It is weird. 
• Make sure your body is appropriately dressed before getting on camera
• Standing up/stretching is fine in casual settings. 

Also, because we are all human, there will be a point where you just can't pay attention. Maybe the teacher is progressing too quickly or you have sleep deprivation or personal issues; it doesn't matter. 

Make a note to yourself about the topic before you zone out so you can catch up later. Try to pay attention enough to list any other topics being covered so you don't miss out. Then, this is the most important part:  REFER TO THOSE TOPICS LATER when you are in a better state of mind. 

Lastly, if you're curious about what we covered in class today, we focused on maps, sets, and algorithm problems. Most of it was very interesting, but algorithm problems is where my brain decided to tip its hat in farewell and hop off the wagon. I will have to review those concepts later tonight. ;)

Note: From here on out, I'm going to reference the week and day in this format:
Week.Day
so 2.3 is Week 2 Day 3

Week 2: Day 2: Squeaking Out Questions

Brian is really good about pausing to ask if we have any questions. 

The problem is, I am still learning how to be comfortable talking on Zoom and am afraid to ask any. 

Well, I am proud to report that today I did ask a question! I was awkward and squeaky, but did not die from it. 

Please learn from my thought process:
1. Your instructor is there to help you.

2. You're receiving a ton of information! It's okay if you missed a bit and need clarification. Don't worry about whether or not other people think you're stupid.

         a) Most likely someone else also had that question
         b) Review benefits everyone
         c) On the off chance they think you're dumber than Victim #1 in a horror movie, so what? It's               not like you want to hang around people like that anyway.

3. Everyone in my cohort has been incredibly supportive and awesome. I'm honestly not too worried about c). 

4. If in some alternate universe, everyone in my cohort was judgmental and mean, so what? I'm here for me. I want to learn about software development and the opinions of others shouldn't affect that.

I mention this in case one of you lovely readers is going through a bootcamp or considering it. Don't let fear hold you back! 

Another quick note: 

I often talk about how hard this program is, but you want to know the truth? 

I've never been happier. 

It is hard, but I absolutely love it.  

I enjoy the difficulty. 

It is exhilarating to spend an hour on a program, research what's going wrong, and finally solve it. I enjoy running tests in Eclipse and seeing "Failures: 0".

End of Week 1: I Am Just a Husk

 Scenario:

I am at my desk immersed in correcting my homework. What did I miss? Probably left out a bracket or semi-colon because life is a sick joke and if you miss just one of those symbols, it throws the whole program off. 

I hear the crescendo of footsteps drawing closer. The door creaks open and then the dreaded words:

"Whatcha up to?"

"NOTHING, MIKE. JEEZ!" I reply without looking up from the computer. Suddenly, I remember that is a human being that I am talking to and not the Charizard I "rubber duck" with. 

Snapped out of work mode, I am suddenly filled with shame. I turn to my wonderful husband of eight years and say, "Sorry, Mike. It's been hard. Just doing homework. Oh, and happy birthday!" 

Week 1 Summary: 

Tech Elevator was not lying when they said the program would be time intensive. I don't go to bed until around 1am most days. While the scenario above has been slightly embellished, it is fair to say that I don't have nearly as much time to spend with Mike and my friends. I know it's only temporary, which helps. Plus, you just can't beat the thrill of struggle busing through code until you finally find a solution that works. 

I feel very lucky. My instructor, Brian, is not monotone and comes up with great analogies that make concepts like loops and arrays easy to understand. On Friday he included a very helpful bit about peer programming etiquette and assigned us our first partners. 

I was extremely nervous about starting peer programming. My fear is that I don't know enough and will be deadweight. Thankfully, Ross, my partner, seemed to be in the same boat and was incredibly patient and up for trying anything. For the final exercise we were searching Stack Exchange and Googling different ideas and plugging them in until something worked. One of our classmates, Christina, also swooped in to help and gave us a fresh way to reconsider our code.

It's been hard, but tons of fun. 

Some practical takeaways:

• "Rubber ducking" is the practice of explaining code to something that doesn't talk back. It really is helpful for recognizing errors.
• I took a writing class in college where the class mantra was "kill your darlings". Basically, it means you shouldn't get too attached to what you write; there will always be something better or a way of improving it. You are not your writing. Don't take criticism personally or be afraid of throwing things away. The same principle applies to code. 
• Step away from the computer. Take a break every fifty minutes or so. If I'm feeling really frustrated, I will go to bed and tackle things again in the morning. It's like flipping a switch; I wake up and suddenly everything clicks.

Day 4: Redrum

public String elainasThoughts (boolean understandsClassMaterial) { 

boolean understandsClassMaterials = false; 

String elainasThoughts = ""; 

 

if (understandsClassMaterial == true) {
return elainasThoughts = "Food!";} 

else if (understandsClassMaterial == false) {
return elainasThoughts = "redrum redrum redrum"; } 

 

return elainasThoughts;

}

I'd include a loop in there, but understandsClassMaterial = false.

Day 1: Adjusting

Day one was difficult, but not because of the material. We started our orientation meeting at 9am and didn’t finish our lecture until after 5pm. If this were in person, it would be cake, however, we are dealing with the beast that is Zoom and I found myself utterly exhausted.

Have you heard of Zoom Fatigue? It’s a real thing. Basically, our brains want to process non-verbal cues and that is difficult via video. There are several other stressors involved, but that is the primary cause in most articles.

I had a feeling this would be an issue for me. I talk to several friends on Zoom and Discord weekly and afterwards find myself wanting to take a long nap. Not possible here, but that’s okay. I will pump myself full of caffeine and carry on!

The first day was mostly introducing the tools we’d be working with. We practiced various commands in Bash. After we were comfortable with those, Brian, our instructor, went over how to use Git.

I must say, the Git Pro Git book made me think using Git would be harder than it actually is. After Brian walked us through it, the concepts were much easier to understand.

The Meet and Greet

 Normally, the cohort would meet and learn in person, but due to COVID-19 the school has had to make some adjustments.

We maintain a virtual presence in Sococo, which feels kind of feels like the lamest real-time video game ever. I don’t mean that in the sense that Sococo is bad, but that you can’t shoot other players or slay dragons. Upon logging in, your avatar can enter different rooms and collaborate with other users. We each have a classroom we’re assigned to, which contains links to the Zoom meeting lectures and other materials.

Today’s meet and greet was over Zoom and included sixty people. We were given introductory questions in advance and every person on the call answered them. This has the recipe to be supernaturally long and boring, but it was great fun! I was surprised by the range of ages, backgrounds, interests, etc.

I am a dork, so I took notes. I want to make new friends and learn more about people. I’m really sad that we have to meet online. I’ve never had a learning experience where my anxiety was in check, so I was looking forward to actually interacting with unfamiliar humans, as opposed to running from them.