My Experience at Outbox EDU Coding BootCamp.
Hello, I am Sharon an alumnus of the Outbox EDU program. You might be having a desire to pursue a Software Engineering career and you probably do not know what to do or how to start. Well, the good news is that there are several coding boot camps you can attend and grow into your dream career. I will specifically recommend Outbox EDU.
Let’s get started. Outbox EDU is a coding Bootcamp that trains young people with little or no coding experience in software development skills. Having graduated from University, I definitely knew I needed to attend a coding Bootcamp to achieve my dream of becoming a Software Engineer. I left campus with no hands-on skills, which is exactly what I needed to get me to the next step of my dream. Amazingly, I saw an advert for EDUPrep4 and I gladly applied. I went through Prep4 and also qualified for Core2. Wahoo! Congratulations to myself!
My Experiences at EDU.
EDU has been fun. My first day at EDU remains the most memorable day of this journey. This is because I saw more ladies than gentlemen for the first time in a coding Bootcamp. I had ever been to meetups and dev festivals but the number of ladies was always alarming, to some extent I would feel misplaced. That alone excited me, it shows that ladies too have a passion for Software Engineering but getting them on board is another thing. Thanks to Outbox that values inclusion.
During the Bootcamp, we also had students with disabilities, this was another shock to me. I had never seen such passion before. Our facilitators were able to communicate to these students while solving technical issues, imagine explaining a line of code to someone with a hearing impairment, I assure you, at EDU, this happens and it was so inspiring as the disabled were not left out.
We normally know coding boot camps for being stressful and exhausting right? At EDU, it’s different. Every morning we had refreshing moments and guess what, our own facilitators led us through these games. I would laugh my lungs off during those moments. We were always re-energized and this kept us moving.
Skill Sessions, we had skill sessions once every week. Our facilitators invited Software Engineers to talk to us and inspire us. I learnt a lot during these sessions and I always asked as many questions as I could. These moments were refreshing and helped me chase my dreams even when I felt like things were not making sense.
BigUps to our facilitators. If you have ever tried learning code on your own, then you definitely know what I am talking about. Outbox EDU has amazing and experienced easily approachable facilitators. They have been my favourite friends in EDU. I would reach out to them whenever I was stranded and they helped me out.
Didn’t COVID-19 distract you? you probably must be asking this question. This pandemic took us to another level of learning. Yes, we were all shocked at the president’s call to stop gatherings but I assure you, Outbox is always prepared. Having spent only 3 weeks onsite, Outbox prepared us for remote learning. Just a mere thought of it scared me but we were briefed and everything went on as planned.
Challenges I faced and how I overcame them?
Procrastination. This is something I always battled with. When given a task to do, sometimes I had to spend time reading more before working on it, yet I had a daily standup to present. Pair Programming helped me deal with this. My facilitators were there to guide me but not to write code for me, so I had to put in the effort to read the resources given to me to deliver my work appropriately.
We were also taught, “Learning how to learn” this helped me strategize my learning. Clearly stating my daily goals and sticking to them. This helped me to first understand my challenge before googling. When I failed to get a solution even after googling, then I would reach out to colleagues at EDU when a colleague also failed, I would then reach out to the facilitator.
Bad Network. When we went remote, I definitely started facing network issues. I dealt with this challenge by identifying which ISP(Internet Service Provider) worked best for my home area. On the rainy days, the network would still break but still ensured attending my daily skill-ups.
Poor communication from teammates. At EDU, we were grouped into teams. This helped us work on the projects as a team and grow together, however, while working remotely, team spirit seems to disappear slowly. Some teammates would not communicate their issues and we would not know how to help them.
My Take-Aways from EDU
Much as I faced a few challenges in this journey, my gain is definitely greater than the loss. I learnt a lot of things that I didn’t learn while at the campus.
- Frontend web technologies like HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, and JQuery.
- Software development with Nodejs and Reactjs, Agile Programming.
- Pair Programming is something I learnt during the Bootcamp. We were required to work in pairs while doing our tasks and it has been an amazing experience.
- Remote Working. I learnt how to use remote working tools like Slack, Collaborative development tools like git, project management tools like Pivotal tracker.
- Leadership. A good leader makes a good Software engineer. As a requirement to learn technical leadership skills, I was assigned a group to lead, I was made a Technical Team Lead and I learnt how to deal with different kinds of people working on a project.
- Effective communication. Having gone remote, my communication skills definitely improved. I learnt how to communicate effectively with my teammates and facilitators while at home.
- Building my profile and writing a good CV(Curriculum Vitae). Before EDU, my CV didn't make sense. During EDU, we had career sessions and we taught how to write a good CV, Linkedin profile and now my CV looks great and my Linkedin profile looks awesome to recruiters.
Conclusion
Outbox EDU is an awesome place to pursue your dream as a Software Engineer, do not think twice about it. Thanks to Outbox and the facilitators for allowing me to learn with you. I must say I am a proud Alumnus.
