I brought on 3 Springboard graduates to share their honest thoughts about the software engineering program. If you're considering Springboard in 2023 or even 2024, watch this first.
Eric Doering (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-doering-3989aa141
Portfolio - https://ericdoering-portfolio-swart.vercel.app
Danielle Aranda (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemaranda
Paul Loguinov (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pashaloguinov
Portfolio - https://www.pashaloguinov.com
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🎓 Webdev Career Help - https://calendly.com/donthedeveloper
Disclaimer: The following may contain product affiliate links. I may receive a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on one of these links. I will only ever provide affiliate links for apps that I've used and highly recommend.
My #1 recommended FRONTEND course (15% off):
https://v2.scrimba.com/the-frontend-developer-career-path-c0j?via=donthedeveloper
My #1 recommended BACKEND course:
boot.dev - Get 25% off your first payment with code "DONTHEDEVELOPER"
🤝 Join our junior friendly developer community:
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I brought on 3 Springboard graduates to share their honest thoughts about the software engineering program. If you're considering Springboard in 2023 or even 2024, watch this first.
Eric Doering (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-doering-3989aa141
Portfolio - https://ericdoering-portfolio-swart.vercel.app
Danielle Aranda (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemaranda
Paul Loguinov (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pashaloguinov
Portfolio - https://www.pashaloguinov.com
---------------------------------------------------
🚀 Technical Mentorship - https://forms.gle/Ypde55JEQdtAftrBA
🎓 Webdev Career Help - https://calendly.com/donthedeveloper
Disclaimer: The following may contain product affiliate links. I may receive a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on one of these links. I will only ever provide affiliate links for apps that I've used and highly recommend.
My #1 recommended FRONTEND course (15% off):
https://v2.scrimba.com/the-frontend-developer-career-path-c0j?via=donthedeveloper
My #1 recommended BACKEND course:
boot.dev - Get 25% off your first payment with code "DONTHEDEVELOPER"
🤝 Join our junior friendly developer community:
https://discord.gg/donthedeveloper
Welcome back to another web dev podcast episode where we help aspiring developers get jobs and junior developers grow. In this episode, we're gonna be reviewing springboard and, like usual, I brought on three real graduates from the program and, as usual, I'm not here to sell the program and I'm not here to bring on people that are just gonna crap on it either. Right, we're gonna go over the pros and cons. It's gonna be a constructive conversation, but, yeah, let's go ahead and jump into the intros. So Few questions for you, eric. When did you graduate? Where are you at with a job search and what industry did you come from?
Eric Doering:Yeah, thanks for having me on. I originally came from sort of like the earth science, space and background. My background is like geology, environmental science, and yeah, I took this boot camp beginning of or middle of last year and then I graduated end of June this year and so I've been on the job search around like two months deliberately, and so, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at at this point.
Don Hansen:Okay, cool, thank you. How about you, daniel?
Danielle Aranda:Yeah. So I graduated the program March of this year and I got jumbled in our question. Sorry, I was still looking for work, actively looking for a few months now, the ups and downs kind of just going with it. And then the industry I came from, I was in I guess you can call technology and electronics On the manufacturing side. We did a few different roles within that space.
Don Hansen:Okay, cool. How about you Pasha?
Paul Loguinov:Yeah, like Eric, I actually finished in at the end of June it's this year and I come from Mostly customer service positions. I used to be a sushi chef for five years and I was also a solar installer on the side and which, which played, which I'm, which played into, like my, my environmentalist, like side I really really into an environment and, and you know, fighting climate change and and that's kind of what I'm trying to accomplish. With Software engineering, I'd like to get a job, and within the green tech space. So I've been, I I've been actively looking, searching for roles in that area and, yeah, currently in my job search. It's been, it's been, you know, it has has its ups and downs, for sure, but I've been consistently, you know, trying to create connections of people at various different cool companies and I think that's been going really well. And and currently I am learning a new framework to me, I'm learning Laravel and PHP so I could start volunteering or a non-profit organization called the vegan hacktivists Okay, cool. So hopefully that'll happen soon.
Don Hansen:Yeah, yeah, good luck with that. Thank you. All right, let's jump into it. So, essentially, let's just jump into it with this question. So, and I like this question, forget what you know now about the program. You had your experiences right, but when you were looking, when you were finally choosing a coding boot camp, why did you choose springboard?
Eric Doering:I guess I could start. The big thing that I was looking for with a boot camp is like is it gonna have all the necessary things that you know? Maybe it wouldn't take you all the way there, but it would give you like a really good foundation to get started as a software engineer, get you fairly job ready. And Another big thing I was looking for with a boot camp was a part-time curriculum so that I would need it to continue to work my full-time job. So having something that I could do kind of remotely and also Be able to work the hours in with my job was pretty important. So those were kind of the main things I'd say.
Don Hansen:Okay.
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, my experience is very similar more priority on the part-time aspects or the flexibility of being part-time, just where I was at, kind of I was in transition out of my career and Kind of needed some time to kind of figure things out. So having that flexibility was definitely one of the important features for me. All right and full stack. I knew I wanted. I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go. I had an idea, but I wanted to at least experience both sides Okay.
Paul Loguinov:How about you? For me? So I was heavily influenced by a good friend of mine who completed the course and so, right when we, when he completed it, not long after he finished it, he, he got a job and and he shared how much he was getting he was making on social media from it and I was like very shocked by it. You know, I was still very new to the whole, you know, software engineering space and you know I didn't, I wasn't, they didn't fully grasp that you can actually get, you know, a salary job. You know, without a college degree, which blew my mind for sure. And you know I wanted, I Knew, I wasn't sure yet that I wanted to pick springboard, but I was looking into other places, like I was looking into a UC Berkeley's they have. They have like an extension for like a like a web developer bootcamp and it was like for 24 weeks but they were charging Significantly more I think it was like that one too.
Danielle Aranda:It was a lot more.
Paul Loguinov:Yeah, yeah, you know, I thought that was kind of shocking. So, and the fact that it was only for 24 weeks too, so I felt like it wasn't gonna be as impactful as like springboard. And I decided to just choose springboard because, you know, it made more sense, since my friend completed it and I, if I ever needed help or Something, I could always ask him.
Don Hansen:It makes sense. A lot of people choose programs based on personal references, which I think should be valued for sure. But it's also it can be a little bit difficult because I I'm a true believer and there's no best coding bootcamp. It's just you got to figure out, like, what your gaps are and like how you learn and what you need. A supplement, like I always remember, like, start with a self-taught path, go through some like free courses, cheap courses, and see like where you're really struggling right, and use that to Kind of decide, like which coding bootcamp is gonna be right for you. Try to, you know, look at reviews and see, oh, this person actually sounds kind of like me or they have my situation right. I think that's a really good, relatable thing to look for. But yeah, it sounds like they're probably in this is true for part-time programs a lot of career Transitioners in this program Do they offer like a full-time thing or is it just part-time?
Eric Doering:Yeah, for full-time too Okay.
Danielle Aranda:It's kind of what you want to make it. I guess you have the freedom to figure out, because I kind of did part-time and full-time as it went through.
Don Hansen:Okay, so it's self-paced. Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, what do you think about the curriculum?
Eric Doering:Yeah, actually back when I was researching different bootcamps, I'm was kind of lucky enough to have a couple friends who are in the industry and I would kind of send them some of the curriculums of some of the bootcamp. So I was looking at and you know, when I was really honing in on springboard, I sent it to them and I was like, does this seem like something that could at least get you sort of like Fairly competent as a developer? Maybe there's a few gaps here and there, but is a good, like a good foundation. And they kind of gave it somewhat of like a seal of approval and say, yeah, these they're teaching kind of like all the relevant stuff like react. I liked how they kind of did like two different coding languages, like they did Python to. I Felt like he gave some great exposure. So, yeah, I had them take a look through it and they said it looks, look good. So I went with that.
Don Hansen:How do you guys know how long? Well, okay, so it's self-paced. Do you know the estimation of the total hours of the curriculum?
Danielle Aranda:I was trying to find the little quote that they have. I think it says seven hundred. It's like they're selling kind of quote. They go with it. Seven hundred hours of curriculum Feels like a lot more than that, but I think that's their estimate OK.
Don Hansen:Gotcha Teaching so, and I like correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that about like three months For full time, or well, I know I mean, if you work in weekends, hold on.
Paul Loguinov:They estimate like six to nine months.
Don Hansen:For the. But, so is that like between like people that want to do part time and full time? There's an average of nine months.
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, they had a tracker as you went through. So I think you could set it to six months or as long as nine months, and then it would kind of separate where you needed to be. So I think six months is maybe the part time or, sorry, more of the full time, and then maybe nine months is more of the part time.
Don Hansen:OK, you could fit Python in that amount of time. Ok, ok, cool. And, by the way, I just randomly look at stuff. I am listening to you if I turn away. Ok, what do you guys think about the curriculum?
Paul Loguinov:You know I, you know I thought it was really the curriculum was actually really Like challenging, for me at least, which I think is good. You know, like I mean especially in the beginning for me, you know, since I was such a beginner at it and it was. You know, they start you right off of like little games, like like like a memory, like a memory game and like Connect 4. And you know, I found that very challenging, you know, and and. But I liked it how for every section, they start off with like really absorbable videos, video content, and after each little mini section there is a small like thing you have to do to fully grasp it, and then, at the end of the bigger section, there is an actual best. That's when they give you the bigger project, just like a game or something like that.
Eric Doering:You know, it was like very like pattern driven. It's like at the start of every unit, it's like you're going to look through a PowerPoint, you're going to go through a set of videos and then kind of in that mini lesson you'll have like a short exercise where you code up something quick. Or I remember one specific one was like a CSS selector game, where you kind of just like use different types of CSS selectors to get the correct information, yeah, and then after the end of the big units, sorry, sir.
Don Hansen:Are you talking about games that teach you the content or games that you're making?
Eric Doering:Teachers, you the content and then also the exercise you would also be building things up to. So CSS diner, for that Is that what it's called. Yeah, yeah I think that's it. Okay, sorry, I interrupt it, but I think it's a really cool tool For sure, yeah, and then at the end of sort of like the big units, you'll have like a pretty like major exercise or project.
Danielle Aranda:Okay and I like how they kind of built on things. So it started out Like the web development fundamentals and then you went into JavaScript and then Python and Flask and kind of built up your understanding there and then that helped later on in the course too. So just kind of kept building each section with understanding, which I found really helpful with the way it flowed. Okay, one thing with the assignments, though just to tag it in there, some of them were really helpful. Some of them I found I didn't actually use what I learned in the lesson. I don't know if you guys found that. I know they were making changes kind of as I went through also, so it may have been changed for you guys, but there were some where it's. We didn't learn any of that in the lesson, but we need to do all this before we can apply what we learned. So that was a little tricky for some of the assignments.
Eric Doering:I do remember a little that or was like we're targeting in like a specific aspect of like JavaScript, but the lesson was like doing something kind of like not completely different, but just sort of like not what they were targeting.
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, yeah, the testing lesson where we had to build like a Markov Markov machine or something, but the lesson was on testing. I understood the testing but I didn't understand how to build the machine. Yeah, I don't know if it was from a little tricky, I don't know if it was from any of you.
Don Hansen:So I do have some feedback from other students because I only bring on three and I'll share that and just see if it resonates with you. But I think I got the comment like it seemed like sometimes the exercises that were given were just like you weren't. Sometimes they were kind of just thrown at you just so they could give you exercises, and does that resonate at all?
Danielle Aranda:A little bit, I think the ones that come to my mind at least. I think the intent was free to do that. I'm going to answer this question with a couple of sentences, but really go off and explore on your own. I saw that with a few, so I'm wondering if that's what people are talking about.
Don Hansen:Do they make it very clear they want you to go off on your own? I don't think so.
Danielle Aranda:I don't remember, just kind of hindsight, the topics kind of anything that way I guess. Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry.
Paul Loguinov:Yeah, I kind of agree. Sometimes the questions they give you or the steps that they have you do for whatever assignment they give you, they were a little cryptic and unclear. Sometimes it's just super difficult to understand what they're asking for. But thankfully they do have a little bit of a sense of what they're doing. But thankfully they do Like for most of the lessons they do have the option for you to click on to answer, unless it's an assessment. So they have assessments after each like I don't know three sections or something like that, where they don't give you an answer and it's up to you to actually like fully create your own program or answer to it. But for everything else, like the games that I mentioned, like the memory game and like Connect 4, if we're really having trouble completing it, they do have the option for you to download a zip file and learn what you can from their solution.
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, sometimes I'd use those to figure out what they were asking. So yeah, I do remember that happening. Yeah, totally.
Don Hansen:Do you feel like, is it really easy to just take advantage of all the answers that they're giving and like show solution and then just move on to the next part, Even if you don't understand what you the concept or the problem?
Eric Doering:Sometimes. But some of the solutions like they wouldn't help you, because you're kind of building the app like your specific way, so like maybe you could get a hint or something or you can kind of see, like conceptually, what they want done. But if you kind of have spent like hours building like I know like one of them was like make a Jeopardy game with like vanilla JS and HTML and CSS, and if you were building it a certain way like you couldn't really like take everything away unless you like wanted to fully redo it again. But yeah, the solutions were kind of there. If like maybe there's specific like I don't know concept you were kind of lacking on and you needed just like something to get you out of the bottleneck.
Don Hansen:I think it's important for coding boot camps especially to give exercises to give you the autonomy and creativity to come to your own solution, given that you understand the fundamentals. I that that's awesome, but also that can work against students where you can get lost and like you get this a lot with like cheaper courses, where so like a lot of a lot of cheaper courses that are self-paced, that are designed to like not really have your hands held by instructors, itself paste right. It's a lot of online curriculum. It's designed to get you to have like very, very, very strict requirements. Sometimes you're in their code editor.
Don Hansen:You don't really get to get out of that and create your own solution with your own creative implementation, which is a problem. And I think you're going to reinforce the concepts a lot more when you have a little bit more autonomy and sometimes you start giving the students more autonomy as you progress through and you get past a lot of fundamentals. But if you have too much autonomy, I because I did see some complaints where people were kind of struggling to get help with instructors and so if you're giving students that autonomy and they're kind of getting lost and they don't really have like quick access to instructors. That could also be a problem. So I actually want to talk about that, so you have that freedom to create some of these solutions, these games, with your own implementation. What happens if you just get like stuck or lost? How do you like verify that you even like have all those fundamentals down that they really want you to have?
Eric Doering:I think that might have been like sort of the big thing you would touch on with your weekly mentor. So you would kind of be like OK, I was working on this project for the the back end of this week. This is kind of where I'm at, and then that's kind of where you would get a lot of feedback, where it's just like this kind of where you design the app might be better if it's like this or the reason why you weren't able to get this feature to work, and you'll kind of like debug with them. So that's where I felt like you could really get sort of like active help and really see what you were doing wrong.
Danielle Aranda:OK, I towards the end I wish I'd utilized it more, but the was it peer mentors or TAs? I think they were peer mentors. They just had a slack and you could kind of throw out your question, depending on the section they had all organized and they were pretty responsive. I really wish I used them more, really. So hopefully we're later on in the course.
Don Hansen:OK, Eric, you mentioned that it was occasionally be hard to get feedback and know where you stood as far as the execution or project or exercise. So you mentioned you were able to do that with your mentorship, but you also mentioned that that was a bit of a concern for you. So what do you mean by that?
Eric Doering:I think, in a sense of like just you would only meet with them once per week. So it's like, if you're kind of like wandering through, like trying to figure out like a project, you could utilize like the slack and maybe get some solutions through that. But if you wanted really to like have someone kind of like side by side with you, kind of like working through the project, you might have to kind of like wait and I guess like other than maybe some kind of like big overarching concepts like oh, you're supposed to make this game, it should do this sort of thing Like there wasn't like clear, like a clear rubric of like success for it. It's like kind of like generally get the idea of what you're trying to do and then kind of move on.
Don Hansen:Okay, all right, thanks for clarifying. Did you have anything to add, pasha?
Paul Loguinov:Yeah. So I agree it was. Sometimes at times it was really frustrating because when because they only give you 30 minutes a week with your like official mentor, and sometimes that definitely wouldn't be enough and a lot of times experience like isolation, I felt like dealing with the frustration of having to solve something on your own and the mentor was helpful, though, like sometimes, depending on the kind of mentor you have, like sometimes they'll like they'll stay on with you for an extra 15 minutes or email you later, you know, like like to help you debug whatever your problem is. And they do have the Slack channels and I have had like a couple of people who definitely were actively trying to help me and they seem I think they were TAs or peer mentors.
Paul Loguinov:For sure, like Daniel says, they were sort of helpful, but eventually, almost every time, eventually I would have to come up with an answer myself, which is, I think, is good though, because it kind of encourages you to be more self-reliant and it helps you like understand.
Paul Loguinov:You know understand like the fine line between like when do you ask for help for something? So, like, how long should I be working on this on my own until I feel like I need help on it and it improved my research skills and like, just like me searching through Stack Overflow and Google a lot, and you know it made me feel like I got better at that. But it was definitely frustrating at times. But when those rare moments where I feel like desperate, I definitely they have like give you like 10 free Um calls with like other mentors like you, where you, you, uh, whoever's available, they give you a list of all these like you know people in the industry and um, and then you can schedule a call with them. That's also like a 30 minute call and they'll they'll. You know, whatever your project is or whatever you know prom you're solving, they're there to to help you, which I thought was really nice.
Don Hansen:Okay, so you get 10 hours of mentorship totals throughout the program.
Paul Loguinov:Uh, not 10 hours, just 10 calls, 10, 10, 30 minute calls, but 10 30 minute calls, and so I thought Eric said it was.
Don Hansen:oh sorry, it was every week, but I don't know why I uh, just so there was there are two types.
Danielle Aranda:One is your mentor, you're connected with, and then the other's the on-demand type mentors, which is the 10.
Don Hansen:Yeah, yeah, for some reason I was thinking like you've got 10 calls total within like the nine months, which makes no sense. I'm just not doing math correctly. Um, okay, so 10 additional hours? I probably just um. Credit contracts are outsourced with professional developers. That would just help.
Danielle Aranda:That's what it seemed like. I honestly had kind of a hit or miss with the on-demand mentor calls. Some of them were really really good and we got into the nitty gritty and figured out what I need to figure out. Others didn't really seem like they wanted to be there. Um, maybe not that they didn't want to be there, but they're, they're, they're. They were like there was a little form you could fill out with your question details and everything, and it seemed like half the time when I went into those meetings that information never got across so it was not as useful as a meeting for me when I did those.
Don Hansen:That same thing was a little harsh.
Don Hansen:Well, yeah, so it's rough when you have, like, it's great when you have in-house mentors and you can train them. You have an expectation. You can lay down that expectation when you start outsourcing like that. Um, they can have a like, they can have a bad day, they have a bad environment wherever they're working. They have life, um, but it is harder to get that quality from outsourcing like that. But that's also a really interesting way to supplement that mentorship and I can see why they do it and why it's useful. Um, okay, that makes sense. That's that's interesting.
Don Hansen:So, like we're in a time where a lot of people are struggling financially, we have a rough job market, and like I think most people have realized that by now, and so I I think people are really starting to steer away from really expensive $20, $25,000 coding boot camps I'm not taking a chance on that and like even some coding boot camps are dropping their ISAs, so you know it's like a payment that starts early or you got to pay cash. So I think we're going to start honestly seeing programs like this that make a hybrid approach of essentially self-taught and coding boot camp so self-paced, with a little mentorship at it and career services at the end. I can see those pro programs getting through the rough job market we're going through, so it's an interesting program and it's why I think people should consider it. Um, okay, that was pretty much just my summary with that. So it was all online material. You had your main mentors and you had the outsourced mentors and then you had your TAs. Those were your, the help you could get.
Eric Doering:Yeah, Like on the Slack channel, that could like step in and like if you posted kind of a snippet of code and like why am I getting this error, they could kind of like message you or set up something real quick and try to give you a hand with that.
Don Hansen:Okay, I mean at this point, um, even if anyone feels like the mentorship is lacking a bit or they got a bad mentor or there's just not enough hours, um, I think JTBT is like actually really powerful supplementation for even self-taught developers. I can't access these mentors of these programs, um, and I think how you ask those questions matters, because I think sometimes people lean on just giving you the answer and you don't really learn from it. Like you could actually cause it seems like, um, like you mentioned Pasha, isolation. I saw that as a common thing that popped up. Um, that's pretty common with self-taught and just self-paced programs in general.
Don Hansen:You could literally, I mean, get involved in developer communities if you really want to pair program and some people just love hopping on and you know, meeting at a coffee shop, whatever but um, like, ask chat to be D, to be your pair programmer, like you could literally literally prompt it to like don't give me the answer, um, and you could just say act a little bit dumber than me and I will explain it to you.
Don Hansen:If, like you, like you can prompt it in a way to make it the driver or I forgot the other one, the listener, the I don't know passenger, I don't know, but with pair programming you could prompt it to be the type of mentor you're looking for, or the type of student that isn't quite at your level, and you got to coach that student and that's going to help you reinforce those concepts even more. So, um, I would recommend chat to be T as a big supplement. Um, just for, like, pair programming at like. I don't think it's kind of like AI fixes isolation, but it can help supplement the group exercises. It can't help supplement even group projects. Pair programming stuff like that. Does that sound like a fair recommendation to students?
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, and I think that's kind of something I started doing later on was using more AI to leverage, because I also felt that isolation at the beginning of just I'm lost, I don't even know how to ask the question I want to ask or what my question is, um. So that was kind of the big hurdle that was hard for me to get through and probably took half the program to figure out. Like, okay, these are the questions I need to ask to get the information I need to actually do something, um, and now I can use chat GTP to kind of figure that stuff out before I ask the question to a person. That can really help me take it further. So I found it really helpful lately to go that route.
Eric Doering:It was definitely interesting having it really kind of like blow up, like as we were kind of like going through the boot camp. Yeah, it's like, here's this whole new kind of like tool to use um as a developer. Um, you know, it's definitely really interesting. And, um, one thing that it's like very helpful with is like especially if you're kind of like um, looking for jobs and trying to like supplement your knowledge, is like I'll highlight like a job description and say, hey, can you ask me like three questions that might be asked on like an interview, and then you kind of like we'll recite it and it's definitely going to be a super helpful tool and a lot of those different applications Okay.
Don Hansen:Are you? Are you trying to like memorize the answers that it recommends to you?
Eric Doering:No, I'll have it just sort of like ask me the questions and then I on my own will be like okay, if um like if it asks me something what is object-oriented programming then I'll just kind of like um, spit off like what I know, and then if I feel like I'm kind of lacking, like I'll go back and just sort of like seek out some resources on topics that I'm weak on. Okay.
Danielle Aranda:Okay, so thank you. Can I have an evaluate your response to? I've been doing that to see how good did I do at the third, how well did I answer the question, kind of thing.
Don Hansen:How do you, what's the prompt that you ask it to evaluate your response?
Danielle Aranda:Um. So I'll do something similar where I'll take the job and say what are some questions they may ask and then I'll kind of type out my sometimes it'll be a well-developed response, sometimes a little scratchy and just say how well formulated is this or is this a well-rounded response, and just put in my whole response and ask it.
Don Hansen:Okay, good advice Um Pasha. Do you think this helps with the isolation at all?
Paul Loguinov:You know, it's really funny that we're talking about this, because I honestly just really started using chat GPT, maybe like a couple months ago, after I finished the course, and, to be honest with you, I feel like, uh, when I was like I was coming to relate to the realization like like wow, I'm like really, I don't know why I didn't use it way earlier. Honestly, it was like it's honestly like such a great tool Like I, I I'm using, I've been using it for debugging my own projects right now and it's just like really helpful and, um, you know it, you know it. Sometimes it takes me to uh like to debug a problem like three days and then, after like an hour or so talking to chat GPT, like getting down to the nitty-gritty, like you know, like all the error logs and trying to understand, interpret it with chat GPT, I mean, within an hour I came up, came up with a solution. You know. Otherwise, you know, I wouldn't have even known. You know it's like it is really does feel like. You know, it actually is like an actual person holding your hand throughout, like a project, which is exactly what I felt like I needed the whole time.
Paul Loguinov:You know, I feel like. You know, I feel like me personally, I learned way, much, way better when I have someone like a teacher right next to me, like trying to solve this problem with me, but without actually giving the answer. You know, it's still. It spits out suggestions of what, like an error log, like might be saying or might be suggesting, and it gives you a whole list of things to consider Like. And you know, I just thought I felt like that was really like amazing. You know, it's amazing to have such a tool, especially as a developer Like it's definitely like an essential tool for a developer nowadays and I wish I've used it earlier.
Don Hansen:I think it is and I think a lot of professional developers have taken advantage of that. The only caution I give is just don't become reliant and be careful about the questions you ask. Don't have it solve all of your problems and a lot of new developers they do that and it's yeah, it's. I mean, it's rough, it doesn't really reinforce the concepts. And a really good question asked is like okay, here's the problem. I don't get it, I'm stuck. What fundamental concepts do I not understand to be able to solve this problem Right and just have it outline? It's like, oh who, asynchronous behavior. I've heard this before. I actually I couldn't even recite, I don't really know what it is right, but like you're dealing with something that has asynchronous behavior or some component to it to be able to solve the problem. Okay, Do you, I guess, like?
Don Hansen:My final question with this is when you have a self-paced program sounds like the mentorship is only 30, 30 minutes per week for the main mentors, Do you? I guess it's easy to feel alone? It's very easy to feel alone with a self-paced program and sometimes like you need more than just someone to help answer the questions. It helps to like talk with other developers. It helps to get involved with the developer community and honestly, like you know, you don't have to go through your emotions of imposter syndrome alone. You can, you can vent, you could share that with people, but sometimes with self-paced programs you don't have as much of an opportunity to do that as if you were going in person. You have a cohort, you have a class, you have instructors there. So do you feel like that's a thing with this program where a lot of students have kind of felt alone and, if so, are there any recommendations you have for them?
Eric Doering:We get a place and sort of like a personal discord with our specific cohort, so like I'm in the one of July 2022. And I'm like very close with a couple of people there. So it's like those people are kind of like directly working with the curriculum right at the same time. Maybe there's like a little variation, but there's always like a conversation going on in that like, hey guys, I found this resource, how are you guys feeling lately? Like there's a lot of that. And one thing I recommend to people too is like really try to find someone in your town or in your area that's a software engineer, a developer, and try to like build a relationship with them, because I think it's super important to have like real colleagues, friends and mentors that you can turn to like like text them or call them and get some advice. I think that's super, super helpful.
Don Hansen:It's good advice.
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, I used the Slack channel. Others will Slack. At the time, maybe they switched to Discord, and there was a lot of conversations I would follow. I was very hesitant to contribute though, which something I would advise people going into the program to do, because it definitely helps, and I wish I had done it, but just the conversations that were going on were helpful. Sometimes they're like, okay, people are struggling, they're falling behind, they're figuring it out too. That was at least a little helpful to feel more community, but still a challenge. You got to put yourself out there to make it happen, which can be very difficult sometimes, what do you think that you didn't reach out more often?
Danielle Aranda:Kind of going back to that whole imposter, introverted whatever you want to call it kind of thing. I'm just hesitant to put myself out there and, of course, realizing later it shouldn't have been that big a deal. It wasn't that big a deal, so eventually got there, but yeah, it just took some time.
Don Hansen:I guess I'm going to dig into this just a tiny bit, because this is common. How did you get there?
Danielle Aranda:Baby steps. Okay, I think I don't remember how it started, but it was just kind of throwing out like liking a comment or adding to a thread. I ended up meeting someone else in the course and we started having meetings on the side, so that helps just get the conversation going with someone new. And then I think I started finding people that had the same questions I had and then kind of getting into those threads and that's why I started getting comfortable asking my own questions too. So a lot of different pieces along the way.
Don Hansen:Okay, thanks for sharing.
Paul Loguinov:I agree with Danielle about the Slack channels. It does take a little bit like you yourself putting yourself out there for people, but I mean, in the end I felt like it was worth it. It did help me. Sometimes, especially when I've had those lonely, isolated moments, I felt like I needed someone to relate to and the Slack channels offered that and you'd be surprised how many people reply to you with the same exact conundrum that you're experiencing. And sometimes people offer because there's these peer mentors. I think the peer mentors they are also students in the program and then they're like in charge of bringing these students together to form study groups and regular study groups once a week. And that's how I met a few people and they were extremely friendly and they invited me to their Skype group chat and whenever I had a problem that I felt like needed help solving, they were pretty much always there for me, even though they were complete strangers, and it was helpful.
Don Hansen:Okay, okay cool. I think this program yeah, this is just an interesting program. Like I said, I think a hybrid between a coding boot camp and a self-taught or a hybrid between a CS degree and a coding boot camp are going to be the two choices and that people are going to start favoring. But I think the blend is important. It sounds like the community seems to you guys hold it in high regards. You see limitations that like the limited amount of time you get with mentors and sometimes the experiences are a little bit different and that can be frustrating, but like having that community be strong and even having peer mentors be able to connect people, because everyone's shy, no one wants to ask questions, like everyone is. If you are the person that is asking questions, I'm telling you you're going to make connections as a developer, like people love that. Most people are shy. That's awesome. Okay, so I think we went over the curriculum, the mentorship. What do you think about the career services?
Danielle Aranda:I personally enjoyed them. I today was actually my last day of career services, which I'm a little sad about, but I can't believe how much my kind of online presence or professional presence has changed with their help, so I think they were really good Okay.
Eric Doering:I definitely agree too. It's like I like to how you'd be kind of like going through one of your coding modules, like you'd be learning something, and then it kind of like switch gears and you'd be doing like a couple of days of like career specific type of things, like redoing your whole LinkedIn, polishing up your resume, and then, kind of scattered throughout the course too, is like you'd have these kind of like 30 minute career specific calls, so like how to network. Someone who's like specifically sitting down with you, looking over your resume, trying to find, like what makes you unique or what you're going to bring to this new career field and what you're going to take from, like you said, a lot of us are career transitioners, so what skills can you kind of bring from your current field and bring them into software development?
Don Hansen:Okay.
Paul Loguinov:Right, I thought it was really helpful too. You know the fact that they even have, they even offer. That is amazing, you know. They really like, yeah, like like Eric said, they, you know, they look at your resume thoroughly and they add, you know, give you all these awesome suggestions and how to add your springboard experience onto your resume and how to show it off and I and how to, how to really reach out to people on LinkedIn and how to make the most out of LinkedIn. You know is really awesome. And they help you research the companies that, the kind of companies that you might want to work at. You know. They make you, you know, list a whole like 50 companies like that you might be interested in the future and you know, on an Excel spreadsheet and they, you know, make you research it. You know, and I think it's really helpful, okay.
Danielle Aranda:They also have interview practice tied into it also, which I found very helpful. Again, I wish I did more, because that was definitely an additional bonus that I appreciated. His technical interview practice also offered technical, behavioral, and then a project walkthrough. I think we're the three.
Eric Doering:And I think there was a whiteboarding interview too. That was like. I felt like it was kind of similar to like the technical interview, but it was like a little more sort of like pseudo code or like the pseudo codes a little more emphasize, okay.
Don Hansen:Yeah, I was just about to ask about the interview prep, so I want to see if any of this resonates with you. Let me see if I can gather it, but essentially it seemed like some of the complaints that I got my DMs were the career services. I'm just going to read a few things and see if any of this resonates. So the career track is not as enticing as they make it sound. If you're much younger maybe it's helpful, but it was majority links and articles from elsewhere and how to make a resume interview, et cetera. There's a spreadsheet right down 50 places you'd like to work. There were a few calls that were helpful. It's really hard to, so different coding boot camps are going to offer like a different amount of depth for career services. I think mock interviews at the price point isn't the price point less than like 10,000? What did it cost? It's?
Danielle Aranda:around 10,000. Not really Okay.
Eric Doering:It depends on your payment, how you wanted to do it. So I think it was a certain amount for a flat charge and then another rate for monthly and so on.
Don Hansen:And the monthly cost, how much is a total if you pay monthly?
Danielle Aranda:I think I remember 10K. I think, so because.
Don Hansen:I did.
Danielle Aranda:I did the monthly. I was optimistic going into this program, realized it shouldn't have been and I think it was around 10 is what I ended up with and it caps you at a certain point.
Don Hansen:All right. So it sounds like the I mean for under 10,000. It sounds like, with the interview prep, I feel like career services is pretty powerful. They offer a lot of value for that price. There are programs that are 16,000, without an ISA up front, that won't even offer mock interviews. So I think that's really interesting for a self-paced program. I don't think you kind of need it for a self-paced program because you're going to have people with different skill levels and different like depth of knowledge and like you're just going to have a variety and you want to try to get everyone kind of at least on the same page to recognize their weaknesses and what they have to improve. So, okay, sounds pretty positive for career services. How well do you think they prepare you for data structures and algorithm type interviews?
Danielle Aranda:I'm struggling with it. I don't know about you guys.
Eric Doering:I was definitely feeling weak and you can kind of like, as long as it's before your intended graduation date, you can schedule those interviews for however late you want them to go. So I remember giving myself like a week at least before each one and then I'm like where's it comes to worst? You can redo them like three times to get a pass like a passing grade. So yeah, that was like I remember that week just specifically like dedicating just to like lead code and like learning all the different, like sorting algorithms and data structures and stuff like that. So maybe like if people want to try that strategy when it comes to that, and I'm still kind of like there's so much to it that you're just going to continue to like practice those beyond the bootcamp.
Don Hansen:One week is nothing for that, right? I see what you mean, daniel.
Paul Loguinov:I kind of wish it was like, I mean to kind of like bring it up, they'd make the cover at the very end of the program. I felt like it would have been a little more helpful if it was. They had, you know, they had a little, you know, a smaller section covering some of that, at least in the beginning, because from the beginning it would have definitely been helpful, you know, especially for law projects and but so so, yeah, it really and it really it did stress me out a little bit because, you know, I felt like, oh, you know, like, since I did all these projects, completed all the projects, you know this should be a piece of cake for me, but really it wasn't. It was actually incredibly hard and I, you know, I definitely failed a few times. I was like I'm not going to be able to do that, I'm not going to be able to do that. You know I definitely failed a few times. You know, luckily, they give you like a practice, an extra practice. That doesn't count. So, and so I, you know, I failed three times and thankfully that didn't like mess me up, you know, completely, because I still had one more try and yeah, but I mean as far as like the actual curriculum.
Paul Loguinov:Preparing for that I feel like it was, you know it was fairly helpful, like like they definitely like cover a little bit of everything.
Paul Loguinov:You know they cover, you know, basic strategies like multiple pointers and frequency counters and you know, and then give you a bunch of examples, example problems to work with.
Paul Loguinov:You know they thoroughly explain recursion, which is really nice and and but despite doing all those problems, you know, just for me personally it was it was still difficult, you know.
Paul Loguinov:But that was mostly because, like I mean, it's just a mock interview, is a mock interview and it's like really kind of like, kind of intense and like they definitely, you know, they definitely simulate that situation really well. Like you're, you're put on with, like like a mentor or developer who you don't even know, probably you meet for the first time and you don't know what question you're going to ask you, and that in itself kind of raises your nerves a little bit. And then I think that kind of messed me up a few times, even though, like, on my own time I probably wouldn't have been able to solve whatever problem that gave me easily, you know. So that really forced me out of my shell to really practice and put my head down and, you know, solve as many leak code problems that I could possibly could until like I felt like I was second nature and that's because of that, yeah.
Don Hansen:A little worried that you keep saying like trying to study a leak code type problems.
Don Hansen:It sounds like they're.
Don Hansen:They don't really spend a lot of time on this and I find that a lot of and just like talking with a lot of hiring managers and people who are really good with the stuff, people that have worked and been tested at companies like Facebook I think Facebook's a little bit easier than Google but like at FANG type companies where, like a big recommendation is like way too many people jump into a leak code too quickly and they sock with their foundations, like they just suck right and a lot of like getting better is just realizing what foundations you're truly lacking in understanding.
Don Hansen:But I would argue this sounds like a weaker like I like the Muck interviews, but it sounds like a weaker part of the program, given how little time they spend on it. So, like you said, Eric, my big recommendation from hearing all three of you is like just a little bit on the side, like when you graduate, when you finish this, you should be doing heavy project work to reinforce everything, but also on the side, like spending time, like really making sure that you understand the fundamental data structures and algorithms that you're most likely going to be tested on and you can create practical problems out of this. You can use chat to be teached, literally create challenges for you, but it sounds like you've got to like really push forward after you graduate with that. Okay.
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, it's definitely Sorry, Go ahead I wasn't saying it's really important to be able to do that. I didn't say it's really pushed towards the end. So I know I had this note going into the program because the previous review did made a statement about this too to trickle them in as you do the program. Of course that went out the window as I got into it, but since it is at the end, it's kind of that last push of okay, I did everything, so now it's just this, I can just focus on this. And after you get through I think for me maybe the first two I forget what they were. I got a really solid understanding and then my brain just burned out after doing three or four in a row. So splitting them up between the curriculum would have been very helpful.
Don Hansen:That's good advice.
Danielle Aranda:I wish I could.
Don Hansen:A lot of us wish we could have done the coding bootcamp differently and we would all go back and change things. But yeah, I like this is all really good advice, and I think an important thing to recognize is no matter what program you go through, no matter what coding bootcamp you go through, there are going to be holes in every single program, and you just got to realize what those holes are in supplement afterwards. Just usually, even like really crappy programs, you get an outline, you learn how to learn Like, you get an idea of like how to grow as a software engineer, and if a coding bootcamp or a course or anything like that can give you both of those, that's really all you need, as long as you're not going to give up. Are you going to say something, eric? No, I definitely agree.
Eric Doering:Yeah, like the big thing is like you do really need a supplement, no matter what kind of bootcamp you take, because there were some, some holes, especially like one thing I really struggled with throughout the bootcamp was like things that had to do with like setting up your virtual environments, kind of setting up dependencies, kind of like the weird sort of like oh look, aspects of being a developer, like you need certain libraries installed, and usually it's pretty straightforward. But I remember right at the beginning I was like I kind of had never even touched like the terminal and anything like that, so that was all like super new to me. So definitely, if you need to like read up on something or take kind of like an additional course or like some video lessons, or I remember sitting down a lot with my friends. I remember sitting down a lot with my software developer friend and say, hey, like here's some things I'm struggling with when it comes to like bash and kind of all this sort of like operating system kind of stuff.
Don Hansen:Okay, good advice. What could they improve?
Danielle Aranda:I can go. I think the biggest thing that I found after I realized after was the group work piece and using GitHub collaboratively and doing that whole kind of developing as a team was definitely something that I again could have probably reached out and gotten involved and slackened on that. But it wasn't necessarily a program so it wasn't on my radar but it's definitely something I think I was missing and appreciated. On the recent group project I did learn all of that, so having that would have been helpful.
Paul Loguinov:Okay, I feel like it would have been.
Paul Loguinov:I mean, I feel like it would have been. One thing I didn't like was so they do cover how to deploy websites like your projects using Heroku, and I mean I'm, you know, my cohort might have been a little unlucky, because, I mean, heroku is pretty much the only like option that they like teach on there. I don't know about now, but but then recently, in last November, heroku stopped being for free. Like Heroku used to be like, oh, we give you five deployments for free, but then one November hit, which was like in the middle of my course. I had to, you know.
Paul Loguinov:You know, I noticed a lot of people were struggling in the Slack channels. They're like, oh, like we have to pay for this now. And, like you know, it would have been helpful if they gave us more than just one option of how to deploy a website. You know, it's rather just Heroku. But one thing that was nice, though, is that they did offer to reimburse you every time you deployed something and have to pay for it.
Paul Loguinov:You just have to email them to let them know, but I know that some of my friends were doing in the course. For some reason, they didn't even notice the emails that they sent out for that and they never even took advantage of that. So that was a little bit of a struggle. But, and to cover and also to like to, you know, attack that problem with, like, the dealing of isolation, maybe it would have been more helpful if they offered, like like a project or something where you actually had to collaborate with another student. Like they assign you other students, you collaborate with them and that way you learn how to use, get more more efficiently with other people, which is, like you know, it's more similar to an actual developer environment, like at a job. I felt like that would have been really helpful.
Don Hansen:Yeah, it seems to be. I think that's a great thing. I think that's actually a big hole in the program. I don't necessarily think that they should offer it for the price point, but that's a big hole for a cheaper program. I think there's tons of value in a group project. There's tons of value in stepping on each other's toes and dealing with merge conflicts. And then what happens when you screw up a merge conflict? Like how the heck do we reverse this? I think that's huge, just like the scrum planning, I think, is really big.
Don Hansen:And just being able to write requirements for tickets and go over that with a team like a lot of coding boot camps will simulate standups and like every day, right before you dive into your project, where touch base. And it also gives you an opportunity to talk with other people and say, like sometimes when you work on a group, well, often when you work on a group project, people have their different strengths and so if you're really struggling with, like, setting up an API and this other person's like just an ace with APIs, like they can help right, that can also be very helpful. But just being able to work with a team to kind of define the requirements and understand what the hell you're building is important because I think most developers that get hired that are going to be working on products, they're user center developers. They often eventually will be connected with the users of the app, which is why a lot of companies love hiring people that use the products and our developers. That's fantastic. If you can apply for companies like that or if you like, you constantly use developer software and you, just like I, really want to work for this company is a good blend. Companies love hiring people that give a crap about their products.
Don Hansen:Because you're going to care about the users, you're going to understand the user's concerns and that's going to show in the effort that you put into your implementation and considerations for, like when you're deciding, like something that needs to be scalable versus something that needs to go out and piss it off a hundred of our customers right. Like when you care about that stuff. That's a balance that all professional developers are going to have to strike and you're going to be pushing back with product and like you want to get a feel for, like okay, product is telling me, like this is really important, etc. But you know, as a developer, I have to understand that I don't want to push a bunch of technical debt into my code base and I'm going to appropriately push back and explain why, and practice explaining why, because that's a skill in itself, right. You're going to have a lot of stakeholders and you're going to be interacting with different departments and when you work on a group project you get a little bit of exposure to that. And just communicating also your updates is also another thing that people need to practice. But also you learned how to like.
Don Hansen:Usually what programs will do is they'll kind of set a limited time, like a week, two weeks, build this project, right, and now you have to shuffle and struggle and figure out okay, what can we get done and what you're going to realize as a developer is really important lesson. You're probably going to overestimate what you can get done and you are going to pull your hair out in stress because time is almost up and you're not even close right. This is the developer experience, especially as a new developer, and you will learn to be able to. You know, a concept I usually recommend for people is over or under commit and over deliver. Always under commit and over deliver when you're not quite sure and within a two week sprint. That is really important to do.
Don Hansen:There are going to be some product managers that have a lot of experience with professional developers and the code base and they've been around and they might be willing to tell you.
Don Hansen:You know what. It's probably going to take you longer than that. You're new, you don't know it. But they're also going to be product managers that are like, oh yeah, this developer is going to work 80 hours to get this done. This is awesome. Yeah, go for it, take those tickets right. But just being able to work on that group project and talk with other developers, come up the requirements, solidify them, figure out what the MVP, the minimum viable product is that we need to get done just a very bare bones feature. And the only way you're going to figure that out is to understand who the hell is going to use your app. What does your app solve. All of that is fantastic experience. So I would argue I don't necessarily think, within this price point, that this program should include like a big capstone group project like that, but I would participate in a hackathon. I would find people to do a group project with, because I think that's going to be a really important supplementation. Do you guys think that's fair?
Danielle Aranda:Yeah, that's actually what I did and it was a huge, huge help. Added that on at the end.
Don Hansen:Okay, so what do you think they could improve, eric?
Eric Doering:I felt like some of the lessons could probably be swapped for kind of other, more ways, more relevant technologies, like I know, there's kind of like a week spent on jQuery and they did preface it and saying that like hey, this technology is being phased out but you potentially could be put on a team where they're using legacy code bases, so maybe a little bit of experience with this might be useful. But then something, for example, that is important to me, what I'm trying to get better at is a type script. There was kind of like we didn't even touch any type script throughout the course and I think that's actually changed. They recently kind of changed the curriculum and they added that, which I'm happy about, but yeah, so I felt like maybe certain things are more relevant than others.
Eric Doering:I definitely agree with you guys as well that having some sort of kind of collaborative project is super helpful. They didn't really encourage us to contribute on open source or anything like that, which I think that would be helpful. If someone's kind of going through the boot camp and if they have time and time to do that throughout the course, that would be great. And yeah, I'd say that's kind of the main things at the top of my head.
Don Hansen:Okay, so just a quick note of that and then I don't even know if I have any other questions. I feel like you guys did a really good job explaining everything With. Yeah, we on. Jquery is a lot Depends what they use it for, what they taught like, for example, my coding boot camp. We learned jQuery but then we built the virtual DOM, like a really basic version of the virtual DOM for React with jQuery, and we did the state and we did really minimal stuff and just being able to update certain parts of our application through jQuery, given when like state would change, that was really interesting. It helped us dive into React with a little bit of a heads up and get some fundamentals down. I think it's a really useful tool when you're really struggling to understand a concept. Get that concept broken down into its pieces and understand the pieces and build it back up from scratch. I think it's a really cool strategy to do, I would argue.
Don Hansen:Typescript is. There are a lot of developers that like it, for a good reason, but for new developers it has a bit of a learning curve. It takes longer to push out features, and I think feature work is really going to help reinforce a lot of your JavaScript, and then you have newer libraries that are now tossing out TypeScript as well. So TypeScript is still hyped, and so I would argue that it is in enough job applications where this is something you might want to supplement. So I do think that's good advice. Eric, just don't dive in too quickly. I find a lot of people just like JavaScript's weird, it's quirky, and I find, like a lot of people I don't even think it's the type there is people struggle with with JavaScript. I think just using JavaScript as your initial programming language, the syntax, it's a little funky, but adding TypeScript to that, and especially setting up TypeScript, it can be difficult and frustrating. So if you have extra time, go for it. And there's one other thing you mentioned TypeScript. What was the last thing?
Eric Doering:That they changed the curriculum to add it.
Don Hansen:They changed it to add it. I don't know, I'm probably thinking of something else. Okay, I just want to add that extra note. Okay, I feel like we went over everything that I want to go over. Do you feel like we missed anything?
Danielle Aranda:Touching on that last topic about changing the curriculum, I noticed that they were very good about making updates. Some of it was a little strange. They changed some required projects to optional, which was helpful with the timeframe. But I noticed when I was looking back today, actually some of the assignments are actually different. So I think they've taken advice and made the updates as they go, which I know that's a struggle, especially with everything being recorded. But I thought it was a nice add that they're trying to do that.
Don Hansen:Okay, Cool, All right. Well, that's it then. I appreciate you guys coming on Before we wrap it up. Seriously, thank you so much for coming on. These reviews help a lot of students and they helped you and you came back on and that was really cool. First of all, I love when people watch my videos. It helps them and then you're willing to come back on and pay it forward. I think you're going to make for awesome software engineers. I think there's a really good quality to have as a software engineer. So thank you. But yeah, before we wrap it up, let's go ahead and go around. Eric, if people want to reach out to you and anything else you want to shout out, where could they reach you?
Eric Doering:Yeah, I'd say, my biggest thing is my LinkedIn page, so you can find me at Eric Zoring, and then I also have a personal portfolio website and Donna, I can give you the link, and Mr Plano and Verso, and you can find me there too, sounds good, how about you, daniel?
Danielle Aranda:I think LinkedIn really has all the different pieces, so I have to look at my like Daniel and Aranda. Yeah, find me there.
Don Hansen:Okay, Cool. How about you Pasha?
Paul Loguinov:Yeah, linkedin, you could just type in my name, pasha Loganov, and you could also check out my portfolio website, which is PashaLoganovcom. And yeah, if you're interested in seeing what I do on outside of programming, I'm also a graphic artist and you could check out my Instagram grammar commie.
Don Hansen:Okay, all right, sounds good. Thanks for sharing and if you enjoyed this video, you like it. You hate it? If you're watching on YouTube, let me know in the comments, as usual. But, eric Daniel Pasha, thank you so much for coming on, thanks.
Eric Doering:Thank you for having us on. Thanks, thank you for having us on. Have a nice and normal positive questions.