surviving coding bootcamp: project planning

Coding projects are a central part of bootcamp life, but let’s be real—when you first get that project brief, the wave of panic can be real. You’ve just learned the concepts, and now you’re expected to apply them in a limited timeframe. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, freeze up, or even procrastinate- and I’ve experienced all those feelings. 💕👨‍💻

Here are some strategies that helped me get started and stay on track during my bootcamp projects:

I’ll include examples too of how I applied them in bootcamp’s social media site backend project and in my capstone project.

Table of Contents

1. Start Small: Beat Procrastination by Taking the First Step
2. Plan with Diagrams
3. Don’t Over-Plan
4. Think About User Experience (Not Just CRUD)
5. Work on Frontend and Backend Together

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1. Start Small: Beat Procrastination by Taking the First Step

When a project feels like an insurmountable task, break it down. Start with something simple:

• Read through the project requirements carefully.
  Highlight key points, make notes, and write down any questions you might have for your instructor. Clearing up confusion early on saves you from headaches later.

• Create a checklist.
  Write down the tasks you need to accomplish. A checklist transforms the project from a big, overwhelming blob into tangible, manageable steps. Plus, checking off items as you go gives a sense of accomplishment and momentum.

Here is an example of a checklist I made when working on my bootcamp’s social media site backend project:

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2. Plan with Diagrams

Before diving into the code, spend some time planning your application’s structure.

• Use an ERD diagram for your backend. When building out the social media site, for example, I used an Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) to map out entities like User, Post, and Tag. I defined their attributes (content, likes, etc.) and relationships (e.g., “one user can have many posts”).

This visual roadmap made it much easier to understand how the pieces fit together:

• Draw your frontend layout. For frontend planning, tools like Excalidraw or AutoDraw are great for sketching your app’s UI. For example, before building out a login page, sketch out where the input fields, buttons, and error messages will go. Having this visual guide saves you from getting lost in your code later.

Below is an example of a wireframe I made for my capstone to represent the search page:

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3. Don’t Over-Plan

Planning is critical, but bootcamp projects are short- typically a week— so limit your planning to a day. Also, aim to save at least half a day at the end for final touches, bug fixes, and polish.

And while it might be tempting to tweak things the night before, resist the urge to make big changes at the last minute. It’s easy to accidentally introduce bugs, and you’ll want that time to focus on debugging, testing, and presentation prep.

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4. Think About User Experience (Not Just CRUD)

When designing your backend, don’t just focus on CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations for each entity. Think about the user experience and build your endpoints accordingly.

For example:

• In my social media project, users had associated addresses. It didn’t make sense to create a separate delete operation for an address since deleting a user should also delete their associated address.
• I also realized that users might want to search posts by keywords, so I added a GET /search?keyword=... endpoint to fetch relevant posts.

Designing with the frontend user in mind not only enhances your app’s functionality but also shows a deeper understanding of real-world application needs.

You can use a Google Sheet to brainstorm those frontend user actions and endpoints. Below is a snippet of what that looked like for my backend social media project:

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5. Work on Frontend and Backend Together

The capstone project is your biggest challenge— and your biggest opportunity, and it is when you will typically get to do a full-stack project.

I found it helpful to build the frontend and backend in tandem, focusing on one section at a time.

Here’s how I approached my capstone project, an accessibility app where users could crowdsource and search for accessible locations:

• “Break” your app into features- for mine, that was login, user profile, search, and contribute pages.
• Start with a single feature, like the login page.
• Build the backend for the feature first: create endpoints, test them with Postman, and confirm they work locally.
• Then, move to the frontend for that feature: integrate the endpoints and ensure the feature functions as intended.

By working one section at a time, you create “completed” parts of the app. Even if you run out of time, you’ll have fully functional features to showcase, reducing anxiety when it’s time to present your project.

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By taking small steps, visualizing your app, and working methodically, you can make coding projects more approachable—and even enjoyable. Whether you’re building a backend with ERD diagrams or sketching your UI, I hope these strategies help you stay organized, make progress, and finish strong.🤗💕