Bootcamps are hard... motivation can waver... how do I finish and finish well?
November 12, 2024, 9:00pm, I clicked "Submit" for the last time after 6 months of late nights, constant coding, and managing life on top of it all.
It was over.
No longer did I have to stay up late debugging... I could now get proper sleep and enjoy my weekends again.
After looking back at my time at Northwestern University's Full-Stack Coding Bootcamp, I reflected on all the hard work I put in, balancing a full-time job, a new marriage, and a sudden health challenge, and I thought to myself... I really did that!
I figured out how to manage my time, priorities, and schedule in order to work, invest in family, and ace every assignment in my coding bootcamp! (Even with having ADHD!)
If you're in the middle of a coding bootcamp, or considering starting one, you might be wondering how to stay motivated when the things get tough.
Here's how I did it...
Table of Contents
1. Priorities
Sleep
I know you've probably heard this in all of your time-management classes, but prioritizing my sleep was my first step to success.
Although my sleep schedule wasn't the same as it was before the bootcamp started, I still tried to get to bed before 11pm every night and wake up around 8am every morning. I consider 9 hours to be pretty good.
Throughout my college years, I learned that if I slept well, my brain worked far better than if I stayed up studying. Also, my brain is more alert and productive in the mornings than at night, so I was able to better retain the information I studied the next day. I utilized that part about myself and always went to bed by 9, and would wake up early (6 or 7) to study before class.
Sadly, my post-grad bootcamp class hours were 6:30-9:30, so I had to stay up later than I was used to, but I was able to shift my schedule a little and still prioritize my sleep in order for my brain to work at its full capacity.
This information isn't just anecdotal; studies show quality sleep is far more effective in passing your classes than cramming the night before, because REM sleep is important for your brain to process information learned in your studies (see these articles from Colgate Professional and the Sleep Foundation).
Now, please don't let my college story discourage you.
Some people's brains actually work far better and are more alert and productive late at night! (This is true for my husband). If your brain works best at night, utilize that part of yourself, but try to find a way to sleep in, if possible. If your work schedule does not allow for you to sleep in, then work as late as possible, stopping with enough time to get a full 8-10 hours of sleep. Trust me, your brain and your grades will thank you for this.
Grades Over Friends
Now some of you might be introverted, and this won't be very hard for you, but for me and my extroverted self, I had to make the conscious decision to prioritize my grades over hanging out with friends and going to fun events.
My husband always says:
You can chose two of three: sleep, friends, or grades.
I don't think he came up with that quote, but it's definitely true. It's not that I didn't see anyone ever for 6 months, but if I knew I had an assignment due and I knew the time I had to do it, I prioritized my homework over spending time with people. It was just a sacrifice I had to make in order to finish and finish well.
If you're an extrovert like me, make the conscious decision to choose grades over friends before your bootcamp starts. That way, when temptation comes and you see yourself having to make a decision between getting a good grade and spending the night out with your besties (or bros), you've already made that decision for yourself and you know the grade comes first. (Hopefully your friends will be understanding for 6 months).
2. Strategy
Goals
Now that we have our priorities set, how do we actually stay motivated when the goings get tough?
First step, is making a personal goal or having an ending reason for doing the bootcamp to keep you going in the midst of the hardest phase. I can share the goals and driving factors for me, but make sure to think of your own that make sense for you.
I had a few driving factors of keeping my grades up: my full-time job's expectation of passing the class, using my grades to show future grad schools that I can keep straight A's, and feeling confident in my abilities when starting out my programming career.
I was fortunate enough to have my employer's support and financial help with starting the bootcamp, but that gave an expectation that I would actually pass the course and receive my certificate. I wanted to prove to them I could do it well.
Secondly, my undergraduate GPA was not as impressive as my bootcamp grades (for various reasons). I still had the dream to get my Master's in something and I wanted to prove to grad schools that I was capable of keeping up with my grades.
Finally, I genuinely wanted to feel confident in my coding abilities. I don't think I would have started my freelancing business if I didn't feel confident that I could actually give clients what they wanted. I finished the class feeling confident I could make full-stack applications, that had a good UX design, and that clients would love! Getting straight A's built that confidence in me that I may not have had otherwise.
These were just my goals, but for you, I want you to strategize your own goals and write them down. What is your driving factor for doing this bootcamp? Is it a career switch, to make more money, to do something your passionate about? Once you have your goals, you can use them to remind yourself why you are pushing for straight A's and passing this bootcamp with confidence and feeling of success.
Productivity
The next part of your strategy is knowing your productive hours of the day. Some people don't have specific hours of the day they feel most productive, but they have a specific place, specific music, or specific strategy they've come up with themselves.
For me, I knew my most productive hours of the day was mornings until about 1pm. This meant, I spent my Saturday mornings at my desk or a cafe. I knew I could crank out my best work at that time, so I prioritized it on the days I had access to that time.
You might not have a specific time of day your most productive, but you might have a specific place. Cafe's are notorious for being productive environments: people working and studying with their lattes half sipped all over the place. It's a go-to place to be productive for many people, including myself.
If you don't know a time or place you would crank out your best work, consider creating one for yourself using classic conditioning!
Classical conditioning, also known as associative learning, is an unconscious process where an automatic, conditioned response becomes associated with a specific stimulus.
Classic Conditioning, Cornell University
This is often a term associated with training pets like dogs, but we humans can use it on ourselves as well!
To train yourself to be productive, pick a location that is accessible to you, whether in your home or in public, that you have designated your productive workspace. Only go to that place when you are in a productive mood. Do not work there during unproductive times for you, or this won't work. After a few times of being productive in that space, your body will soon learn that when you go there, it is time to be productive and you will start to be able to go there anytime and be productive every time!
If you don't have a location where that is achievable for you, you can use other things like, a specific playlist you only listen to when being productive, eating a specific snack every time you are being productive, or working at a specific time of day.
The trick is to not use that thing or that time when you are not being productive in the beginning. After your body understands that you are productive every time this music plays, or this time of day comes around, your brain will start to know to be productive every time you use that thing or that time!
3. When the Going Gets Tough
We have our priorities set, we have our strategy, what about when it actually gets hard, we've been working on the same bug for hours, and our hands are cramping?
Here is what I've found helpful during those times...
Take. A. Walk.
You will be in the midst of a problem, you've spent 5 hours on one bug and feel like you've gotten no where, and your at your last straw... take a walk. Studies show that your subconscious actually works on a problem when you leave it for a time and rest your conscious brain (Psychology Today).
I've actually used this to my advantage! I would take a walk and during that 15min walk, the answer would spring to my mind, I would test it out and it would work! One time, I'm not even joking, an answer to a bug I was working on came to me in a dream, and when I woke up, I tested it out and it actually worked! The subconscious is much stronger than you may realize.
Don't get discouraged from the whole bootcamp after a couple bad coding days.
You may not get the concepts right away in class. You may not solve the bug after 1, 2, or even 3 days. You may feel like your the slowest person in the whole class and everyone else is getting it faster than you.
A. that's not true. Everyone is feeling like they are behind. Your perception is based on people's in-person-class-performance. You don't know their grades, how many times they've cried over their homework, or their lives.
B. 1 or 2 bad coding days is what you need to be a good coder at the end of class! Work on those problems. Try to really solve them on your own, and if you really can't get it, use the bootcamp's resources to help you!
Be Smart with Your Resources
My bootcamp had a plethora of resources including a built-in coding AI tool, one-on-one tutoring, and office hours. I utilized all of them but I strategized so that I could learn effectively and not take advantage of them to and take the easy way out.
If you want to ace your class AND feel confident in your skills, do not take advantage of the resources but use them as tools!
Here is how I used them as tools instead of crutches...
When I was really stuck on a problem, I would start with the AI tool. Instead of asking the AI the answer to my problem directly, I asked it concept-based questions, for example:
If I was having trouble figuring out how to loop through my code to bring an action into fruition, instead of asking AI how to loop through the exact code I had, I asked it about loops in general and gave it a simpler example of looping through something simple then translated the concepts into my own code. This allowed me to think for myself and still learn without using the AI as a crutch in solving my homework.
If AI was not helping at all and I could not figure out for a couple days, I would schedule a tutoring session and instead of having the tutor give me the answer to my problem, I would ask them for an in-depth explanation of the coding concept (like loops) and how to use it and understand the logic, then I would try to use that concept with their supervision in my code and allow them to guide me when I was still stuck. This allowed me to still learn how to problem solve on my own without allowing the tutor to do it themselves and just fix my homework.
Now I'm not saying I never let a tutor solve a bug on their own, or that I never copied and pasted my code into AI for help, but before doing those things I really tried to problem solve on my own first and utilize the tools well before finally giving up. Sometimes it really is just past your knowledge and understandings to solve certain things and you need a little more training to get that functionality to be exactly how you want.
Being smart with the tools you are given will enhance your learning significantly and excel your confidence to the next level, trust me. The work is worth it.
Life Happens
Sometimes, life happens. A family event happens. Sickness happens. Hard things can come up during the bootcamp without you expecting it. It did for me and many of my classmates.
Half way through my bootcamp, I developed a severe migraine disorder out of nowhere where I was experience a migraine or severe headache every day for 2 months until my Neurologist found medication to help. It was one of the hardest seasons, health-wise, I've had to walk through.
Thankfully, my class allowed up to 2 missing assignments, which I needed during that time and because I was communicative about my status and my needs early on with my Professor and TA, they gave me a lot of grace.
When life happens, communicate. It will benefit you more than you realize.
I made sure to notify anyone I needed including the TA and professor as soon as I knew or if I even thought I might have to miss class. I communicated with teammates when I would be able to work on our projects, and when I would have certain parts of the projects finished so they could count on my team effort.
This brought trust with both my Professor and TA's as well as class and teammates. It made missing a class way less stressful because people were advocating for me and helping in areas I may have missed something important.
Communication is key, I know you've heard that, but it's true especially in a bootcamp setting. This way, people know when to expect you and it builds trust that will help you succeed in the best way.
Conclusion
That all said... I hope this blog was helpful for you in feeling confident that you can finish out your bootcamp and finish well. It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun work. I had so much fun learning how to build things and using those skills to make my own projects and ideas come alive!
Using the skills I've talked about will help you be successful in your bootcamp, finish it through, and finish it well.
(Also written here)
Top comments (2)
I'll be sharing this with my future classes.
Thank you!
Great article!! This is totally applicable to so many things. I don’t actually know when my most productive hours are. I’m going to think about it. And I also like the classical conditioning idea!!!