How to be a Coding BootCamp Hero!

This post is about how to survive in a (React) coding Bootcamp, how you can benefit the most from this period of time, and what to do to learn more.
However it also applies to any other "coding language"
Bootcamps.

This post is not only about why you are doing this or whether you should do it! But I want to answer these two questions very quickly and move on to the main topic of HOW you do it!

Is coding Bootcamp something for you?

I don't know, but I know that before I decided to do the Bootcamp, I researched a lot (maybe that's how you found me) and took one or two "starter" or "beginner" classes to realize if I like coding or not. I asked a lot of friends who did it and spent the time to think it through. In the end, as you may guess, I did it and I can't be happier...
Don't get me wrong:

IT WAS NOT EASY!!

It was 3 months of sleeping late, waking up early, 10 hours coding per day, and then dreaming about it while I was sleeping. But as I said, it was worth it.

If you read this, it means that you are on the way to decide or you already made your decision about spending your next 2 or 3 months of your life to learn something almost completely new. So let's talk about how to do it:

How to be awesome in a Bootcamp

How to start:

Normally there are some prep-courses or/and a project before you start your Bootcamp. My suggestion: DO IT GOOOD!!
You may be able to start the Bootcamp without going through the prep-courses, but this causes you lots of pain and misery because of very small and basic stuff.
Let me tell you something:

You do not have much time in a BootCamp!

What I mean with this is that you are receiving a lot of projects every day/week and there is no time for you to learn basic HTML, CSS, or Javascript. (You can learn it but again, with lots of pain and staying up late)

This was how you should start but let's get into the Bootcamp:

Have a notebook

I didn't and I regret it. There were things I learned in BootCamp and forgot about it very quickly.
The notebook is not to write down everything your teacher/mentor tells you. You need it only to write down important stuff like:

• Step by step of using Github (you will look at it the first month at least every day!)
• How to name your functions and variables properly! Why onClick? or why isAdded!!
• how to use props!
• wait you don't know this stuff (don't worry you will very soon)

You get my point. There are also some very specific facts that you may use only once a month or a year at work, but it would be great that you have it somewhere written in your notebook.

Be a team

These are intense 3 months you are getting yourself into. You can't do it alone. You are in this together.
Help each other, have fun, use Fridays to have a small break, and/or maybe go out once in a while for a drink together.
Although competing to be the best is good, but you are not in any competition. You can become a better programmer by helping others and solving bugs in others' code.

Yes, help others to learn better.

This may be the most important thing to take from this post. Without seeing others' projects, you are limited within your own imagination and abilities and by seeing others' code, you know how they solve the same issue you have in your project.

Learn how to google

Do you know what a developer can do the best?
finding the solution they need on the Internet!

How? easy:
Google exactly what you want to do:
For example: "how to find duplicate items in an array of objects"
you will see these 3 or 4 websites the most whenever you search about Javascript stuff:

1. MDN (developer.mozilla.org)
2. StackOverflow
3. W3
4. Medium
5. whatever!!

Let's go through them:

1. MDN: this is documentation from Mozilla and is the best to learn about array functions, HTML syntax, and basic JS. However, you may need something more complex, and learning the syntax of a function may not help you in the first weeks of your Bootcamp, so scroll down to:

2. StackOverflow: What you should do is to be a little bit more specific when you look at StackOverflow:
   for example: add "JS" or "ES6" to your search to get the best answer to your question in StackOverflow, otherwise, you may get a very old way of doing an array function and not the modern and smart way of doing it.

3. W3: meh... It is cool for some things and I learned a lot from there, but I prefer the first 2 and:

4. Medium: You may find some awesome stuff here, from HOWTO use React to HOWTO create a "whatever you need" App.
   Very cool platform but still, I prefer to use StackOverflow to find the solution for small issues and prefer to figure out the whole project by myself.

5. I would stick to those websites above as a beginner developer. Although there are tons of stuff out there on other websites, MDN and StackOverflow are THE most reliable pages to find basic coding related solutions.
   You may find an issue or a solution on github.com too, but I am pretty sure you can find it also on StackOverflow.
   However, the more complex your issues get, the more websites are coming into this list.

Golden rule

If you can't find the solution on the Internet, you are using the wrong terms to google. Try to change them.
For example: "how to delete a list of items" may give you nothing (although Google is pretty smart and it probably will) but searching "how to remove all elements in array ES6" will definitely do!

Are you still here? Great! let's move on:

Don't trust your previous version of yourself:

What does it mean?
For a long time (first 2 months of my Bootcamp), every time that I was having the same functional problem I had weeks ago, I went to my previous project and copy-paste the solution from there.
Yes, it may work, but there are many ways to solve a coding problem and as a beginner, you probably didn't know which one's the best, but as an intermediate developer you may know!
Go research again and again and do not trust what you solved when you didn't even know what ".reduce()" is! (wink)
"I wrote functions with 10 lines of code to solve an issue that now I can do with one or two lines!"

Where were we? right! BootCamps.

Don't give up aka. Trust the procedure:

This BootCamp you are in has already trained lots of developers and sent them to work.
All of them (including me) have moments of frustration, feeling dumb, trying to just survive the Bootcamp, and countless moments of being hopeless.
But we all made it.
If you think you don't know anything or you are going nowhere with your project, instead of questioning the Bootcamp or the decision you made to go through with it, just keep going, research more and trust what your teachers tell you.

And NOW the finale:

This is not a school or a university

In BootCamp, you have a lot of support and mentoring from your teachers, BUT you should do your projects yourself.
No one tells you what to do or teach you every small step you need.
For example, in React BootCamp they teach you how to create a simple App using React. It means you have enough material to start.
From there, you are on your own to search, find, use, and solve. And ONLY when you are going nowhere or to the wrong direction, your mentor will guide you to the right path and you can start again.
This is awesome! Hard but awesome! This is how Bootcamps work. This is why YOU as a "JUNIOR DEVELOPER" are not really junior.
You have 3 months of work experience in your résumé. You did all those projects on your own. That's why you are ready to work, ready to get into real projects.

Conclusion:

If you are still not sure if you want to do a Bootcamp, take some small online classes to see whether you like coding, and IF you like it, Bootcamp is the best way to learn and get into the job market.
And when you are in the Bootcamp, be aware that it is hard and you may have moments of misery, but it's only 3 months and YOU CAN DO IT!