My journey here at Flatiron School has been a little stressful to say the least. I didn't think that I'd be learning this much at this fast a pace. However, as we reach the midpoint of our journey, I am already starting to feel like a real programmer.
First Month's Material
Last month's material was fairly straightforward to me as it mostly revolved around Javascript and I fortunately already had some experience with the language. Before coming to Flatiron, I was a college student majoring in Computer Science. Due to this, I had already taken a couple of programming classes. These classes primarily revolved around languages such as html, javascript, python, c++, and a touch of css. Since I had a little bit of experience prior to starting this cohort, I assumed that I would be able to coast through. I would think to myself,
I have always been good at school, maybe not getting straight A's, but the work always just came easy to me. I also already kinda know how to program so this should be a piece of cake.
Boy was I wrong.
2nd Month's Material
This last month, we primarily focused on using React JS to create Apps. This is something that was completely new to me. I have never worked with any kind of framework, let alone even understand what a framework was. I knew that this was going to be a challenge, but it was something I was still looking forward to. In addition, we were also instructed to get some work done over the weekend prior to the start of the month, which I did not do. The first week of a new month focuses on just learning new information everyday. As you may assume, I was behind that entire first week and was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. As the weekend approached, I managed to have less and less work to catch up on, yet I was still not done.
My unfinished work followed me into the next week. Then it hit me, we have a test coming up and I am not at all prepared. The day of the test came, and I was fairly confident in myself yet there was still one module that I had yet to complete. I was confident in creating controlled components, using state, essentially everything the test would be based on. The last module consisted of using the useEffect hook as well as using fetch requests. The day of the test came and I had learned the useEffect hook, but I had yet to touch the data fetch material. Luckily, we had an hour to prepare before it was time to take our test. I used this time to learn data fetching within the module. Fortunately, we had learned data fetching in javascript the previous month, and as I open up the material, it is extremely similar to what we had learned. Due to this, I was able to get everything done in time to be prepared for my test. The test came, and I was fortunate enough to pass through the prompts. This day was probably the most stressed I've been during this cohort so far.
Thoughts on Flatiron
Even though it hasn't been completely easy, I still love the fact that I am apart of the Flatiron community. Ever since my junior year of high school when I took my first computer science class, I knew that this was the field for me and that one day I would become a Programmer. I assumed that the only way to go about this would be through getting a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, yet here I am today as a college dropout still pursuing my dream. I know it seems like a bit of a risk, but I think in the end, it will all be worth it. I am determined to become a software engineer and I feel like this school has given me the opportunity to do just that.
In addition, the way things are taught at Flatiron, in my opinion, are a lot better than the way things are taught at college. In comparison to college programming courses, I have learned a lot more at Flatiron School in these 2 months than I did in 2 years at college. Throughout college, the way we were taught to program was very linear. We were taught, this is how you do this, now go ahead and try to do it yourself. However, here at Flatiron, we are taught, this is how you do this, now use what you have learned to create something new. At college, you are taught how to do one thing, then once that thing is learned, you move onto the next. However, at Flatiron, you are taught the tools and how to use those tools in various cases. There is a lot more flexibility in what you can achieve. Rather than focusing on the output, Flatiron focuses on teaching the building blocks.
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