Tuesday, September 3rd

Bootcamp Begins at 8am:

Breakfast meet and greet with instructors and other classmates. Instructors didn’t mingle much but we did get set up with t-shirts, keys, name tags, etc and breakfast burritos (yuck!) were provided.

Maybe it’s a west coast thing? but breakfast meetings usually consist of caffeine, pastries and fresh bagels, no?

It felt super early to me, having just arrived in Austin a couple days prior from California, which is two hours behind Austin time. I remember walking in, uncharacteristically nervous. Something had shifted from May when I felt light-hearted, bouncing with excitement in anticipation of bootcamp – a chance I saw as my career reset. But the days leading up to school starting filled me with dread. What if it’s full of pretentious programmers? What if it’s all dudes? What if I’m not as smart as I think I am? Plus, I’m a hybrid. I’m cool and I’m sparkly and I’m a little geeky but I’ve never seen people like me in computer camp media… What if I just don’t fit in?

I rolled in at exactly 8am. I was on no sleep, foggy-headed and a bit let down by the lack of sugar being offered (I was prepared with my own stash of Reese’s but still, you hope for a happy sprinkle donut at these types of things).

It was a long hour, but parts of it were pretty exciting. Everyone was friendly. Everyone wanted to meet each other. They were open and honest, already sharing their personal stories of what led them to boot camp and authentically asking for reciprocal stories. Coming from Los Angeles and Las Vegas, it was unusual to see strangers talking so freely with each other – it was refreshing and reassuring that this would be the right fit for me in the end.

A typical day:

At 9am the curriculum coordinator got things going. We learned about the schedule for Day 1 and the typical schedule going forward. We were introduced to the main MakerSquare team and heard advice from 3 previous graduates.

Front end:

– Computer setup + Github

Back end:

– Ruby review

I realized my pre-work didn’t stick with me as I struggled through the lesson, mostly relying on my partner to explain things to me. Although, I think I did remember hashes or blocks okay and answered/figured out something about them correctly. Small victories.

Admin note:

I’ll come back to the daily breakdown soon. I need to fix other posts and get going on my actual programming homework today!

Peace! -Becs