| | Maria-Soledad Musial | My husband and I decided to take this bootcamp course together. He has been a web developer, mostly learned on his own over several years, currently has a freelance business; I, on the other hand, am changing careers--TOTAL newbie, never coded before. What ended up happening at Kickstart was a beautiful thing: our instructors performed a high-wire act in which they were able to address the brand-new folks' learning, while keeping the more experienced students sufficiently engaged with more advanced challenges. I'd say our cohort had about more than half brand-spanking-new coders and less than half with some-familiarity-to-experienced coders. As one would imagine, the challenge for a new coder like myself going from zero to 100 in four months of learning so many new and dizzying Computer Science concepts, then immediately having to apply these ideas in order to CREATE apps I was previously only familiar with "doing" was both at times emotionally painful and frustrating, BUT once past the hurdle -- what a magical, empowering experience -- to be able to say, "Wow, I actually know how to make that now. What else can I make?" Kickstart carefully picks its curriculum to teach what is most currently in demand, and we were all carefully scaffolded through lectures which were captured on videos, readings, activities, condensed cheatsheets, a fellow student-student/student-instructor chat messaging system (and moral support system), one-on-one individualized help if we needed (in person or on direct chat - the resources are there, one would just need to make use of all them and not be shy), feedback on our work, etc. From the very beginning, whether we realized it or not, we were carefully being taught "how to fish" as we made our first git commit; as we created our first website (thus starting our online presence); as we learned the industry standard best practices; as we learned in our project teams how it feels to go through a scrum sprint to get our MVP ready prior to presentation; to mock interviews and algorithms. Now, although, my husband supposedly only came along for my moral support, I believe he learned exponentially more than I did, because he knew which deep questions to even ask to get the most value out of picking our instructors' brains. As I would still be in the midst of fathoming a brand new concept and having a life-altering mind-blow of seeing how efficiently my world would be by creating a function for all my daily tasks, HE would be on a different trip, saying stuff like, "I can't WAIT for the next class! I LOVE Python! What a great language!" or "This technique is so much faster than the way I used to do it, where has this been all my life!" or "Michael's starting REACT tomorrow -- that's the really the GOOD stuff!!!" or "Let's go to class early, I want to pick Michael's brain." I'm sure if it were up to him, he'd clone Michael just so he could always ask him all kinds of questions. ...Well, you know why he was so excited, it's because he oftentimes was able to immediately apply concepts we JUST learned to his business, even WHILE we were in bootcamp! With our newfound knowledge, Kickstart just broadened our horizon of possibilities of what we can do or what we can create! Michael is animated and fun; generous with his knowledge -- he's so approachable and supportive -- no matter how simple or complex the question; enthusiastic and passionate about teaching Computer Science, and his energy is obviously infectious and translates well to BOTH newbies and experienced coders, alike! I commend and recommend the Kickstart staff for being so supportive, knowledgeable and fun. And although Kickstart does not have their own job support, Kickstart now has a connection with WorkWell (a life coaching program that has helped coach 500+ people to successfully land jobs at many big-name high tech companies; in addition, many other industries, as well) and cohort graduates are encouraged and funneled to optionally subsequently attend their 2-week bootcamp in order to be completely set up for success so we can put our ultimate best foot forward! With that combo, here's to a bright future! |
