| | Max Winslow | A few weeks after finishing Devpoint, still basking in the glow of being hired as a dev, I posted an honest, largely positive review of Devpoint Labs on Switchup's main competitor site (you know the one). With that review, I encouraged anyone reading to reach out to me on Linkedin if they had any questions/comments or concerns. I was totally blown away by the response from people reaching out to me with the exact same eager, anxious, excitement that I had when I was first beginning this seemingly crazy moon shot attempt at a career change.
I would encourage anyone reading this to go read that review first if they want a more in-depth look at why I chose Devpoint Labs out of the abundance of options that are available today. In this review, I thought it might be helpful to address the number one question I get from people reaching out to me, namely, "Will this school get me a job?". My response to the numerous varieties of ways in which this question has been asked to me, can best be boiled down to these three, infuriatingly rhetorical questions for you, the reader, to answer:
1. Do you love coding?
- Everybody loves money. While it is true you can make great money as coder, you will actually have to be coding for 40-60+ hours a week every week in order to make this money. There are plenty of ways to make money and not everyone will love coding. You're inside a lot, you're constantly having to learn new things that are going to be completely changed in a couple of months (see: Javascript), it's stressful, it occupies a lot of your mind. Do you like having to constantly solve new problems? Do computers interest you? Are you a self-starter who can find answers for yourself or do you rely on other people to answer your questions for you? These are the questions you should be asking yourself and thinking deeply about. Seriously, don't just say yes, is this something you could tolerate doing? Of course the best way to discover this leads me to my next rhetorical.
2. Do you practice coding?
- The number of people I have talked to who have gone into, or are planning to go into a coding bootcamp with zero coding experience is absolutely shocking to me. If you go into a web development course and you have not written a single line of HTML, CSS, or JS, [south park reference incoming...] you're going to have a bad time. Practice, practice a lot. If you need to sign up for the course first to light a fire under your butt give yourself at least 3 months beforehand to learn to code, learn what you like to code, and learn what you WANT to learn to code. Yes, I am aware that prodigies exist that go into these things with no experience and come out the other side on top. Don't bank on being an undiscovered prodigy, practice.
3. Do you have grit and persistence?
I'm going to go ahead and reiterate the cliche I'm sure you've read in all kinds of bootcamp think pieces on Medium. Coding is hard. You're going to question yourself, your intentions, and your own talents a lot. I work with senior devs now with 10+ years who still do this on a daily basis. This is why the first point in this list is so critical. How will you respond to the setbacks and disappointments you are 100% guaranteed to experience on this journey. I had sent out nearly 100 job applications with a response rate of about 20% before I got a real job offer. Expect setbacks, expect rejection, expect doubt.
If you can answer each of these questions with a DEFINITIVE yes, then my answer would be yes, attending Devpoint Labs will provide you the education, community, and environment you need in order to land a job as a software developer. I am still actively engaged in the alumni community, I love going back to see the instructors and meet new students. It's exciting and reinvigorating to be around people who are hungry and passionate about coding. I'm not a TA, I'm not a paid reviewer, I'm a guy who attended Devpoint Labs and it worked out great for me. Whatever it is you end up doing, I truly hope that it works out great for you as well.
Always feel free to reach out on Linkedin
Max Winslow |
