| | Justin Head | I can honestly say that I entered Covalence with very little to no experience in Software Development. I had learned some HTML when I was a teenager, but not much more than your average kid with a myspace page. They give you some pre-course work to do before starting, but I committed to knocking it out very quickly in just a couple days. The first week started with the basics, HTML,CSS on Monday, CSS Frameworks on Tuesday, Wednesday we got to JavaScript and ran through JavaScript drills fast. I remember feeling very stressed at the speed during the first week. I stuck it out and after a difficult lab on the weekend I felt like I was getting the hang of it.
You will constantly learn new things which can feel overwhelming, but it works because you get to implement the stuff you have already learned throughout the way. The curriculum was certainly well thought out, and they continue to add and improve it. A typical day starts with a lecture on what you will be covering that day, then you usually have some exercises/drills to work on that allow you to get some practice, and then a lab of some sort to continue further with practice. Some days you may take the work home with you, but somedays you may finish before class ends. The instructor in class is available to help you when you get stuck, and you have access to the Covalence community with other students, alumni, and instructors that are always willing to help. Our class learned HTML, CSS, CSS Frameworks, JavaScript, JQuery, React, React-Native, Node, Express, MySQL, SCRUM/AGILE, and GIT(with some team branching techniques).
The class concluded after we completed a Final Group Project that is designed to duplicate what it would be like in a developer environment working with SCRUM and git branching. I think my entire group was proud and impressed about what we were able to do in our final project. I learned throughout the group project how to really research and teach myself to do something outside of the curriculum. In my situation this was how to schedule events on the server that would trigger at certain times of the day in Node. During the project I had certain things I wasn't very confident I could do, but by the end of it I realized I had learned more than I gave myself credit for.
After Covalence:
Within about two weeks of the course I was able to secure employment. Covalence volunteered to publish my story and I encourage anyone interested in Covalence to read it at https://covalence.io/blog/i-spoke-my-employers-language-but-i-couldnt-write-it/
Covalence plans to release more curriculum such as a C# .NET course and I look forward to adding that to my tech stack.
Advice for Prospective Students:
Try to learn some basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript before going in. The pre-course work is enough, but take your time and retain it. You should expect it to be hard and a lot of work. You will find out that there is not only one way to do things, so don't stress about the instructions on assignments that much. If your like me you probably spent most of your life asking a teacher for assistance when you got stuck, but try and figure it out first. You WILL google for answers to problems or ways to accomplish different things, and that is completely okay and encouraged. If you get your work done before you go home then great, but what else can you work on when you get home? Adding to my assignments at home and going above and beyond the instructions was how I learned additional things and it was very noticeable by the time I got to the final project. I worked every night and every weekend and the course seemed to get easier, but I was just getting better. Remember that learning isn't done when the class ends at 5 no more than it is done when the course is finished. |
