Today was the first day of check-ins for the Caterpillars today which made me reminisce how confused and nervous I was during my first check-ins. We split up into the assigned groups, and spent 30 minutes discussing how students were feeling this week.

I shared how I was surprised about the positive feedback I was given for my website yesterday. I also shared my idea about creating a central website for all blogs about the students’ experiences at the hacker schools. I thought of this idea because it is difficult to get a sense of each hacker school available today and their differences. In addition, these types of ‘bootcamp’ schools are still very new to the education industry. It would be nice to have a website for prospective students to learn more about the subtle differences between what each school does. I believe knowledge will lead to a better decision.

After the check-ins and discussing some themes that came up during check-ins, my cohort quickly dove into today’s group challenges: a web-based flash card application. I quickly realized the learning competencies for the challenge:

• Manage application complexity via proper modeling.
• Use project management fundamentals, including division of labor.
• Use product management fundamentals in the face of incomplete specifications.
• Further practice with ActiveRecord, Sinatra, and ERB.

3 out of the 4 learning competencies are about working with a group. I gave a friendly reminder to my group about these competencies, so we all tried to learn about git workflow when working with a group. In addition, we all agreed to split up the work using vertical workflow.

Lightning Talk: Good or Bad?

At 2:00PM, my cohort all gathered up for lightning talks done from other students. I was very sad to hear from students here and there that they think that these talks are a waste of time. I think the reason why some students would think it is a waste of time because the students aren’t taking the talks seriously. A lot of students come unprepared and unenthusiastic and I think that’s a very selfish thing to do; not only are the students’ time wasted from learning something from the lightning talk, a lot of time is lost from coding.

There is no point in lightning talks because we get so many days to prepare for our final project presentations.

If this was the case, then why is everyone saying how the presentations from the previous cohort could have been better? In addition, a lot of the students were clearly so nervous that they started to say inappropriate things like ‘how an asian’s eyes are smiling when he/she laughs’.

Even if a lightning talk is presented real well, I don’t need to learn about the topic presented.

That’s perfectly fair to say. However, Dev Bootcamp tries their best to implement the Law of Two Feet. No student is obligated to do something he/she does not want to do.

Dev Bootcamp isn’t just about coding

I truly believe that everyone that is attending Dev Bootcamp didn’t spend $12,000 to JUST code; there are so many other schools that allow you to just code all day. One of the reasons why I chose Dev Bootcamp over App Academy as an example is because Dev Bootcamp not only allows you to grow as a developer, but allows you to grow as a person emotionally and intellectually. I try to spend some time getting to know my cohort members, and each member I get to know have their own, amazing life story. And the cool thing is when the cohort member trusts me enough to share how Dev Bootcamp allowed him/her to grow as a person and just become a better person.

I understand that a lot of students are getting upset because a lot of time is getting spent NOT coding. However, that is what we signed up for when we chose Dev Bootcamp. I try to think of the $12,000 I spent isn’t rationed to just coding. The $12,000 I spent is for Engineering Empathy classes, creating professional connections with amazing people, and growing as a person. Therefore, it would be a waste of money to think that all there is to Dev Bootcamp is coding. I wish people would realize what Dev Bootcamp is truly offering, and wisely learn everything on what Dev Bootcamp is to offer.

So after the lightning talks and lecture about AJAX, we all went back to working on the group challenges. After I heard the gong at 6:00PM, I worked on the challenge for another hour before checking up on the Caterpillars to see how they were all doing with the Sudoku challenge. I don’t want to be the type of person to leech resources from Dev Bootcamp without giving anything back. After taking as much as I could from Dev Bootcamp, I decided that I was now mature enough to start giving back to the community. Therefore, I made a couple of rounds helping the Caterpillars with whatever questions they had.

This week was very tiring, but also very fulfilling. I am happy that the weekend is here so I can rest up and reflect on what I learned this week. I look forward to Javascript and AJAX next week!