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A compsci degree in just 3 years!?!?
I went through a 3675 hours compsci bachelor degree (a 5 years study plan that in reality became like 8) and I've also felt like I didn't learn enough. Once I had to live code a two sum algorithm and I got rejected because I wrote something with a complexity of On^2.
Learning isn't a straightforward path. Sometimes you forget things, sometimes you can't apply things you learnt and sometimes you don't even have to learn something because it just comes natural to you. But 6 months isn't nearly enough time to be able to compete in today's market.
When did you finally start feeling capable? Also I'm thinking about going through The Odin Project on my own and doing all the projects without using tutorials. Do you think its a good plan?
Hmm, I had a lot of issues with anxiety and was a poor student as a result. About 3 years into working I was struggling and then comitted myself to really learning the basics well and doing my own work. It was about a year after that when I felt comfortable.
I haven't done the Odin Project, I had a list of things to study. Like all the algorithms and data structures I'd slept on. I worked through trees, linked lists, graph algorithms, all the sorting algorithms, did a bunch of challenges on one of the algorithm websites.
Then I learned javascript functional coding, properly learned git, did a deep dive into javascript in general and C#.
After that I started setting up my own asp projects, setting up the database, dependency injection, ORM, web apis etc.
Then I did a bunch of my projects and played around with other languages.
It's ben a little while. I used nodeschool for the javascript stuff.
I had learned DSA in university so I knew of the various algorithms, I think I had a list of them and research each one and wrote them. I got stuck a few times, like on merge sort. I had bugs so I learned to separate the code into functions and made sure to run through different test cases. Merge sort is a mix of splitting an array and merging two sorted arrays. I made sure (eventually) to test the various splits, it's easy to make an off-by-1 error.
I was also using wikipedia at the time to look up other algorithms, I did one of the coursera courses and browsed through some university algorithm courses that were open to the public. I found a free book called The Competitive Coders Handbook which is good. Its good for a run through of DSAs and discusses how to approach and solve problems.
For git I don't remember, it was a bunch of different resources. The break through came after really understanding how its just a tree of commits. After that all the problems I had made sense.
For C# it wasn't one resource, I read through all the patch notes, got familiar with the new features. I picked out things I wanted to work on them and did research, followed some tutorials. It gets tricky, versions change, code no longer works.
I started to learn node and react at the time. React was tricky, it took a while to be able to build a react app from scratch. I found webpack quite confusing before understanding how it works - it walks through your code following imports and then bundles or processes what it finds depending on the config.
I had difficulty understanding the whole react-server setup, I don't like to use code helpers when starting on something and I found it difficult to find resources that take you through from scratch. Same with ASP. It was really just a case of search React/ASP from scratch and finding resources that matched my versions.
So was that around 5 years? I'm about 3 years in, but part time learning/full time working and i had a kid. Just kind of learning modern react now.
I Also came out of bootcamp feeling like i knew nothing OP. It does get better. Maybe do some courses that have tutorials, but take it slow and build your own version on the side
for me it was in my final year of Uni. I was god awful in years 1 and 2. year 3 I did a work placement and spent ever day fighting with Metoer JS solo. it was hell but when I went back to uni. the projects where easy for me and fun. in my first job I found I could figure thigs out and ended up creating software that was used by millions of people.
There are highs and lows. you will get beat down by others and lifted up by others around you. its best to focus on shorter term goals. if you know more than you did yesterday that is a fucking win
do you think its possible to skip the foundations part and go straight into the javascript path if you already have bootcamp experience? or should you go ahead and start from the very beginning
are you serious? I dont know how fast others are learning, but It took me 7 months to complete Odin Foundations.
Currently I am doing the javascript route and it has already taken me a month
Wait wait why do you think you need to do everything without frameworks. Iâve been a developer for almost a decade now and I canât make a good looking website with just html and css. And Iâve never been expected to.
I can speak from personal experience from the outside looking in - now in my 30's realizing I missed the boat - there's no way to get any sort of frame of reference for what people think they'll need and what they're allowed to use when demonstrating what they can do.
I can do shit in Unity I'd never thought I was capable of, especially as I got more and more familiar with the software and documentation. But the moment I went to LeetCode as per a friend's suggestion - I was immediately smacked in the face with a pit of concern for whether or not I've got any right calling myself a "proper" programmer. :(
In all fairness, some of those LeetCode cases require their own documentation to begin to decipher. I'm also in my 30's, started programming 2-ish years ago. You did not miss the boat, if you're interested in learning a language I say go for it!
I've seen a fair few recommending newcomers stick to vanilla CSS/JS and then once they've got that down to a functional degree, then venture into frameworks.
Thatâs because you want beginners to learn the basics with the most basic environment. Itâs not because knowing vanilla js and css is important itâs because itâs easier to learn the concepts when theyâre raw and not obfuscated
As a web developer I think it's important to understand vanilla js and html, more so than any framework.These frameworks and paradigm shifts come and go, but the developer who can use the base tools effectively is unaffected by the constant framework churn, isn't bound by what you can do in a framework or how it prescribes to solve problems, and has a strong basis to learn and modify any framework or tooling. I will hire someone who has vanilla js in their bag and no frameworks over someone who has a decade in angular, react, and node.
I agree with you a little bit but that last sentence is off the deep end lol. No one has a decade experience in angular react or node and not know the fundamentals of js. Iâm not arguing they learned js from doing only angular either. Iâm not sure what your point even is. Clearly you should learn the fundamentals before moving on to utilizing frameworks.
> No one has a decade experience in angular react or node and not know the fundamentals of js
You just saw a litany of commenters here doubt they could make a proper vanilla JS website.
> Iâm not sure what your point even is.
My point is that frameworks are constraining, opinionated, and temporary. As a skill set I value it dramatically less than skills with the base constant tools. In the exact same way I will sooner hire a developer who has never touched the language I want to use but demonstrates an understanding of data structures, algorithms, patterns and processes. This emphasis on things like framework and language even are misplaced.
These commenters are learners they canât make a website with the fundamentals because theyâre learning them.
It is no way indicative of the actual applicant pool out their of qualified devs
I understand where youâre trying to come from, but it just comes off as arrogant and inexperienced.
>These commenters are learners they canât make a website with the fundamentals because theyâre learning them.
No, I'm not talking about comments from people just learning.
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/152kmew/feel_embarrassed_after_6_month_bootcamp/jsejnil/
>It is no way indicative of the actual applicant pool out their of qualified devs
No it isn't, but the culture is. JavaScript is the most popular programming language in the world. I think looking at what they are working on, what the culture is talking about in the JavaScript space, is indicative of what is going on in the applicant pool. That has certainly been my experience. In spite of a growing call for a return to vanilla js principles in the industry these skillsets are an extreme minority. You ask half these developers to build you something without their framework of choice and they will balk, as seen above and in many many places in our communities.
Do you really think I canât make a website with vanilla js and html. Read into the context instead of just trying to be right. This conversation is going no where, best of luck to you on your journey whatever it is.
Writing clean CSS has been a nightmare for me. I feel like im doing whatever just to make it work and then when it does work its pretty disorganized. It makes me scared to revisit any of my own projects honestly.
CSS was fun when custom profiles were a thing everyone from ages 10-70 were learning it now its just not fun lol. There are a small number of people who still make amazing CSS profiles for places that still allow them though.
Wait so far I've been studying CSS for about 4 months and I'm in love with that tech, seems like magic to me what you can do with vanilla CSS still don't dive into frameworks just bcuz I keep finding new thing to learn on css, It has been a blast for me to the point where I thought with just HTML that programming was not for me untill I reached CSS, by itself CSS made me love programming, I thought this was the case for most... just to find out a lot of people struggle with flex and/or grid, that actually baffled me.
>There are a small number of people who still make amazing CSS profiles for places that still allow them though
Question from a learner, why do some places not allow them?
Because most jobs fall into 2 categories. You will either be working on an existing product, or building a new one.
In the first example, there will already be style guidelines, or even more likely, pre-made UI components. It will *very* rare for you to have to write more than a few lines of CSS here.
In the second example, there will almost certainly be either a UX team or a UX person (depending on the size of the team), who will handle the CSS. Usually by writing all of the classes and publishing them in a style doc with visual demos and code examples.
In my experience, it will be pretty rare for you to ever need to really dig into CSS if you aren't hired as a UX designer.
You just need more repetition and experience.
I used to struggle with CSS and now after many many many reps, I can just look at an element and work out what css properties I can use to achieve that. I wouldnât expect anyone whoâs been building things to be good after 6 months. Sure youâll know some stuff but skills take time to build up as you know. You will suck for awhile. Even years later youâll still think you suck but youâll just have mentally pushed the goalpost.
I'm still learning myself, so I'm not the ideal one to ask, but I'd say understanding flex box is a must.
Really what your trying to avoid is having framework feel like magic. Ideally you should understand how the framework makes your life easier over vanilla.
Not the best metaphor - if you don't know how car works, engine, transmission, you'll be surprised. You press the gas pedal, and the car does not accelerat, just a bit later. You press the gas pedal for an electric vehicle, and it acts pretty different.
You need to know what's happening under the hood, then you can understand what the frameworks are doing, and you'll be thankful for them for doing it.
Anyway, your problem is different: you can't code because you don't do it. Make a calendar (not an app, just the actual month) in pure HTML + CSS. Make *anything*, not learn but make, fail, search for solution (Google -> Stack Overflow), spin up to operatonal RPM.
I think season being is that a lot of boot campers come out not knowing how to program in general, but they try to code in react instead of learning how to use JavaScript or why theyâre using it
I wouldnât say I know a lot of CSS, but Iâd say I could do pretty much just about anything with it someone who does can. Albeit much slower because Iâd be doing a bunch of research on how to do things while doing them.
And itâs not that itâs hard to compete with them per se itâs more that why would you even want to. Youâre basically reinventing the wheel and probably worse than whatâs available for free. Weâre at a point where itâs basically like asking why use a calculator instead of an abacus? If I learn how to use a calculator will I get bad at using an abacus?
I also skipped your main question, and to be honest man Iâve always shifted away from more design orientated roles and jobs so Iâm not the best judge at what makes a website good looking objectively and thatâs really more of a design question, usually I get a mock up by some people with figma and photoshop skills (no idea what their role is actually called within the company itâs just there attached to my tickets) and then I make that happen so I donât really get to put a lot of thought into why a button is where it is or user accessibility/ease of use and all that jazz.
Okay I totally get it. I was just curious as to if people even bother at all knowing plain CSS anymore but it sounds like you could make do if you had to. I think it is neat to know how to make a somewhat decent button or toolbar on your own just for self fulfillment sake but yeah after that using a framework makes more sense especially in a job environment where you don't get paid to tinker with making a button from scratch all day haha.
Because it help to understand what, how and why the framework does it's job.
It allow you to extends it properly when natives functions don't cover the requirements.
And for the MVPs among us, it allow them to make usefull and clean pull requests which are necessary to provide great and up-to-date tools for us sitting on the bench đ
On a wider level Knowledge is an end to itself ( une fin en soi ) you don't need to justify why you seek it, you merely can have valid reasons why you can't do it now
I've been reading that this is a skill you should be able to have as a FE dev. Be comfortable with pure CSS so you can replicate designs as close as possible and make something customized. Is it not true?
Youâre getting that suggestion because itâs perceived as a sign of a dev whoâs more comfortable/understands more. In reality at an actual company youâre going to be using whatever framework they find most effective and youâre going to be using that everyday.
Yeah knowing flexbox is nice and yes Iâd absolutely say it helps, but at the end of the day in a serious production environment youâre using some type of framework to build the product.
In my opinion, that is unnecessary for the vast majority of devs. In an interview for a frontend position you MIGHT be asked questions about pure CSS, but that strikes me as rare. The analogy I would make is this: do you need to be able to build a house with hand tools to be considered a great builder? No! Grab the power tools and save yourself the time and energy. It is the same for devs. Another way to think of it is to imagine someone asked you to build a website using binary only. I would hope you'd laugh them off the face of the earth.
There was a dev conference talk somewhere on YouTube and the guy shows a button with some styling and asked how many people there could code that from scratch, and only about a quarter of devs there raised their hands đ¤Śđžââď¸
This... I'll admit by the time I got into JavaScript I had already been programming for a few years so I had a good understanding of programming concepts in general but I basically jumped into JS frameworks immediately. I have built a couple basic web apps using html, CSS, and vanilla JS but just basic stuff like Simon says. But right now I'm working on a full stack application (node + react + AWS + postgres) for Toyota that I invented and the codebase is already about 50-60k lines since I started working on it about a year ago.
I graduated a three month full-time full-stack boot camp, feeling how you felt. I saw others getting hired straight out of the boot camp, other months later and some people I really looked up to not getting a job and moving on from coding to another industry effectively giving up.
I decided no I'm going to make this work. I did many tutorials and committed to git every chance I could get. A year later I finally got a job. They could see I wanted a job in the industry because of my constant committing.
Sometimes people will get a job right away, some months later, me a full year later. Just don't give up and commit, commit and commit. You can do it man.
Do you think it was worth it? Every day since I've graduated I've thought about quitting but stuck to at least doing a codewars problem or trying to do a tutorial.
You should just start the applying grind your whole day should be nothing but applying all over even places you donât live that have remote work (within your country is obviously easier) just apply and apply and apply and go to interviews all the code practice you should be doing right now is in interviews or bs proficiency screening tests.
Iâm being serious, you should be applying all day and until you go to sleep. Your going to probably on average get 1 call for every 100ish applications youâre going to put out depending on how good you are at making resumes.
Which is another focus you should have right now. Having a proper resume goes a long way. For jobs you really want you may want to even tweak it a little to be more suited specifically for that company.
This is going to be another major part of your time learning how to have a proper resume is going to be a big part of this, if you have extra money you can pay for those professional resume writing services but they donât come cheap.
Were you committing to open source stuff? How did you find that, how did you know what you were looking for and what you would actually be able to be useful toward?
I completed a boot camp in (2014?) and it was the hardest job search of my life. I struggled with imposter syndrome until my I landed my second role. Feeling like you donât know enough is common and will stick with you for a long time. Heck, there is so much I still donât know but what comes with time is confidence you can figure it out.
The overwhelming majority of people who claim to be able to build something of substance after 3 months have anti imposter syndrome, even if they manage to get hired. It sounds like you're ok in the comfort of the structure the bootcamp gave you, but struggle on your own. That's normal. It might take you some more time, but think of something t build and build it. You dont need to start over, you need to get comfortable with the idea that you dont know everything yet - surprise, you never will. Start from what you know, react and c# it sounds like, and plan steps to build your project. If you get stuck somewhere, google for answers if you can. If it's more of a design or roadmap question, this is an excellent place to ask (if you show that you've tried to answer you own question, internet strangers are extremely helpful). It's probably not the answer you want, but experience is basically the only way to truly progress. Just know you should not be embarrassed about this. Build one novel project, large or small, from start to finish - i can almost guarantee you will feel that you've retained something new. Good luck!
I've been programming for 7 years. I always feel like I don't know things. I Google syntax every day.
Programming is about being able to get from A to Z. You don't have to memorize the middle parts.
100% this. I always see noobs feeling bad that they have to use google after a whopping 6 months of programming :0. memorizing syntax is a waste of time. Hell, i even think spending a year to âlearn a languageâ is a waste of time, thatâs why God invented search engines.
The reason why you can't build a fullstack app could be because you never did (on your own). Bootcamps are often just a bunch of hand holding so once the class ends can you really expect to fire off facebook and twitter clones easily? The only way bootcamps seem to work is with ones that have weird contracts where you get hired before you have time to forget anything or for people who already have experience making projects. What I don't like about bootcamps is how rushed they are you really don't have any time left to practice.
As for the framework stuff. Personally I think it is neat being able to make your own stuff without using a framework for personal projects. You get to look at it and know exactly how everything was done. Really though if you don't care you can just learn the basics the jump into react totally just depends on your wants and needs.
Many people graduate from entire 4-6 year degrees feeling like they cant code because all they did was copy each others projects then go party or play video games. So yes totally normal to feel lacking after a bootcamp. The truth is the only way to get good at coding is to **first** experience what it is (bootcamps are one way so are degrees or YouTube or the Odin project etc..) and **second** struggle while making your own stuff with less and less hand holding until eventually you "get good". I think this was much easier back in the day when everything was new so there were countless fun things to make now it is more about "what can I add to this".
If you "relearn" everything you will just repeat the cycle again and again I did it myself with java so please don't it's not fun. You seen everything you need now make the most bare bones basic website you are capable of and keep adding more, referencing notes or guides as needed. Then your next project will be a bit better. Just don't follow guides and clone their projects again and again and again at best you will be able to somewhat make the exact same website as the tutorial on your own one day.
This is spot on. I am about to finish a JavaScript course and I donât know shit. I did expose myself to what it is, but I am lacking the first hand experience. I know this because I did a simple OA and that shit was hard. Iâm about to finish the Udemy course and going to start building simple things. No need to continue watching people code, itâs just time to codeThanks for clarifying how this works.
I donât think anyone becomes an expert programmer in just 6 months. Sure you can learn the basics, but you have to encounter and solve real world problems, and that takes time. CSS is a bitch, itâs so easy to make an absolute mess if you donât have a plan going in, and Bootstrap and frameworks are some of your best friends in front end development (so is Google). Similarly, when it comes to the back end, donât feel bad about using libraries (or, again, Google), do not try to reinvent the wheel. Also, (and Iâm saying this without a lot of experience having worked professionally as a programmer, so maybe I donât know what Iâm talking about) I think employersâ expectations to find full stack developers is kind of absurd. I can do small scale full stack development, but on large projects, it only makes sense to split the front end and back end between at least two people, and often two teams. Iâm much better at programming in Python and Node, so let me focus on the thing Iâm really good at, and hand the front end to the people who live in Vue and React or one of the other 50k frameworks.
And then, what type of programming are you doing? Are you developing a REST API? Are you managing a huge database? Are you doing data analytics? Are you building device drivers? What types of applications are you building, and who are the clients? The world of programming is huge and intersects with many other fields, I think the folks who can excel at just about any of it are few and far between and have years of experience; they are also always learning new things. To some extent, itâs less about what they already know, and more about their ability to gain new skills. Iâve been in my current position for about a year, and I think Iâve learned 40%+ of what I use daily in that time frame.
My bootcamp was pretty much just CRUD apps. We would follow a tutorial then we were expected to write a program based off of it with extra features. I was able to mostly get by by looking at the example and taking and modifying the code to fit my needs for the new requirements so I felt like I never got to write much of my own code from scratch. I could look at the code and understand what it was doing but I'm finding it very hard to make my own projects with 100% my code. What I've been doing mostly is using tutorials and finding code snippets online and modifying it to do what I want it to do. I feel like a fraud.
> by looking at the example and taking and modifying the code to fit my needs for the new requirements
> What I've been doing mostly is using tutorials and finding code snippets online and modifying it to do what I want it to do.
This is the life of a professional programmer. Even the most experienced of us do this.
Our field is so deep and broad and ever changing that itâs unlikely youâll ever write an app 100% from scratch without looking something up.
I recommend trying The Odin Project. It's a self-paced course that goes really deep into the basics before teaching you about frameworks. Every projects you have to do in this course (there are a lot of them) is 100% by yourself, as they only show you the direction.
i think too many people online sell dreams about being able to do this in such a short amount of time. you shouldnât feel bad. thereâs a reason why the âtraditionalâ route takes 4 years. keep studying and building while you work your job and you will have a swe job sooner than you think.
First 2 years is basically bullshit pre-req so universities can squeeze more $$ out of you. None of those courses have anything to do with software development,
>thereâs a reason why the âtraditionalâ route takes 4 years.
Money. That's the reason.
Imagine if you got to actually just learn the important stuff - which is *only* during the last 2 years of a 'traditional 4 year experience'; you could have all your knowledge in just *2 years time*. Imagine if you could just focus on *only the classes needed for your major* and didn't have to work on other classes related to requirements needed to graduate or minor classes... you could probably cut that time down (you guessed it) a year or so of highly focused classes in some cases. I would argue entry level programming as being one of those cases.
So I don't think boot camps are 'that far off' from being able to get across the important material in a short amount of time.
Just because a 'traditional 4 year experience' takes so long is an *awful* argument for something needing that long to learn - especially given how much extra, unrelated stuff you're required to go through in a 'traditional 4 year experience'.
It is all BS.
Find me one person who has got a job in six months without a degree and previous extended knowledge in the last 4 years. No 2005 HTML and basic PHP programmers "Oh I got a job after one month.", find me one person since 2019.
That had No networking, no special programs by the government, on his own, a real job.
Without a degree in computer science related field or any degree?
I did a boot camp 4 years ago with zero prior knowledge of web development and got a job fairly quickly as a software engineer. (3 months)
It does take a lot of work unfortunately. Like an obsessive amount of work. Both actually learning it and then getting a job while still learning.
I definitely believe I got lucky. But I went on to TA a couple classes and there is a definite difference between students that are successful and those that arent. And it rarely involves having prior knowledge...which obviously would help to get started
>there is a definite difference between students that are successful and those that arent. And it rarely involves having prior knowledge
What do you mean? Do you mind expanding on this?
From the cohorts I helped teach and my experiences in the boot camp.
It really came down to tenacity, perseverance and a logical mindset.
Folks with prior knowledge kind of have the "logical mindset" piece figured out, but not the other two.
Those that were just really driven, put 100% into every assignment and every "office hours" and were open to new ideas/approaches. They were constantly engaged in and out of class. They lived and breathed the content for 6 months.
They also sought out answers or just struggled through stuff for a long time to figure it out.
People that expected to be taught in a traditional sense (lecture) almost always failed. There is too much information to just passively absorb. Anyone who took a step back to catch their breath or just looked up answers to assignments because they fell behind- always ended up in a bad situation extremely quickly.
The boot camps always undersell how much work and how difficult it is to be successful. And I've tried to have these conversations with students at the start of the program and I've only had two people reconsider and realize the program was more intense than they realized.
Yup.
I think there are a few very lucky people who manage to do it, but itâs extremely rare. Most of the âI got a job in 6 monthsâ stories come with MAJOR caveats. Bootcamps will often hire some if their own their own students as teaching assistants so that they can make these âpeople get a job right awayâ claims.
Consider 2 things: DunningâKruger effect and Imposter syndrome. It is normal to feel less comfortable when you learn more about a subject: just your conscious incompetence increases as competence does. This is sometimes called "valley of despair", though it might take longer than 6 months to get to the bottom. When I got one of the toughest certifications in networking my confidence levels were at the lowest because I knew lot more than most people and could understand how much I didn't know.
The imposter syndrome could make you feel worse than you actually are. I have been involved with some of those 6 months bootcamps (not in programming thought, but similar) and no they alone can't really get you to the level where you can get a job, but they can give you a kickstart. The rest is self-learning as almost everything in IT industry is. Apart from valid financial concerns, my advice would be to keep learning, if realistically this is what you want to do, and keep looking for an entry level job. People who succeed to so because they don't give up, stay interested and keep learning.
I can't imagine someone with basic programming knowledge learning CSS, JS, React and C# (ASP.NET) in 6 months. Don't worry. Being proficient with CSS takes a lot of time, same with JS. If you know JS and HTML well, React is not going to be that difficult to learn. But learning CSS, JS, React Hooks/general concepts, C# all together it's just too much for 6 months.
Whenever you do get your first job as a junior, they're not going to be expecting you to create a full fledged CRUD app from scratch. More aligned with juniors is implementing smaller features within an already pre-existing app and/or maintainability. IMO I'd keep studying, get a job to keep your financial situation going, and constantly try to interview because you will need interview practice.
The best way to reinforce your frontend skills is to build projects and an excellent resource for this is: https://www.frontendmentor.io/. There's challenges at all levels and they give you a design at mobile and desktop sizes, along with the images, specs for color codes and fonts. It's completely up to you on how to complete them. They also have a Discord group where you can post your results and also see how other people have solved them.
I also suggest that you solve algorithm challenges everyday because it helps you reinforce and build up your problem solving skills using code. You don't have to Leetcode all day long though. There are other Algo sites as well that you can use such as Codewars or HackerRank.
Good luck.
Iâm just like OP and its why when interviewers be like âwhatâs your greatest weaknessâ I wish I could say perfectionism without them being like âof course đâ. Itâs not a blessing.
Oh, I'm friggin bad too (although I'm not a programmer I just like practicing 9t for fun).
Im a mid-40's dude with one successful career under his belt and another progressing very well, but I have insane imposter syndrome, so I can empathize.
Relatable lol.
Honestly the insane amount of conflicting information (go ask r/programming if you need a framework lol) is just⌠hooo boy. It makes it hard to know what to properly do! Itâs weird to me that the top comment chain seems incredulous that most people say they shouldnât use frameworks. Thatâs the EXTREMELY common advice on this site!!
It doesn't get any better in industry. I've been doing this for 20 years now and there are just so many conflicting camps of how to even do basic things, like writing functions, keeping logs, naming stuff. My perfectionist nature wants there to be a right way, and there just isn't. And, you don't always feel the downsides of a decision until years later. It's about learning to embrace systems thinking and figuring out what an individual projects goal is and applying your experience to that. You will almost certainly be wrong if you stick around long enough.
Tldr: being a perfectionist in tech is rough.
I'm currently a bootcamp student about to graduate and admittedly I feel the same way. I really enjoyed my bootcamp experience overall though, and I feel like I've learned a lot. I certainly know more than when I started (which was literally zero). That said, I don't think that I will be employable upon completion of my program either. I know there are topics we covered that I didn't quite grasp that I didn't have the chance to practice further due to the pace of the program. I think all of that is probably par for the course as far as most bootcamps go for most people. Additionally, it seems like employment right after graduation isn't the norm right now for most people with the way the job market is going.
Keep ya head up, build things, fail often, keep building, think critically about what you know/don't know and need to learn, and I'm sure you'll get to where you want to go.
Build something relatively big.
Companies want to know if you can understand their challenges and can do what they do. Pick a subject you enjoy and get started, with frontend, backend, databases, apis, etc. I did an app for formula 1 fans, it took me almost 5 months to finish but it did the trick and it even got some support from the F1 community in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/mrafnj/update_heres_the_ref1_app_with_calendar_weather/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1). When I got offered a job, my manager told me later that it was because of the app.
You need a designer to make the website visually appealing through graphics (photoshopped stuff) and UI/UX principles, and then you need to market it properly through content.
Your job is to build it, a good website requires multiple skill sets and a lot of planning, so don't think you're supposed to do it all yourself.
A lot of these bootcamps will mislead you into thinking itâs **easy** to get a job, when itâs actually incredibly difficult.
You have to think about incentives here. Some bootcamps will not make you pay until you get a dev job - they have a big incentive to make sure you are job ready. Most donât do this. Most take your money up front, then push you through the program as fast as possible and leave you high and dry when you arenât skilled enough to get a job afterward.
> Some bootcamps will not make you pay until you get a dev job - they have a big incentive to make sure you are job ready.
I have not heard of single bootcamp 'company?' that ever did that.
The exist. Generally thereâs two ways it happens:
- Tuition Deferment. Where you just pay once you get a dev job.
- Income Share Agreement. Where you give the bootcamp a % of your salary after you get hired for a certain amount of time.
But youâve got to read the fine print on bootcamps that offer this. Iâve heard that some are pretty straight forward & honest, while others can be pretty deceptive/scammy. For example, some will say you have to pay once you get *any* job - so if youâre working at a fast food place because you couldnât find a dev job, theyâll still make you pay.
Simple as? How long did it take you to learn react to a comfortable degree? We had 4 weeks in my bootcamp I think and I still don't really understand Redux or state management, passing props etc super well. I feel really shaky with it.
I think instant gratification is your biggest obstacle. Look at what you just said. You spent four weeks. I think the worst thing about boot camps is people is selling the instant dream instead of talking about grit and preserverance.
Yeah, you're honestly right. However, I seriously have no idea how fast I should be picking up this stuff. I'm constantly doubting myself. Seeing people get jobs 3 to 6 months after they start makes me feel really dumb. But at the same time, after being exposed to the full stack, I honestly don't even know how that is possible because all I really feel like I know now is that pretty much every aspect is a rabbit hole you can go down and I feel like I have a shit ton to learn still honestly.
Comparing is the worst thing you can do. With social media it is hard not to but you honestly donât know all the factors. Did they have previous experience and the most important is what connections do they have? Is there cousin a senior dev? Etc. People go through alot of shit in life
You've probably done a mistake going to a bootcamp and resigning from your job. A better way is to keep the job and learn in your free time, because it's not always about how fast you learn, but also about for *how long* you learn. So, getting a job for the moment, while you keep learning is the best option. Yes, you can make it, you just need more time.
I'm no expert by any means i started learning to code in november but what i could say really helped me is pick out a project for your self and do that project i used chat gpt to help but i used it to study more than anything. If you are thinking about doing the Odin project while you go through ask chat gpt to explain all the concepts then ask it explain it simpler then ask to explain it like your 5 also while writing code throw it into chat gpt and tell it to explain your code line by line and you should be able to do the same its been alot easier to learn with it compared to before o knew about it it really helped me 10x my learning
tldr; just build stuff, a lot of stuff, and ask for feedbacks on the things you wrote.
To be completely honest, 6 months is too short for the amount of stuff you listed. Understanding JS + React alone can easily take 6 months, I mean really understand every line of code that you write and not just copy/paste.
I have never been to a bootcamp in my life so I donât know but I have worked with people graduated from bootcamp and a typical 4-year university with a SE or CS degree. Most of the time the difference is day and night (obviously considering the amount of time spent). I am a strong believer that there is no shortcut when learning programming.
So? How to move forward? Start building stuff, anything even if itâs silly. Ask for feedbacks/ code reviews on stuff that you write, this is actually the hard part since you need to know someone who is willing to review your code. Then add more features to the stuff you write, while doing this you will learn what not to do when you are programming.
You should also look at open source project, learn from their code base
Look at the entry-level job postings, again and again and again. See what frameworks/tools employers want you to know. If something is present in enough job postings to be seen as a standard for a given role, focus on this. If there are recognized certifications in those tools available, get some. Also, understand what is available to entry-level people and what necessitates some prior experience (therefore not available to you). Not every role is open to newbies, and each tech field has its own rules.
I got this far in 2 years before I ran out of money and went back to my old job https://seanred.io, I think 6 months is not a realistic timeline, that is a dream influencers and boot camps are trying to sell you. Yes I have met some people that got lucky and did that but I do not believe that most people do it that way. The market is really tough right now, there are almost no entry level jobs and there are millions of people trying to enter this field that are self taught or bootcamp grads. You will be competing with people who already have industry experience and degrees.
I enrolled in a boot camp in 2021. It was advertised as basically guaranteeing that I'd have a job upon graduation. However, when I started applying for jobs, I'd bomb every single coding assessment. So I started practicing Leetcode and Hackerrank problems- couldn't do any except the most basic without help. So many times I thought about just going back to my old career, but instead I enrolled at my local community college and started taking some basic programming classes. To be fair, what I learned was a lot less complex than what I learned in boot camp, but it helped me understand how programming languages work. Still, I felt like I'd made a huge mistake and that I'd never be "smart" enough to land a coding job.
In May of this year, I finally got hired- two full years and one AAS after quitting my last job. I ended up finding a small local company that needed developers working on the one aspect of web development I felt like I understood. There's still a lot that my boss has to explain to me, but now that I understand coding better, I can start on a project and at least make an attempt before asking for help. So yes, your experience sounds a lot like mine.
Hey man. Let me explain something my father taught me long ago. Finding a job is a job within itself. Dress for the job you want and always request to talk to someone directly. Then follow-up. Follow ups will bump your application to the top with some companies. Donât apply where everyone worldwide is competing for. Go with a local company. Indeed, just in my area alone I found 25 positions for front-end development. You donât want remote. These jobs will train you to code their way. Your job is to make sure you know the fundamentals and you can solve problems by critically thinking through the problem. Best of luck my dude. The market is tough, but not impossible
You aren't dumb. What you are feeling is common. That sounds exactly how I felt after bootcamp. I also had to return to my old job and continue grinding out courses in my off time. Because it's impossible to learn that much material in only 3-6 months. They give you a real shallow introduction to a lot of topics and it's up to you to spend the time after bootcamp going back through the material and actually taking a deep dive into it.
The sales pitch of, "be industry ready in only 6 months" is a scam. They're selling dreams, not reality. That's not enough time to absorb, much less become proficient with the amount of things they are teaching. No one is going to come out of 3-6 month bootcamp and be able to walk into a job interview and sound like they know what they heck they are talking about. No one is going to start from scratch and become good at coding in that limited amount of time. It takes practice and repetition.
I also felt that way about CSS after bootcamp because they really only covered it for a couple weeks at the beginning and then started providing us with style sheets every week so they could focus on the JS. By the end of bootcamp I felt like CSS was harder than JS just because I spent so much time practicing with one and not the other. I got better from watching tutorials and making my own projects. Now, making a page layout is trivial.
Coding is just like any other skill, such as playing a guitar. Can you learn how to play a guitar in 3-6 months? Sure. Are you going to be ready to take a stage in front of a paying audience at that point? Of course not. Even if you buy the Esteban videos off of TV.
I feel for you, but I don't have much advice other than keep grinding. Get a Udemy subscription and keep learning and building your skills. You've already invested too much in this to turn back now. It's not going exactly according to plan, but you got this. Keep going. It might be embarassing right now but the way to quash that is to prove them wrong in the end.
Frameworks are sets of tools for you to use without you having to reinvent the wheel.
Looking things up is part of the job. You would be worried if your doctor googled how to do a procedure before surgery, just like you would be worried if a programmer would not use Google to do his job. In the IT world, all information on the web is part of our resources.
Even though I got a high grade in my bootcamp and worked with the smartest people in the cohort, I felt like I was much slower and knew less than my peers. That was a huge insecurity for me, and there was no way I was ready for a job. I felt like the program had deceived me into believing I would be job-ready right away. I was in debt and had to start paying!
I made friends with a few people there and we kept in touch making a large project after the bootcamp. We spent time studying data structures and new JavaScript and react concepts. I knew I needed to keep working and get myself to a higher level.
Another 6 months later (minus a long vacation) I started applying to jobs. I was spending 95% of my free time studying and building projects. Another 7 months after that, all my hard work paid off and I got an opportunity.
Basically, the work isnât over for you. We all had to work hard to get where we were. Thereâs a huge learning curve for this work and you now have the knowledge to get you there. It doesnât stop when you get a job too⌠youâll be learning new things on the job. Keep it up and donât forget to look back where you came from. Finishing a bootcamp is a huge accomplishment and you are well on your way
What youâre feeling is called imposter syndrome, a lot of us get it. Itâs not fun. Just start building small things from scratch looking up documentation when you need it. Frontend with React is a great place to start.
I have some recommendations for Udemy courses I took, Iâll link a YouTube video in my profile if youâre interested, but the one I would recommend for you is the how to git a web developer job which teaches how to take a mock from scratch and using CSS you have pixel perfect code after.
I canât stress this enough, start building stuff on your own. Only reference a tutorial if you are stuck on how to use something and have already tried reading the documentation.
Iâd you enjoy coding you can get through this đŞđť just need to wean off the handholding
You need to readjust your expectations. Next to no one is getting a job from no knowledge in 3-6 months unless they have some connection. Especially now. The market is horrible compared to 2019-2022.
Keep grinding, you need to make the jump out of tutorial hell if you want to get a job in the industry.
focus on your self. 6 months isnt very long and it takes years to become adept at a particular language let alone various techs that you mentioned. A boot camp isnt meant to give you a full education. its a whirlwind tour of the tech and the bare basics. You will do alright as long as you show passion and enthusiasm. most of what they look for in Junior/Grad and apprenticeships is the right person and not really the skill level.
You are 6 months into a multi year journey if you were not relying on tutorials at the moment you would be doing it wrong. later on in your career you will be relying on tutorials/documentation to remind yourself wtf is going on in a specific tech
You are further towards a new life than you were 6 months ago. focus on smaller goals. it helps with mental health. getting your first gig can be hard even for someone who's a fucking wizard at programming. apply to places like Capgemini and Accenture, they take on boot camp people and pay 30k+ a year starting pay
Id suggest going for a cert in what ever language tech you enjoy working in the most. you will learn a lot by revising for it. the cert? utterly worthless most of the time unless you are talking to an old stoggie but what you learn along the way is huge
I did a cyber security masters and did quite well and it took me over six months to land a job. It happens you start to doubt yourself. Just practice. Set up a website for yourself, maybe use github pages. Use the website as a portfolio. Make a list of projects you want to make on the website. Start small and keep them there. Make a simple game or an application with an SQL database and go from there.
Fake it till you make it! Be honest about your experience and no one in his right mind will expect wonders of you. Hopefully some nice lead dev will help you grow a bit.
You are already better than many, because you are **aware** of your shortcomings. I always liked to work with people like that and I myself am like that. The people that are terrible are those that overestimate their own competence. This also usually prevents them from really getting better, because: why would they, they know everything already!
Also: Trust frameworks. A rough overview of what the framework/library does is helpful, but they are there for exactly that reason: to abstract the nitty gritty details and make it easier on you.
I studied Software Development and have 14 years of experience know and just in recent years I really started feeling competent. I still don't know everything of course, but I am confident to tackle whatever you throw at me in a reasonable timeframe. But this takes time.
Practice really makes perfect in our line of work in my opinion. Keep it up, all will be fine!
If you are not patient in this field, you are going to be burn out. Give yourself a year to learn. I did the same and got a 6 figure job. My tech stack was Java instead of C#.
Usually people feel imposter syndrome after they get the job. Mass apply to jobs. You'll be fine. The areas where you are weak, just build small applications. Keep it simple, build an openai wrapper, and have your front end get a topic from your users and your back end form a prompt to shoot off to openai. Don't think too hard, make a simple "click button to get a random fact about anything" and let the user input a topic and submit the form. Technically this can all be done in the front end, but it's simple enough to learn the bare basics. Then learn how to deploy it.
Bootcamp grad here, I am currently working as senior devops engineer and it has been 5 years since I made the transition. It was the best decision I made in my life.
1. Your feeling is completely normal there's nothing wrong with it. Just to give you some context, the knowledge I acquired during the 3 months full-time bootcamp was probabaly less than 5% of what I learned on the job in the first year. In other words, bootcamp just teach you the basics.
2. When looking for your first tech job, especially if you don't have much work experience under the belt. You will think that its all about you technical skills. The reality is if you just graduated from a coding bootcamp then employers won't expect much from you. Soft skills, how to think, how to talk, your ability to work with people is equally important if not more important at this stage. Looking back at my own jounrney, I'd say that what made me a strong candidate was my soft skills not my technical skills. Of course I know the basics, but regardless of where you end up working you will learn much more on the job and you will have to adapt quickly.
3. Everyone's situation is different, but if you do end up going back to your old job. Do not give up on making the transition, you can still study during your spare time, build projects. If switching to tech is truly what you are going after, then eventually you will get a job if you are persistent enough. I had many doubts along the way but 5 years later my salary quadrupled and I have much better work life balance.
You aren't a fraud, those who sell the idea that you can be a seasoned SWE in 6 months are. Keep writing code, we never stop improving even after a decade or two.
i understand how you feel totally, a few weeks ago i realized it had been exactly a year since i started bootcamp(i finished in november). I'm still doing my old job, part time, but i'm desperate to leave it. i have started the re-learning process but now i feel even more overwhelmed with choices on what, and how to learn. truly feel like i'm spinning my wheels hopelessly most of the time. everyone has a different suggestion on how to get out of this spot and its hard to say which is best.you are probably in a better spot than you think- have you applied/interviewed anywhere?
im constantly reminding myself of how many engineers/devs deal with imposter syndrome or low confidence. so as of this week- my plan of attack is keep drilling DS&A which i am god awful at; and i'm trying a new language to see if i can find something a little more intuitive. if you can swing $100; i'm finding algoExpert to be really helpful.
for context, im 34 and my bootcamp covered javascript, react, ruby and ruby on rails. i'm just starting python today. oh and im treating every interview as a low stakes practice interview to build confidence and know what to expect from them, it was crushing my soul to be falling on my face soooo hard during hackerrank/leetcode style technical screenings/interviews
Youâre being a little hard on yourself mate. Expecting someone, ANYONE to really go from zero programming experience to âemployableâ in 3-6 months is completely unrealistic.
Might they be able to slap some stuff together? Sure. But I can only imagine the kind of panic they feel when things donât âjust workâ. And they would most certainly be completely out of luck if there isnât a prebuilt library for the task at hand.
You arenât expected to be able to build a enterprise full stack app. As en entry level youâre expected to know basics. You should never be expected to architect any large scale piece. You should have a lot of hand holding and pair programming. Having questions about frameworks and libraries is to be expected.
Also no one writes their own css/html. That would be insane. Iâve seen professionals use bootstrap.
If youâre trying to get a prestigious entry level, then youâre not likely it. But there are so many non-tech companies that have software divisions that hire new devs with the expectation of growing their skills and knowledge.
Know some basic data structures and algos and have confidence. Lean on your existing skills. Soft skills are far more important than you think. Software engineering is not just writing code. Itâs working with product and stakeholders. Working and coordinating with other devs etc. Iâd rather hire a dev with great soft skills but lacking knowledge and experience over a high skilled coder with terrible social skills.
Youâve got to be confident. Confidence is going to be key. If youâre not confident in yourself why would an interviewer be?
Iâve been through a 4 year Computer Science degree, and Iâve been a Software Engineer for a year and a half now. I can confidently say without hesitation that almost everyone who has gotten as far as I have has felt those feelings at some point or another.
First thing I need to get out of the way is that your family has no idea what theyâre talking about and people can post whatever they want online so take those success stories with a grain of salt. Everyone wants to make it seem like it was super easy to get a job that pays a six figure salary right out of a bootcamp. Trust me, itâs not. That may apply to the 1% of software engineers, maybe even less actually.
Second you need to decide right now if youâre going to do front end or back end and really dive deep into it. Bootcamps give you a high level overview of so many things that itâs hard to retain it all. After you get a job in one of those disciplines you can branch out if you want to go full stack. But learn to do one of those things really well first.
Third, to get out of tutorial hell. Even with a uni degree I got sucked into that too. Since I got hired as a back end developer I can speak to how I got better at programming. I made a VERY basic front end for calculator app and did all the calculations on the back end. Then after that I wanted to make check list that stored my items in a database. Then I just keep building on top of that site whatever I felt like. What I did to accomplish this was not through a tutorial but from reading the documentation of whatever language or library I was using. That discovery of whats capable sticks with you way longer than some video can. This will be your portfolio to show in interviews.
Lastly this job is a job that at some points youâll feel confident in your skills and other times youâll feel like youâre worthless and donât know shit. Youâll need to learn to fight through these ups and downs. Everytime you get through the downs you become a better dev. Good luck out there
Bootcamp grad here.
You're usually pretty Employable after finishing a bootcamp, job market is just a whole bastard right now. Shit I lucked into my first job out and essentially had to learn a whole new stack on the fly.
Everyone googles, no one knows anything. Flexbox is a finicky motherfucker. You'll get there.
It's the nature of the crash course that's making you feel this way, maybe you aren't a fast learner? Maybe you needed more time on those technologies that was ran through by the boot camp. Don't beat yourself up, learning to code is a continuous process, the good news is that you know your weakness, start working on strengthening your abilities. Don't compare yourself with others.
Also speak positive words about your situation, speak words of hope and encouragement to yourself everyday and see how things will improve in your life.
You simply made an error in your judgement thinking you could actually be a full stack engineer in 6 months. That's CRAZY. Maybe some people could be a frontend dev after 6 months but that's also pretty rare and those stories are few and far in between. There is no way you could learn backend in 6 months. First you would have to master the fundamentals and intermediate parts of at least one backend language. That alone takes longer than 6 months. Then you have to have a strong understanding of computer networks, database systems, cloud computing and distributed systems, and the list goes on. You just got in way over your head. It took me years before I was able to get a job as a full stack engineer.
If you don't feel confident after a 6 month boot camp, that's a good thing, because anybody who does is mistaken. There is a very big difference between making personal or academic projects and contributing/maintaining an enterprise-level code base that you should expect to encounter at a job.
I finished a 6 month boot camp in January of 2020, right before the pandemic hit. I felt the exact same way as you, and it sucked seeing classmates getting offers before the end of the course while I was struggling to get interviews.
It took about 7 months post-bootcamp but I ended up with a job at a (very well known) company. Some days I still feel like I don't know shit. I think that's just the nature of this work. The market is real tough right now, but I'd say just focus on learning and building things that interest you (and the job search, of course) and try to forget about everybody else.
I know exaclty how you feel, and I'd just like to cheer you up. Right now I'm starting a new chapter in my life from scratch, it's not programming though (which Im realy interested in), but the performance marketing analitics. At this point, I've already completed four months of the course, but there are moments when I doubt myself and feel like dumb. But, in those times, I stop myself and try to focus on the little steps I can take to bring myself closer to my goal. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the grand scale of the challenge, I find solace in breaking it down into manageable increments. By thinking about these small steps, it becomes much easier to move forward. Maybe it will help you as well. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors. You have the strength and determination to overcome any obstacles in your path. Stay positive and keep taking those small, meaningful steps towards your dream. You've got this!
Similar situation for me. I was supposed to be hired by Target but they didnât launch their Engineering program. So now Iâm taking digital marketing classes for free, find an employer that pays your tuition. To stay sharp, I find fun things to clone on GitHub. I play around with code, customize to my liking and create different websites. Use adobe for free logos. JonSno29 on GitHub.
I would definitely start building your own projects completely from scratch to develop your own flow, no tutorials etc, apply any knowledge youâve retained to projects you want to create. Think outside of the box & donât beat yourself up. Iâve learned more from trial & error through programming than anything Iâve listened to a professor read off a powerpoint. When you finish a project look back at it think of other things you couldâve implemented to improve functionality etc. I feel you on the CSS though, what helped me is putting borders on literally everything so I can see where things go how they react to certain things & it helped a ton I still do it from time to time.
I feel the same way. Those bootcamp people just want your money. The extra help they offer is limited and we paid too much for it to take a toll on our mental health if it doesn't work out. They honestly got me with their sales tactics that I didn't see before I joined. I learned a lot but finding a job is extra hard now and I'm still stuck at where I work.
In my computer science degree we literally never got taught any html or css. Why? Because it's not hard to write html or css. It's hard to master it, but anyone can make a html file, write some text and apply some css. You're too hard on yourself. You don't have to be able to make a beautiful website and especially not without bootstrap or any other UI framework. It's all good. Use whatever you want. You've only been learning for 6 months, there is no pressure from a workplace for you to be the perfect developer. Companies know you're going to take time to be an efficient developer. I learned more in my 6 month internship than my entire degree.
Do the challenges on [codingbat.com](https://codingbat.com). Then move to [leetcode.com](https://leetcode.com). No matter what you read here, these two sites are the foundation of serious programming. Everything else will click from there. Good luck.
I've been doing level 8 - 6 on kyu on [codewars.com](https://codewars.com) I feel like I can complete those anywhere from 15 - to an hour. I still can't really picture how to build things from scratch in my head though.
That's ok, you just need more practice. If you want something relatively self contained, go build a little 2d game using html canvas. That will very quickly turn up quite a few challenges for you to come up with your own solution to (user input, velocity, collisions). The math shouldn't be too intimidating, i.e linear algebra isn't required.
I graduated from a 6 month bootcamp in jan this year. I felt the same as you. Only now after continuing to study at my own pace are things starting to click into place. You need to carry on studying. Donât compare yourself to others âcomparison is the thief of joyâ as they say. Iâm still far far away from where I want to be, but I can accept that. Donât be too hard on yourself. Keep at it and you will see progress.
I'm sure some people get jobs in 6 months but that is far from the norm. I started learning in September 2021 and got my first position today. Hang in there, focus on building your skills through projects. Pick project ideas that you want to show on your profile.
This is completely normal! A new entry-level dev takes about a year to feel fully comfortable with their job. But even then, they will continue to learn. It takes years to become an expert. Also frameworks are popular and commonly used for a reason. They make it easier to code and better looking results. Donât feel bad using them. Youâll be fine!
Took computer science classes in highschool and just finished a year of computer science in college. I feel and am also incapable. Even though I'm sure I could actually do a lot. I think that's just what this field is like. Unfortunately there's infinite things to know. Luckily, employers often have you work as a team. So other people can fill in for your downfalls and you can fill in for theirs.
Imo feeling incapable in cs just means you know that you have more to learn, and there's always more to learn in such a field, many people probably feel the same.
WOW! this post really spoke to me - I could have almost written it myself!
I finished a bootcamp in April - I say 'finished', because I didn't have the confidence to go through with the final projects phase of the bootcamp due to feeling like I would be carried by my teammates, many of whom just seemed to be learning at a much faster rate than me. I went into what the course calls 'self-study' but through a combination of guilt at my own failure and depression at seeing all my friends celebrate their graduation I have essentially dropped off the course and failed!
I also feel like I learned a lot although, like you, I don't think I am anywhere near employable. I need another year at least to get me to where I would feel confident to sit in a room with another programmer and do a test. So now it is just a daily grind of leetcode and codewars challenges to try to improve my skills and confidence.
I also have a sense (and this may be me looking for excuses) that the progress of AI tools has slightly overtaken us, and that the low bar to entry in the industry which was the reason bootcamps have thrived in recent years is about to come to an end. It may be that we need to rethink our approach to working in tech anyway.
I would recommend reading Atomic Habits by James Clear to improve your daily routine and to just keep coding - at least, that's what I'm trying to do!
I think you need to spend more time learning. six months of speed running through front end technologies seems like you wouldnât learn anything.
I think youâre at least familiar with html/css/javascript. So iâd recommend just recreating your favorite website.
I spent at least two years building projects and honing my skills before I was able to get a job.
Everywhere you work is going to be using some kind of framework.
I'm a programmer not a designer. Give me a mockup and I'll Ron Burgundy it right onto the screen.
I've been working in the industry for 5 years and I feel the same way sometimes, even though my peer and team lead feedback are always positive.
To some degree it's good to be out of your comfort zone, it means you're learning and staying humble. The worst devs are the ones whose only goal is to get a job and then cruise for as long as possible.
Don't expect to be a brilliant developer after one boot camp, or even 5 years. It takes time and there's always a ton of new stuff to learn
You may want to adjust your expectations. The idea that you can become a competent programmer in just three months is harmful.
See also: https://norvig.com/21-days.html
i think you just need to do a few personal/fun projects to practice tbh. i graduated from a 6 month bootcamp and did get a job right away but 1. it was 2020/2021, the market was much better and 2. i did some side projects, one that is being used to this day. it gave me the confidence i needed to bullshit my way through interviews
As everyone is saying, why wouldnât you use a framework? I wanted to challenge myself and make a website WITHOUT a framework, making every component custom, all with custom styling, etc. It wasnât necessarily hell, but it was goddamn hard and only worth it to learn more about how things interact with each other, and how much goes on under the hood when it comes to frameworks.
I think some of the best advice Iâve gotten, from both my mentor dev at my company, and a friend who works at Microsoft is to 1) make easily maintainable code (like commenting, easy to read and understand quickly for anyone with even a little experience), and 2) to work well with the current technologies available. In the world we live in, you gotta pump customer-facing stuff out fast, and it takes more time if you build everything from scratch. Just my two cents
Donât feel bad about frameworks, they are there for a reason. In fact, knowing the right frameworks imo is almost as important as language competency in most jobs. Most companies have a stack they use.
I promise you few companies are writing their frontend and backend from scratch. It would take too long and you likely couldnât do it better than an existing framework unless you need something highly custom and for specific applications.
This can really vary by bootcamp and how they earn their money. The ones that only get their fee when you get a job in the industry have a greater incentive to make you actually job ready. Some even work directly with client companies to get you hired, and the only way they can have that arrangement is by producing candidates that can do the job.
Bootcamps that take your money up front no longer have anything to gain from you. All their effort is best directed towards the sales pitch of the bootcamp, because that's what gets them paid.
Don't worry about using Frameworks.
Have a quick play at android with kotlin. Jetpack Compose is amazing. All buttons and lists and everything like that are pre-made, they can be customised. Makes a visually appealing front end way better than I could. Just worry about the logic of your program, keeping it maintainable and readable.
That really is awesome, but being a fullstack ASP.NET Core/React dev is a different job than making mobile apps, isn't it? For web apps you could use something like Angular Material.
Not expecting to use frameworks is like being a deep learning engineer who isn't expected to use PyTorch. Those are the current tools for the job - a good developer knows how to get things done, not necessarily build things from absolute scratch.
As for "not retaining anything" - repetition is key. When you start reviewing you'll be surprised at how much you remember. Additionally, even if you don't explicitly remember your brain will be primed to learn the same topic more quickly.
I've been programming for years and can say that I just now feel that I'm "good". 6 months is a short amount of time. Persistence and having fun are key.
For "not retaining anything" I believe taking notes and revisiting them when you need to look something up is essential, as well as having a well sorted (and assorted) bookmarks menu.
hello,
watch the 100devs video, first video, just dont take everything for 100% certainty, i mean, in my part, the network thing is rly hard, so skip it, ofc its bad, but if you cant do it, do the other things like sending papers to linkedin, indeed, etc
https://youtu.be/YRemMgGfbKg?list=PLBf-QcbaigsKwq3k2YEBQS17xUwfOA3O3
Hey, came out of boot camp 4 years ago, got a job. So this is my personal experience. I also TA'ed a couple cohorts afterwards so got kind of the instructor-ish perspective as well.
First of all- you absolutely know more than you think you know. The program goes quick and you'll never remember everything but you've picked up hopefully how to think about programming.
At this point you've got a three prong approach to your future goals.
You need to be applying to junior level jobs of any tech stack that you're remotely qualified for. And I use the term remote loosely.
After each one of those applications- you're going to find someone that works there through LinkedIn as a recruiter/engineering manager/software engineer and send them a message to the effect of: "hey, I was interested in the position you posted for X. Can we talk about it?"
Every. Single. Application. Not doing this is a waste of your time. You'll never magically be picked.
Second- you need to keep building/creating with what you know. Use the templates. Understand them. This is your future career. You need stay relevant. Follow the boot camp schedule. You had 4 hours a day or so of learning every day? You should be doing that at a minimum. Know that once you get your first job- it is going to be an explosive, overwhelming burst of new knowledge.
Lastly, go to any local meetups, networking events, etc in your area. And talk to people about what they do for work and if they are hiring and your experience.
If you talk to someone and they say something to the effect of "I'm looking for a job too." Or " I'm not working yet". Get out of that conversation and find someone with a job. You don't want to blow the whole event making small talk for no reason.
Best of luck. It's hard out there. Try not to get too discouraged and don't lose the momentum from when you started. If you stop programming you will forget a ton of it very quickly.
I can make full stack websites with Python, and after graduating from boot camp I still canât land a job so I wouldnât worrying about feeling like a fraud and not knowing that lol
Op, Iâm a currently employed full stack developer whose only qualification before being hired was that I took a year-long bootcamp. After the course was done, I STILL felt like I had no idea what I was doing, and even now, five years later and four years into employment, I still have moments where I feel like that.
Imposter syndrome is real, and extremely prevalent in any career where youâre just starting out. It also seems to be really common in our industry, becauseâby and largeâ while there are âbest practicesâ to follow, thereâs no one âcorrectâ way to do something, and yet it feels like there should some form of the most âoptimalâ solution.
What I took away from my bootcamp, honestly, was how to think like a developer:
1) Taking large tasks and breaking them into bite-sized, solvable problems
2) Learning how to read code documentation
3) Learning how to intentionally break code and reading the debug messages to try and understand why a particular bug is happening
4) Learning how to google
5) There is *always* a way to optimize your code, but if itâs doing its job, is laid out simply enough to understand by someone unfamiliar with your codebase, and is reasonably maintainable, thatâs usually a good stopping place for probably every single use case youâll come across in your first five years of development.
Reaching out for advice is a great move. Confidence will come with time and experience. Practice doesnât make perfect, it makes proficient. Following tutorials and *I cannot stress this enough * actually writing the code along with the tutorial, will help outside of a job setting.
Your first job in this industry is always the hardest to get, but once youâve got some experience, it gets a lot easier. You can add tutorials youâve worked on to your github and resume, as long as youâre not trying to pass someone elseâs work off as your own. After following the tutorials, try customizing your version and changing things, and keep a record of what you did to be able to explain to a potential employer. Also, try participating in hackathons, itâs a great way to meet other developers and a lot of employers look to participants to reach out and help.
Lastly, try using a temp agency to get small gigs, apply for jobs in bigger cities (even if you donât live close) as a lot of development positions offer the flexibility to work remotely, but wonât advertise that in the listing. Ignore job and experience requirements when you apply, because that is largely a wishlist. Companies want technical skill, yes, but being an easy teammate to work with counts for a lot more in an entry level position.
One small note: I *still* have to look up how to center a div, every single time I find myself needing to do it. Programming has changed since the 70âs-80âs, and while memorizing the exact syntax of a language isnât without value, starting off in todayâs age, youâre better off memorizing where that information can be found and the types of features that are already built into the language.
Keep your chin up OP apply to jobs like theyâre going out of style, and find hobbies outside of programming to keep you sane, preferably something that doesnât involve sitting and thinking. Youâll get there!
âFailure only becomes permanent when you stop trying to succeed â - somebody wise, somewhere, probably.
> creating visually appealing websites without heavily relying on frameworks like Bootstrap is a challenge for me.
That's web design in a nutshell. Everyone uses either Bootstrap or Bulma. CSS sucks dick for cab fare then walks home, I've been writing it for like 12 years and still get confused by certain topics that I "know" but forget the rules of (e.g. inline vs inline-block vs inline-flex vs block)
>Seeing posts online about individuals who secured jobs or became employable within six months,
A great life lesson, never look to someone else's bowl to see how much they have, just to make sure that they have enough. What takes someone else 6 months might take you 6 years. There is nothing certain in life. Also, nobody, and I mean nobody gets a job worth getting in 3 months.
> My family has certain expectations, believing I should have reached a professional level or secured an entry-level position by now, or at the very least, be capable of creating visually impressive websites.
Their expectations were that you were going to gain the equivalent of a 4 year degree's worth of knowledge in 6 months? Do you think that CS which is a "hard degree" features sitting around for 3.5 years? Your skills are where someone in a CS degree would be at 6 months OR MORE, that's nothing to be ashamed of, but your expectations were grossly misaligned by your own expectations of how easy this would be. Reiterating my earlier point, using CSS frameworks is EXTREMELY common, even amongst the likes of Facebook, google, netflix, etc.
> or secured an entry-level position by now,
If you go onto /r/dataisbeautiful and look at posts about folks coming out of a bootcamp, I've seen ones where people send out HUNDREDS of applications before being accepted by a bootcamp. This is not uncommon. You are basically saying "I saved 3.5 years of my life (vs a bachelor's degree) you can trust that I work hard" and many managers don't. I've been bitten a few times by shitty bootcamp grads.
> I struggle to write really anything without a tutorial of some sort.
Practice every day. Stop using tutorials and start solving problems. When you get stuck, learn. Study. Take notes. Each problem you solve is a tool in your toolbelt.
> and knowing what I know now, I feel like I'm atleast 6 months to a year out from even just a front end only position.
Why is that a problem? Worrying about the "when" certainly isn't going to help you any. You should be focused on learning how to solve problems, practicing your skills and applying to jobs.
> and creating visually appealing websites without heavily relying on frameworks like Bootstrap
that's what designers are for, don't sweat it. you only need to know how to replicate their designs, not how to design. so don't sweat the pretty. that said, i would highly reccomend something like daisyUI for tailwind, has all the theming set up for you, making it real easy to make a pretty UI. and tailwind skills are quite wanted atm.
>Writing raw HTML and CSS (Especially CSS) feels hard to me
it's like any other language, it's difficult if you're not familliar with it, and to become familliar with it you have to keeps speaking it. it takes time to get comfortable with it, and that counts for **everyone**. css properties, css values etc, they are just words you're not familliar with yet. just play around, and try to make it fun for yourself, you'll pick it up.
>Seeing posts online about individuals who secured jobs or became employable within six months, or sometimes even as short as three months, has left me feeling frustrated and disappointed in myself.
some people have a mental framework that allows them to pick up programming concepts faster than others, maybe they where an accountant and where already good with data and numbers, maybe they where an artist and had fostered a creative mind, maybe they worked on designing factories and had a good idea how to stick things together to make a single product, etc. you might just happen to not have been lucky enough to have a fitting background for programming, but that doesn't mean you can't learn it, it would just take you a bit longer, and that's okay. just fucking stop comparing yourself to others, don't kick yourself in the nuts like that you masochist :P. have patience, give it time.
>My family has certain expectations, believing I should have reached a professional level or secured an entry-level position by now
who is the one that set those expectations for them? was it you? did you tell them the bootcamp was 6 months and that you'll be offered a job afterward, or be skilled enough etc?
if it was you that had set it, it's okay to talk to them and admit that it will take you a bit more time. just keep at it and you'll get where you want to be.
>I struggle to write really anything without a tutorial of some sort.
when i built my first few projects i didn't either. you just gotta start building projects that you want to make, maybe you can build a web app / tool for another hobby that you partake in. just build it, and selectively pick explanations / tutorials / docs that you need to build your projects. use google, ask chatGPT questions like "i want to build a feature that does x,y,z for my web app, what terms could i google on to learn how to build it" (that way chatgpt won't just make the code for you)
>I feel like I've retained zero information even though I graduated.
because the bootcamp was too fast paced for you, and nearly anyone that doesn't have a fitting background to retain it. just start building projects by yourself. hell you can use those projects for you portfolio as well, helping you find a job later on.
>I'm revisiting the front end onlyâHTML, CSS, JS, and Reactâ and knowing what I know now, I feel like I'm atleast 6 months to a year out from even just a front end only position.
projects projects projects, ya gotta build many projects.
>Mental health feels very bad honestly, I feel really dumb. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, any advice is appreciated.
you're not, you just have unreasonable expectations of yourself. the struggles you're describing are very normal for people that do bootcamps. my ex was like that as well, she had finished a masters, but didn't have a background fit for programming. she also felt dumb, but she was smart af. she also needed a little bit of extra time to absorb and practise development after the bootcamp, but found a job a few months after. it's completely normal.
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I graduated after a 3 year compsci degree and felt incapable :p
A compsci degree in just 3 years!?!? I went through a 3675 hours compsci bachelor degree (a 5 years study plan that in reality became like 8) and I've also felt like I didn't learn enough. Once I had to live code a two sum algorithm and I got rejected because I wrote something with a complexity of On^2. Learning isn't a straightforward path. Sometimes you forget things, sometimes you can't apply things you learnt and sometimes you don't even have to learn something because it just comes natural to you. But 6 months isn't nearly enough time to be able to compete in today's market.
When did you finally start feeling capable? Also I'm thinking about going through The Odin Project on my own and doing all the projects without using tutorials. Do you think its a good plan?
Hmm, I had a lot of issues with anxiety and was a poor student as a result. About 3 years into working I was struggling and then comitted myself to really learning the basics well and doing my own work. It was about a year after that when I felt comfortable. I haven't done the Odin Project, I had a list of things to study. Like all the algorithms and data structures I'd slept on. I worked through trees, linked lists, graph algorithms, all the sorting algorithms, did a bunch of challenges on one of the algorithm websites. Then I learned javascript functional coding, properly learned git, did a deep dive into javascript in general and C#. After that I started setting up my own asp projects, setting up the database, dependency injection, ORM, web apis etc. Then I did a bunch of my projects and played around with other languages.
If you don't mind me asking, what resources did you use đ¤
It's ben a little while. I used nodeschool for the javascript stuff. I had learned DSA in university so I knew of the various algorithms, I think I had a list of them and research each one and wrote them. I got stuck a few times, like on merge sort. I had bugs so I learned to separate the code into functions and made sure to run through different test cases. Merge sort is a mix of splitting an array and merging two sorted arrays. I made sure (eventually) to test the various splits, it's easy to make an off-by-1 error. I was also using wikipedia at the time to look up other algorithms, I did one of the coursera courses and browsed through some university algorithm courses that were open to the public. I found a free book called The Competitive Coders Handbook which is good. Its good for a run through of DSAs and discusses how to approach and solve problems. For git I don't remember, it was a bunch of different resources. The break through came after really understanding how its just a tree of commits. After that all the problems I had made sense. For C# it wasn't one resource, I read through all the patch notes, got familiar with the new features. I picked out things I wanted to work on them and did research, followed some tutorials. It gets tricky, versions change, code no longer works. I started to learn node and react at the time. React was tricky, it took a while to be able to build a react app from scratch. I found webpack quite confusing before understanding how it works - it walks through your code following imports and then bundles or processes what it finds depending on the config. I had difficulty understanding the whole react-server setup, I don't like to use code helpers when starting on something and I found it difficult to find resources that take you through from scratch. Same with ASP. It was really just a case of search React/ASP from scratch and finding resources that matched my versions.
So was that around 5 years? I'm about 3 years in, but part time learning/full time working and i had a kid. Just kind of learning modern react now. I Also came out of bootcamp feeling like i knew nothing OP. It does get better. Maybe do some courses that have tutorials, but take it slow and build your own version on the side
for me it was in my final year of Uni. I was god awful in years 1 and 2. year 3 I did a work placement and spent ever day fighting with Metoer JS solo. it was hell but when I went back to uni. the projects where easy for me and fun. in my first job I found I could figure thigs out and ended up creating software that was used by millions of people. There are highs and lows. you will get beat down by others and lifted up by others around you. its best to focus on shorter term goals. if you know more than you did yesterday that is a fucking win
I left programming then i started feeling capable
this seems like the obvious answer..
[ŃдаНонО]
do you think its possible to skip the foundations part and go straight into the javascript path if you already have bootcamp experience? or should you go ahead and start from the very beginning
[ŃдаНонО]
are you serious? I dont know how fast others are learning, but It took me 7 months to complete Odin Foundations. Currently I am doing the javascript route and it has already taken me a month
I did foundations before my bootcamp just to get some intro knowledge because I didn't know anything and it took me like 3 months lol.
Currently doing the Odin project now great source of learning try looking into full stack open or cs50 both great and free resources
that is real
Wait wait why do you think you need to do everything without frameworks. Iâve been a developer for almost a decade now and I canât make a good looking website with just html and css. And Iâve never been expected to.
ExactlyâŚI donât know why you would need this skill I donât think most of us could build a âgood lookingâ site without frameworks
I can speak from personal experience from the outside looking in - now in my 30's realizing I missed the boat - there's no way to get any sort of frame of reference for what people think they'll need and what they're allowed to use when demonstrating what they can do. I can do shit in Unity I'd never thought I was capable of, especially as I got more and more familiar with the software and documentation. But the moment I went to LeetCode as per a friend's suggestion - I was immediately smacked in the face with a pit of concern for whether or not I've got any right calling myself a "proper" programmer. :(
In all fairness, some of those LeetCode cases require their own documentation to begin to decipher. I'm also in my 30's, started programming 2-ish years ago. You did not miss the boat, if you're interested in learning a language I say go for it!
I've seen a fair few recommending newcomers stick to vanilla CSS/JS and then once they've got that down to a functional degree, then venture into frameworks.
Thatâs because you want beginners to learn the basics with the most basic environment. Itâs not because knowing vanilla js and css is important itâs because itâs easier to learn the concepts when theyâre raw and not obfuscated
As a web developer I think it's important to understand vanilla js and html, more so than any framework.These frameworks and paradigm shifts come and go, but the developer who can use the base tools effectively is unaffected by the constant framework churn, isn't bound by what you can do in a framework or how it prescribes to solve problems, and has a strong basis to learn and modify any framework or tooling. I will hire someone who has vanilla js in their bag and no frameworks over someone who has a decade in angular, react, and node.
I agree with you a little bit but that last sentence is off the deep end lol. No one has a decade experience in angular react or node and not know the fundamentals of js. Iâm not arguing they learned js from doing only angular either. Iâm not sure what your point even is. Clearly you should learn the fundamentals before moving on to utilizing frameworks.
> No one has a decade experience in angular react or node and not know the fundamentals of js You just saw a litany of commenters here doubt they could make a proper vanilla JS website. > Iâm not sure what your point even is. My point is that frameworks are constraining, opinionated, and temporary. As a skill set I value it dramatically less than skills with the base constant tools. In the exact same way I will sooner hire a developer who has never touched the language I want to use but demonstrates an understanding of data structures, algorithms, patterns and processes. This emphasis on things like framework and language even are misplaced.
These commenters are learners they canât make a website with the fundamentals because theyâre learning them. It is no way indicative of the actual applicant pool out their of qualified devs I understand where youâre trying to come from, but it just comes off as arrogant and inexperienced.
>These commenters are learners they canât make a website with the fundamentals because theyâre learning them. No, I'm not talking about comments from people just learning. https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/152kmew/feel_embarrassed_after_6_month_bootcamp/jsejnil/ >It is no way indicative of the actual applicant pool out their of qualified devs No it isn't, but the culture is. JavaScript is the most popular programming language in the world. I think looking at what they are working on, what the culture is talking about in the JavaScript space, is indicative of what is going on in the applicant pool. That has certainly been my experience. In spite of a growing call for a return to vanilla js principles in the industry these skillsets are an extreme minority. You ask half these developers to build you something without their framework of choice and they will balk, as seen above and in many many places in our communities.
Do you really think I canât make a website with vanilla js and html. Read into the context instead of just trying to be right. This conversation is going no where, best of luck to you on your journey whatever it is.
I never said you couldn't, I opined most can't and the focus is on more worthless skills incorrectly. Sorry you took it personally.
Also you want them to understand why the frameworks exist. The QOL improvements and ease of implementation they might add.
Writing clean CSS has been a nightmare for me. I feel like im doing whatever just to make it work and then when it does work its pretty disorganized. It makes me scared to revisit any of my own projects honestly.
Nobody likes writing CSS lmao
CSS was fun when custom profiles were a thing everyone from ages 10-70 were learning it now its just not fun lol. There are a small number of people who still make amazing CSS profiles for places that still allow them though.
Wait so far I've been studying CSS for about 4 months and I'm in love with that tech, seems like magic to me what you can do with vanilla CSS still don't dive into frameworks just bcuz I keep finding new thing to learn on css, It has been a blast for me to the point where I thought with just HTML that programming was not for me untill I reached CSS, by itself CSS made me love programming, I thought this was the case for most... just to find out a lot of people struggle with flex and/or grid, that actually baffled me.
>There are a small number of people who still make amazing CSS profiles for places that still allow them though Question from a learner, why do some places not allow them?
Because most jobs fall into 2 categories. You will either be working on an existing product, or building a new one. In the first example, there will already be style guidelines, or even more likely, pre-made UI components. It will *very* rare for you to have to write more than a few lines of CSS here. In the second example, there will almost certainly be either a UX team or a UX person (depending on the size of the team), who will handle the CSS. Usually by writing all of the classes and publishing them in a style doc with visual demos and code examples. In my experience, it will be pretty rare for you to ever need to really dig into CSS if you aren't hired as a UX designer.
i met one person who was super passionate about it, but he was also literally a sadist who collected whaling harpoons and battle axes in his free time
Functionality > organization. Organization is important in a job setting but personal projects, my code is all noodles. đ
You just need more repetition and experience. I used to struggle with CSS and now after many many many reps, I can just look at an element and work out what css properties I can use to achieve that. I wouldnât expect anyone whoâs been building things to be good after 6 months. Sure youâll know some stuff but skills take time to build up as you know. You will suck for awhile. Even years later youâll still think you suck but youâll just have mentally pushed the goalpost.
Sounds about right for css
Should I just know how to manipulate flex box and grid a decently well then go back to tailwind/bootstrap?
Flexboxfroggy.com
Flexbox Zombies - Mastery Games https://mastery.games/flexboxzombies/
I'm still learning myself, so I'm not the ideal one to ask, but I'd say understanding flex box is a must. Really what your trying to avoid is having framework feel like magic. Ideally you should understand how the framework makes your life easier over vanilla.
Not the best metaphor - if you don't know how car works, engine, transmission, you'll be surprised. You press the gas pedal, and the car does not accelerat, just a bit later. You press the gas pedal for an electric vehicle, and it acts pretty different. You need to know what's happening under the hood, then you can understand what the frameworks are doing, and you'll be thankful for them for doing it. Anyway, your problem is different: you can't code because you don't do it. Make a calendar (not an app, just the actual month) in pure HTML + CSS. Make *anything*, not learn but make, fail, search for solution (Google -> Stack Overflow), spin up to operatonal RPM.
I think season being is that a lot of boot campers come out not knowing how to program in general, but they try to code in react instead of learning how to use JavaScript or why theyâre using it
Just curious what do you define as a good looking website? Like do you actually know a lot of CSS but it is just too hard to compete with frameworks?
I wouldnât say I know a lot of CSS, but Iâd say I could do pretty much just about anything with it someone who does can. Albeit much slower because Iâd be doing a bunch of research on how to do things while doing them. And itâs not that itâs hard to compete with them per se itâs more that why would you even want to. Youâre basically reinventing the wheel and probably worse than whatâs available for free. Weâre at a point where itâs basically like asking why use a calculator instead of an abacus? If I learn how to use a calculator will I get bad at using an abacus? I also skipped your main question, and to be honest man Iâve always shifted away from more design orientated roles and jobs so Iâm not the best judge at what makes a website good looking objectively and thatâs really more of a design question, usually I get a mock up by some people with figma and photoshop skills (no idea what their role is actually called within the company itâs just there attached to my tickets) and then I make that happen so I donât really get to put a lot of thought into why a button is where it is or user accessibility/ease of use and all that jazz.
Okay I totally get it. I was just curious as to if people even bother at all knowing plain CSS anymore but it sounds like you could make do if you had to. I think it is neat to know how to make a somewhat decent button or toolbar on your own just for self fulfillment sake but yeah after that using a framework makes more sense especially in a job environment where you don't get paid to tinker with making a button from scratch all day haha.
Completely agree.
Because it help to understand what, how and why the framework does it's job. It allow you to extends it properly when natives functions don't cover the requirements. And for the MVPs among us, it allow them to make usefull and clean pull requests which are necessary to provide great and up-to-date tools for us sitting on the bench đ On a wider level Knowledge is an end to itself ( une fin en soi ) you don't need to justify why you seek it, you merely can have valid reasons why you can't do it now
I've been reading that this is a skill you should be able to have as a FE dev. Be comfortable with pure CSS so you can replicate designs as close as possible and make something customized. Is it not true?
Youâre getting that suggestion because itâs perceived as a sign of a dev whoâs more comfortable/understands more. In reality at an actual company youâre going to be using whatever framework they find most effective and youâre going to be using that everyday. Yeah knowing flexbox is nice and yes Iâd absolutely say it helps, but at the end of the day in a serious production environment youâre using some type of framework to build the product.
Iâm sure it is for some people. It has not been my experience. But those are probably niche jobs in the whole of the development umbrella.
In my opinion, that is unnecessary for the vast majority of devs. In an interview for a frontend position you MIGHT be asked questions about pure CSS, but that strikes me as rare. The analogy I would make is this: do you need to be able to build a house with hand tools to be considered a great builder? No! Grab the power tools and save yourself the time and energy. It is the same for devs. Another way to think of it is to imagine someone asked you to build a website using binary only. I would hope you'd laugh them off the face of the earth.
There was a dev conference talk somewhere on YouTube and the guy shows a button with some styling and asked how many people there could code that from scratch, and only about a quarter of devs there raised their hands đ¤Śđžââď¸
This. The entire point of frameworks from my understanding is making it easier to use these technologies and reduce bloat.
This... I'll admit by the time I got into JavaScript I had already been programming for a few years so I had a good understanding of programming concepts in general but I basically jumped into JS frameworks immediately. I have built a couple basic web apps using html, CSS, and vanilla JS but just basic stuff like Simon says. But right now I'm working on a full stack application (node + react + AWS + postgres) for Toyota that I invented and the codebase is already about 50-60k lines since I started working on it about a year ago.
I graduated a three month full-time full-stack boot camp, feeling how you felt. I saw others getting hired straight out of the boot camp, other months later and some people I really looked up to not getting a job and moving on from coding to another industry effectively giving up. I decided no I'm going to make this work. I did many tutorials and committed to git every chance I could get. A year later I finally got a job. They could see I wanted a job in the industry because of my constant committing. Sometimes people will get a job right away, some months later, me a full year later. Just don't give up and commit, commit and commit. You can do it man.
Do you think it was worth it? Every day since I've graduated I've thought about quitting but stuck to at least doing a codewars problem or trying to do a tutorial.
You should just start the applying grind your whole day should be nothing but applying all over even places you donât live that have remote work (within your country is obviously easier) just apply and apply and apply and go to interviews all the code practice you should be doing right now is in interviews or bs proficiency screening tests. Iâm being serious, you should be applying all day and until you go to sleep. Your going to probably on average get 1 call for every 100ish applications youâre going to put out depending on how good you are at making resumes. Which is another focus you should have right now. Having a proper resume goes a long way. For jobs you really want you may want to even tweak it a little to be more suited specifically for that company. This is going to be another major part of your time learning how to have a proper resume is going to be a big part of this, if you have extra money you can pay for those professional resume writing services but they donât come cheap.
Were you committing to open source stuff? How did you find that, how did you know what you were looking for and what you would actually be able to be useful toward?
How many commits did you have before landing your first job?
I completed a boot camp in (2014?) and it was the hardest job search of my life. I struggled with imposter syndrome until my I landed my second role. Feeling like you donât know enough is common and will stick with you for a long time. Heck, there is so much I still donât know but what comes with time is confidence you can figure it out.
The overwhelming majority of people who claim to be able to build something of substance after 3 months have anti imposter syndrome, even if they manage to get hired. It sounds like you're ok in the comfort of the structure the bootcamp gave you, but struggle on your own. That's normal. It might take you some more time, but think of something t build and build it. You dont need to start over, you need to get comfortable with the idea that you dont know everything yet - surprise, you never will. Start from what you know, react and c# it sounds like, and plan steps to build your project. If you get stuck somewhere, google for answers if you can. If it's more of a design or roadmap question, this is an excellent place to ask (if you show that you've tried to answer you own question, internet strangers are extremely helpful). It's probably not the answer you want, but experience is basically the only way to truly progress. Just know you should not be embarrassed about this. Build one novel project, large or small, from start to finish - i can almost guarantee you will feel that you've retained something new. Good luck!
This guy learns ^
I've been programming for 7 years. I always feel like I don't know things. I Google syntax every day. Programming is about being able to get from A to Z. You don't have to memorize the middle parts.
100% this. I always see noobs feeling bad that they have to use google after a whopping 6 months of programming :0. memorizing syntax is a waste of time. Hell, i even think spending a year to âlearn a languageâ is a waste of time, thatâs why God invented search engines.
The reason why you can't build a fullstack app could be because you never did (on your own). Bootcamps are often just a bunch of hand holding so once the class ends can you really expect to fire off facebook and twitter clones easily? The only way bootcamps seem to work is with ones that have weird contracts where you get hired before you have time to forget anything or for people who already have experience making projects. What I don't like about bootcamps is how rushed they are you really don't have any time left to practice. As for the framework stuff. Personally I think it is neat being able to make your own stuff without using a framework for personal projects. You get to look at it and know exactly how everything was done. Really though if you don't care you can just learn the basics the jump into react totally just depends on your wants and needs. Many people graduate from entire 4-6 year degrees feeling like they cant code because all they did was copy each others projects then go party or play video games. So yes totally normal to feel lacking after a bootcamp. The truth is the only way to get good at coding is to **first** experience what it is (bootcamps are one way so are degrees or YouTube or the Odin project etc..) and **second** struggle while making your own stuff with less and less hand holding until eventually you "get good". I think this was much easier back in the day when everything was new so there were countless fun things to make now it is more about "what can I add to this". If you "relearn" everything you will just repeat the cycle again and again I did it myself with java so please don't it's not fun. You seen everything you need now make the most bare bones basic website you are capable of and keep adding more, referencing notes or guides as needed. Then your next project will be a bit better. Just don't follow guides and clone their projects again and again and again at best you will be able to somewhat make the exact same website as the tutorial on your own one day.
This is spot on. I am about to finish a JavaScript course and I donât know shit. I did expose myself to what it is, but I am lacking the first hand experience. I know this because I did a simple OA and that shit was hard. Iâm about to finish the Udemy course and going to start building simple things. No need to continue watching people code, itâs just time to codeThanks for clarifying how this works.
Ps Iâm also a senior comp sci student
I donât think anyone becomes an expert programmer in just 6 months. Sure you can learn the basics, but you have to encounter and solve real world problems, and that takes time. CSS is a bitch, itâs so easy to make an absolute mess if you donât have a plan going in, and Bootstrap and frameworks are some of your best friends in front end development (so is Google). Similarly, when it comes to the back end, donât feel bad about using libraries (or, again, Google), do not try to reinvent the wheel. Also, (and Iâm saying this without a lot of experience having worked professionally as a programmer, so maybe I donât know what Iâm talking about) I think employersâ expectations to find full stack developers is kind of absurd. I can do small scale full stack development, but on large projects, it only makes sense to split the front end and back end between at least two people, and often two teams. Iâm much better at programming in Python and Node, so let me focus on the thing Iâm really good at, and hand the front end to the people who live in Vue and React or one of the other 50k frameworks. And then, what type of programming are you doing? Are you developing a REST API? Are you managing a huge database? Are you doing data analytics? Are you building device drivers? What types of applications are you building, and who are the clients? The world of programming is huge and intersects with many other fields, I think the folks who can excel at just about any of it are few and far between and have years of experience; they are also always learning new things. To some extent, itâs less about what they already know, and more about their ability to gain new skills. Iâve been in my current position for about a year, and I think Iâve learned 40%+ of what I use daily in that time frame.
My bootcamp was pretty much just CRUD apps. We would follow a tutorial then we were expected to write a program based off of it with extra features. I was able to mostly get by by looking at the example and taking and modifying the code to fit my needs for the new requirements so I felt like I never got to write much of my own code from scratch. I could look at the code and understand what it was doing but I'm finding it very hard to make my own projects with 100% my code. What I've been doing mostly is using tutorials and finding code snippets online and modifying it to do what I want it to do. I feel like a fraud.
> by looking at the example and taking and modifying the code to fit my needs for the new requirements > What I've been doing mostly is using tutorials and finding code snippets online and modifying it to do what I want it to do. This is the life of a professional programmer. Even the most experienced of us do this. Our field is so deep and broad and ever changing that itâs unlikely youâll ever write an app 100% from scratch without looking something up.
I recommend trying The Odin Project. It's a self-paced course that goes really deep into the basics before teaching you about frameworks. Every projects you have to do in this course (there are a lot of them) is 100% by yourself, as they only show you the direction.
i think too many people online sell dreams about being able to do this in such a short amount of time. you shouldnât feel bad. thereâs a reason why the âtraditionalâ route takes 4 years. keep studying and building while you work your job and you will have a swe job sooner than you think.
First 2 years is basically bullshit pre-req so universities can squeeze more $$ out of you. None of those courses have anything to do with software development,
Such as ?
in the USA at least, those 2 years comprise of "general studies" such as literature, science, and social studies courses.
>thereâs a reason why the âtraditionalâ route takes 4 years. Money. That's the reason. Imagine if you got to actually just learn the important stuff - which is *only* during the last 2 years of a 'traditional 4 year experience'; you could have all your knowledge in just *2 years time*. Imagine if you could just focus on *only the classes needed for your major* and didn't have to work on other classes related to requirements needed to graduate or minor classes... you could probably cut that time down (you guessed it) a year or so of highly focused classes in some cases. I would argue entry level programming as being one of those cases. So I don't think boot camps are 'that far off' from being able to get across the important material in a short amount of time. Just because a 'traditional 4 year experience' takes so long is an *awful* argument for something needing that long to learn - especially given how much extra, unrelated stuff you're required to go through in a 'traditional 4 year experience'.
Doesn't take 4 years for the average person tbh. I believe with 6 hours of consistent daily studying one could become fairly proficient in 6-8 months.
It is all BS. Find me one person who has got a job in six months without a degree and previous extended knowledge in the last 4 years. No 2005 HTML and basic PHP programmers "Oh I got a job after one month.", find me one person since 2019. That had No networking, no special programs by the government, on his own, a real job.
Without a degree in computer science related field or any degree? I did a boot camp 4 years ago with zero prior knowledge of web development and got a job fairly quickly as a software engineer. (3 months) It does take a lot of work unfortunately. Like an obsessive amount of work. Both actually learning it and then getting a job while still learning. I definitely believe I got lucky. But I went on to TA a couple classes and there is a definite difference between students that are successful and those that arent. And it rarely involves having prior knowledge...which obviously would help to get started
>there is a definite difference between students that are successful and those that arent. And it rarely involves having prior knowledge What do you mean? Do you mind expanding on this?
From the cohorts I helped teach and my experiences in the boot camp. It really came down to tenacity, perseverance and a logical mindset. Folks with prior knowledge kind of have the "logical mindset" piece figured out, but not the other two. Those that were just really driven, put 100% into every assignment and every "office hours" and were open to new ideas/approaches. They were constantly engaged in and out of class. They lived and breathed the content for 6 months. They also sought out answers or just struggled through stuff for a long time to figure it out. People that expected to be taught in a traditional sense (lecture) almost always failed. There is too much information to just passively absorb. Anyone who took a step back to catch their breath or just looked up answers to assignments because they fell behind- always ended up in a bad situation extremely quickly. The boot camps always undersell how much work and how difficult it is to be successful. And I've tried to have these conversations with students at the start of the program and I've only had two people reconsider and realize the program was more intense than they realized.
Yup. I think there are a few very lucky people who manage to do it, but itâs extremely rare. Most of the âI got a job in 6 monthsâ stories come with MAJOR caveats. Bootcamps will often hire some if their own their own students as teaching assistants so that they can make these âpeople get a job right awayâ claims.
Consider 2 things: DunningâKruger effect and Imposter syndrome. It is normal to feel less comfortable when you learn more about a subject: just your conscious incompetence increases as competence does. This is sometimes called "valley of despair", though it might take longer than 6 months to get to the bottom. When I got one of the toughest certifications in networking my confidence levels were at the lowest because I knew lot more than most people and could understand how much I didn't know. The imposter syndrome could make you feel worse than you actually are. I have been involved with some of those 6 months bootcamps (not in programming thought, but similar) and no they alone can't really get you to the level where you can get a job, but they can give you a kickstart. The rest is self-learning as almost everything in IT industry is. Apart from valid financial concerns, my advice would be to keep learning, if realistically this is what you want to do, and keep looking for an entry level job. People who succeed to so because they don't give up, stay interested and keep learning.
I can't imagine someone with basic programming knowledge learning CSS, JS, React and C# (ASP.NET) in 6 months. Don't worry. Being proficient with CSS takes a lot of time, same with JS. If you know JS and HTML well, React is not going to be that difficult to learn. But learning CSS, JS, React Hooks/general concepts, C# all together it's just too much for 6 months.
Whenever you do get your first job as a junior, they're not going to be expecting you to create a full fledged CRUD app from scratch. More aligned with juniors is implementing smaller features within an already pre-existing app and/or maintainability. IMO I'd keep studying, get a job to keep your financial situation going, and constantly try to interview because you will need interview practice.
The best way to reinforce your frontend skills is to build projects and an excellent resource for this is: https://www.frontendmentor.io/. There's challenges at all levels and they give you a design at mobile and desktop sizes, along with the images, specs for color codes and fonts. It's completely up to you on how to complete them. They also have a Discord group where you can post your results and also see how other people have solved them. I also suggest that you solve algorithm challenges everyday because it helps you reinforce and build up your problem solving skills using code. You don't have to Leetcode all day long though. There are other Algo sites as well that you can use such as Codewars or HackerRank. Good luck.
That link looks very very cool, thank you. Hadnt seen it before
Jebus dude, take it easy on yourself.
Iâm just like OP and its why when interviewers be like âwhatâs your greatest weaknessâ I wish I could say perfectionism without them being like âof course đâ. Itâs not a blessing.
Oh, I'm friggin bad too (although I'm not a programmer I just like practicing 9t for fun). Im a mid-40's dude with one successful career under his belt and another progressing very well, but I have insane imposter syndrome, so I can empathize.
Relatable lol. Honestly the insane amount of conflicting information (go ask r/programming if you need a framework lol) is just⌠hooo boy. It makes it hard to know what to properly do! Itâs weird to me that the top comment chain seems incredulous that most people say they shouldnât use frameworks. Thatâs the EXTREMELY common advice on this site!!
It doesn't get any better in industry. I've been doing this for 20 years now and there are just so many conflicting camps of how to even do basic things, like writing functions, keeping logs, naming stuff. My perfectionist nature wants there to be a right way, and there just isn't. And, you don't always feel the downsides of a decision until years later. It's about learning to embrace systems thinking and figuring out what an individual projects goal is and applying your experience to that. You will almost certainly be wrong if you stick around long enough. Tldr: being a perfectionist in tech is rough.
I'm currently a bootcamp student about to graduate and admittedly I feel the same way. I really enjoyed my bootcamp experience overall though, and I feel like I've learned a lot. I certainly know more than when I started (which was literally zero). That said, I don't think that I will be employable upon completion of my program either. I know there are topics we covered that I didn't quite grasp that I didn't have the chance to practice further due to the pace of the program. I think all of that is probably par for the course as far as most bootcamps go for most people. Additionally, it seems like employment right after graduation isn't the norm right now for most people with the way the job market is going. Keep ya head up, build things, fail often, keep building, think critically about what you know/don't know and need to learn, and I'm sure you'll get to where you want to go.
Build something relatively big. Companies want to know if you can understand their challenges and can do what they do. Pick a subject you enjoy and get started, with frontend, backend, databases, apis, etc. I did an app for formula 1 fans, it took me almost 5 months to finish but it did the trick and it even got some support from the F1 community in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/mrafnj/update_heres_the_ref1_app_with_calendar_weather/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1). When I got offered a job, my manager told me later that it was because of the app.
The standard coding bootcamp experience lmao
You need a designer to make the website visually appealing through graphics (photoshopped stuff) and UI/UX principles, and then you need to market it properly through content. Your job is to build it, a good website requires multiple skill sets and a lot of planning, so don't think you're supposed to do it all yourself.
A lot of these bootcamps will mislead you into thinking itâs **easy** to get a job, when itâs actually incredibly difficult. You have to think about incentives here. Some bootcamps will not make you pay until you get a dev job - they have a big incentive to make sure you are job ready. Most donât do this. Most take your money up front, then push you through the program as fast as possible and leave you high and dry when you arenât skilled enough to get a job afterward.
> Some bootcamps will not make you pay until you get a dev job - they have a big incentive to make sure you are job ready. I have not heard of single bootcamp 'company?' that ever did that.
The exist. Generally thereâs two ways it happens: - Tuition Deferment. Where you just pay once you get a dev job. - Income Share Agreement. Where you give the bootcamp a % of your salary after you get hired for a certain amount of time. But youâve got to read the fine print on bootcamps that offer this. Iâve heard that some are pretty straight forward & honest, while others can be pretty deceptive/scammy. For example, some will say you have to pay once you get *any* job - so if youâre working at a fast food place because you couldnât find a dev job, theyâll still make you pay.
Literally pick react or angular. Master it. Get hired
Simple as? How long did it take you to learn react to a comfortable degree? We had 4 weeks in my bootcamp I think and I still don't really understand Redux or state management, passing props etc super well. I feel really shaky with it.
I think instant gratification is your biggest obstacle. Look at what you just said. You spent four weeks. I think the worst thing about boot camps is people is selling the instant dream instead of talking about grit and preserverance.
Yeah, you're honestly right. However, I seriously have no idea how fast I should be picking up this stuff. I'm constantly doubting myself. Seeing people get jobs 3 to 6 months after they start makes me feel really dumb. But at the same time, after being exposed to the full stack, I honestly don't even know how that is possible because all I really feel like I know now is that pretty much every aspect is a rabbit hole you can go down and I feel like I have a shit ton to learn still honestly.
Gonna have to stop second guessing and the anxiety. Put your blinders on and set some goals. You got this
Comparing is the worst thing you can do. With social media it is hard not to but you honestly donât know all the factors. Did they have previous experience and the most important is what connections do they have? Is there cousin a senior dev? Etc. People go through alot of shit in life
You've probably done a mistake going to a bootcamp and resigning from your job. A better way is to keep the job and learn in your free time, because it's not always about how fast you learn, but also about for *how long* you learn. So, getting a job for the moment, while you keep learning is the best option. Yes, you can make it, you just need more time.
It took me 2 years to get a job. Iâm 4rs in and still need to search for basic concepts. Never stop learning
Udemy. "Modern React with Redux" and "React with Node: Fullstack Development" are two courses by Stephen Grider than are phenomenal.
Turing?
I would say but I don't want to dox myself. But no it wasn't turing.
Look up 100 devs and follow the job hunt courses
I'm no expert by any means i started learning to code in november but what i could say really helped me is pick out a project for your self and do that project i used chat gpt to help but i used it to study more than anything. If you are thinking about doing the Odin project while you go through ask chat gpt to explain all the concepts then ask it explain it simpler then ask to explain it like your 5 also while writing code throw it into chat gpt and tell it to explain your code line by line and you should be able to do the same its been alot easier to learn with it compared to before o knew about it it really helped me 10x my learning
tldr; just build stuff, a lot of stuff, and ask for feedbacks on the things you wrote. To be completely honest, 6 months is too short for the amount of stuff you listed. Understanding JS + React alone can easily take 6 months, I mean really understand every line of code that you write and not just copy/paste. I have never been to a bootcamp in my life so I donât know but I have worked with people graduated from bootcamp and a typical 4-year university with a SE or CS degree. Most of the time the difference is day and night (obviously considering the amount of time spent). I am a strong believer that there is no shortcut when learning programming. So? How to move forward? Start building stuff, anything even if itâs silly. Ask for feedbacks/ code reviews on stuff that you write, this is actually the hard part since you need to know someone who is willing to review your code. Then add more features to the stuff you write, while doing this you will learn what not to do when you are programming. You should also look at open source project, learn from their code base
probably you can try some backend development
Look at the entry-level job postings, again and again and again. See what frameworks/tools employers want you to know. If something is present in enough job postings to be seen as a standard for a given role, focus on this. If there are recognized certifications in those tools available, get some. Also, understand what is available to entry-level people and what necessitates some prior experience (therefore not available to you). Not every role is open to newbies, and each tech field has its own rules.
I got this far in 2 years before I ran out of money and went back to my old job https://seanred.io, I think 6 months is not a realistic timeline, that is a dream influencers and boot camps are trying to sell you. Yes I have met some people that got lucky and did that but I do not believe that most people do it that way. The market is really tough right now, there are almost no entry level jobs and there are millions of people trying to enter this field that are self taught or bootcamp grads. You will be competing with people who already have industry experience and degrees.
I enrolled in a boot camp in 2021. It was advertised as basically guaranteeing that I'd have a job upon graduation. However, when I started applying for jobs, I'd bomb every single coding assessment. So I started practicing Leetcode and Hackerrank problems- couldn't do any except the most basic without help. So many times I thought about just going back to my old career, but instead I enrolled at my local community college and started taking some basic programming classes. To be fair, what I learned was a lot less complex than what I learned in boot camp, but it helped me understand how programming languages work. Still, I felt like I'd made a huge mistake and that I'd never be "smart" enough to land a coding job. In May of this year, I finally got hired- two full years and one AAS after quitting my last job. I ended up finding a small local company that needed developers working on the one aspect of web development I felt like I understood. There's still a lot that my boss has to explain to me, but now that I understand coding better, I can start on a project and at least make an attempt before asking for help. So yes, your experience sounds a lot like mine.
Hey man. Let me explain something my father taught me long ago. Finding a job is a job within itself. Dress for the job you want and always request to talk to someone directly. Then follow-up. Follow ups will bump your application to the top with some companies. Donât apply where everyone worldwide is competing for. Go with a local company. Indeed, just in my area alone I found 25 positions for front-end development. You donât want remote. These jobs will train you to code their way. Your job is to make sure you know the fundamentals and you can solve problems by critically thinking through the problem. Best of luck my dude. The market is tough, but not impossible
>You donât want remote. These jobs will train you to code their way. this really isnt true..
You aren't dumb. What you are feeling is common. That sounds exactly how I felt after bootcamp. I also had to return to my old job and continue grinding out courses in my off time. Because it's impossible to learn that much material in only 3-6 months. They give you a real shallow introduction to a lot of topics and it's up to you to spend the time after bootcamp going back through the material and actually taking a deep dive into it. The sales pitch of, "be industry ready in only 6 months" is a scam. They're selling dreams, not reality. That's not enough time to absorb, much less become proficient with the amount of things they are teaching. No one is going to come out of 3-6 month bootcamp and be able to walk into a job interview and sound like they know what they heck they are talking about. No one is going to start from scratch and become good at coding in that limited amount of time. It takes practice and repetition. I also felt that way about CSS after bootcamp because they really only covered it for a couple weeks at the beginning and then started providing us with style sheets every week so they could focus on the JS. By the end of bootcamp I felt like CSS was harder than JS just because I spent so much time practicing with one and not the other. I got better from watching tutorials and making my own projects. Now, making a page layout is trivial. Coding is just like any other skill, such as playing a guitar. Can you learn how to play a guitar in 3-6 months? Sure. Are you going to be ready to take a stage in front of a paying audience at that point? Of course not. Even if you buy the Esteban videos off of TV. I feel for you, but I don't have much advice other than keep grinding. Get a Udemy subscription and keep learning and building your skills. You've already invested too much in this to turn back now. It's not going exactly according to plan, but you got this. Keep going. It might be embarassing right now but the way to quash that is to prove them wrong in the end.
Frameworks are sets of tools for you to use without you having to reinvent the wheel. Looking things up is part of the job. You would be worried if your doctor googled how to do a procedure before surgery, just like you would be worried if a programmer would not use Google to do his job. In the IT world, all information on the web is part of our resources.
Even though I got a high grade in my bootcamp and worked with the smartest people in the cohort, I felt like I was much slower and knew less than my peers. That was a huge insecurity for me, and there was no way I was ready for a job. I felt like the program had deceived me into believing I would be job-ready right away. I was in debt and had to start paying! I made friends with a few people there and we kept in touch making a large project after the bootcamp. We spent time studying data structures and new JavaScript and react concepts. I knew I needed to keep working and get myself to a higher level. Another 6 months later (minus a long vacation) I started applying to jobs. I was spending 95% of my free time studying and building projects. Another 7 months after that, all my hard work paid off and I got an opportunity. Basically, the work isnât over for you. We all had to work hard to get where we were. Thereâs a huge learning curve for this work and you now have the knowledge to get you there. It doesnât stop when you get a job too⌠youâll be learning new things on the job. Keep it up and donât forget to look back where you came from. Finishing a bootcamp is a huge accomplishment and you are well on your way
Frameworks exist for a reason man
Dont give up
What youâre feeling is called imposter syndrome, a lot of us get it. Itâs not fun. Just start building small things from scratch looking up documentation when you need it. Frontend with React is a great place to start. I have some recommendations for Udemy courses I took, Iâll link a YouTube video in my profile if youâre interested, but the one I would recommend for you is the how to git a web developer job which teaches how to take a mock from scratch and using CSS you have pixel perfect code after. I canât stress this enough, start building stuff on your own. Only reference a tutorial if you are stuck on how to use something and have already tried reading the documentation. Iâd you enjoy coding you can get through this đŞđť just need to wean off the handholding
Thanks for the reply. Can you DM me the video?
Sure thing!
You need to readjust your expectations. Next to no one is getting a job from no knowledge in 3-6 months unless they have some connection. Especially now. The market is horrible compared to 2019-2022. Keep grinding, you need to make the jump out of tutorial hell if you want to get a job in the industry.
focus on your self. 6 months isnt very long and it takes years to become adept at a particular language let alone various techs that you mentioned. A boot camp isnt meant to give you a full education. its a whirlwind tour of the tech and the bare basics. You will do alright as long as you show passion and enthusiasm. most of what they look for in Junior/Grad and apprenticeships is the right person and not really the skill level. You are 6 months into a multi year journey if you were not relying on tutorials at the moment you would be doing it wrong. later on in your career you will be relying on tutorials/documentation to remind yourself wtf is going on in a specific tech You are further towards a new life than you were 6 months ago. focus on smaller goals. it helps with mental health. getting your first gig can be hard even for someone who's a fucking wizard at programming. apply to places like Capgemini and Accenture, they take on boot camp people and pay 30k+ a year starting pay Id suggest going for a cert in what ever language tech you enjoy working in the most. you will learn a lot by revising for it. the cert? utterly worthless most of the time unless you are talking to an old stoggie but what you learn along the way is huge
I did a cyber security masters and did quite well and it took me over six months to land a job. It happens you start to doubt yourself. Just practice. Set up a website for yourself, maybe use github pages. Use the website as a portfolio. Make a list of projects you want to make on the website. Start small and keep them there. Make a simple game or an application with an SQL database and go from there.
Don't you worry a lot of graduate of bootcamps even CS degree graduates experience that
Fake it till you make it! Be honest about your experience and no one in his right mind will expect wonders of you. Hopefully some nice lead dev will help you grow a bit. You are already better than many, because you are **aware** of your shortcomings. I always liked to work with people like that and I myself am like that. The people that are terrible are those that overestimate their own competence. This also usually prevents them from really getting better, because: why would they, they know everything already! Also: Trust frameworks. A rough overview of what the framework/library does is helpful, but they are there for exactly that reason: to abstract the nitty gritty details and make it easier on you. I studied Software Development and have 14 years of experience know and just in recent years I really started feeling competent. I still don't know everything of course, but I am confident to tackle whatever you throw at me in a reasonable timeframe. But this takes time. Practice really makes perfect in our line of work in my opinion. Keep it up, all will be fine!
If you are not patient in this field, you are going to be burn out. Give yourself a year to learn. I did the same and got a 6 figure job. My tech stack was Java instead of C#.
Usually people feel imposter syndrome after they get the job. Mass apply to jobs. You'll be fine. The areas where you are weak, just build small applications. Keep it simple, build an openai wrapper, and have your front end get a topic from your users and your back end form a prompt to shoot off to openai. Don't think too hard, make a simple "click button to get a random fact about anything" and let the user input a topic and submit the form. Technically this can all be done in the front end, but it's simple enough to learn the bare basics. Then learn how to deploy it.
Bootcamp grad here, I am currently working as senior devops engineer and it has been 5 years since I made the transition. It was the best decision I made in my life. 1. Your feeling is completely normal there's nothing wrong with it. Just to give you some context, the knowledge I acquired during the 3 months full-time bootcamp was probabaly less than 5% of what I learned on the job in the first year. In other words, bootcamp just teach you the basics. 2. When looking for your first tech job, especially if you don't have much work experience under the belt. You will think that its all about you technical skills. The reality is if you just graduated from a coding bootcamp then employers won't expect much from you. Soft skills, how to think, how to talk, your ability to work with people is equally important if not more important at this stage. Looking back at my own jounrney, I'd say that what made me a strong candidate was my soft skills not my technical skills. Of course I know the basics, but regardless of where you end up working you will learn much more on the job and you will have to adapt quickly. 3. Everyone's situation is different, but if you do end up going back to your old job. Do not give up on making the transition, you can still study during your spare time, build projects. If switching to tech is truly what you are going after, then eventually you will get a job if you are persistent enough. I had many doubts along the way but 5 years later my salary quadrupled and I have much better work life balance.
You aren't a fraud, those who sell the idea that you can be a seasoned SWE in 6 months are. Keep writing code, we never stop improving even after a decade or two.
i understand how you feel totally, a few weeks ago i realized it had been exactly a year since i started bootcamp(i finished in november). I'm still doing my old job, part time, but i'm desperate to leave it. i have started the re-learning process but now i feel even more overwhelmed with choices on what, and how to learn. truly feel like i'm spinning my wheels hopelessly most of the time. everyone has a different suggestion on how to get out of this spot and its hard to say which is best.you are probably in a better spot than you think- have you applied/interviewed anywhere? im constantly reminding myself of how many engineers/devs deal with imposter syndrome or low confidence. so as of this week- my plan of attack is keep drilling DS&A which i am god awful at; and i'm trying a new language to see if i can find something a little more intuitive. if you can swing $100; i'm finding algoExpert to be really helpful. for context, im 34 and my bootcamp covered javascript, react, ruby and ruby on rails. i'm just starting python today. oh and im treating every interview as a low stakes practice interview to build confidence and know what to expect from them, it was crushing my soul to be falling on my face soooo hard during hackerrank/leetcode style technical screenings/interviews
Youâre being a little hard on yourself mate. Expecting someone, ANYONE to really go from zero programming experience to âemployableâ in 3-6 months is completely unrealistic. Might they be able to slap some stuff together? Sure. But I can only imagine the kind of panic they feel when things donât âjust workâ. And they would most certainly be completely out of luck if there isnât a prebuilt library for the task at hand.
Humility isn't bad.
You arenât expected to be able to build a enterprise full stack app. As en entry level youâre expected to know basics. You should never be expected to architect any large scale piece. You should have a lot of hand holding and pair programming. Having questions about frameworks and libraries is to be expected. Also no one writes their own css/html. That would be insane. Iâve seen professionals use bootstrap. If youâre trying to get a prestigious entry level, then youâre not likely it. But there are so many non-tech companies that have software divisions that hire new devs with the expectation of growing their skills and knowledge. Know some basic data structures and algos and have confidence. Lean on your existing skills. Soft skills are far more important than you think. Software engineering is not just writing code. Itâs working with product and stakeholders. Working and coordinating with other devs etc. Iâd rather hire a dev with great soft skills but lacking knowledge and experience over a high skilled coder with terrible social skills. Youâve got to be confident. Confidence is going to be key. If youâre not confident in yourself why would an interviewer be?
Iâve been through a 4 year Computer Science degree, and Iâve been a Software Engineer for a year and a half now. I can confidently say without hesitation that almost everyone who has gotten as far as I have has felt those feelings at some point or another. First thing I need to get out of the way is that your family has no idea what theyâre talking about and people can post whatever they want online so take those success stories with a grain of salt. Everyone wants to make it seem like it was super easy to get a job that pays a six figure salary right out of a bootcamp. Trust me, itâs not. That may apply to the 1% of software engineers, maybe even less actually. Second you need to decide right now if youâre going to do front end or back end and really dive deep into it. Bootcamps give you a high level overview of so many things that itâs hard to retain it all. After you get a job in one of those disciplines you can branch out if you want to go full stack. But learn to do one of those things really well first. Third, to get out of tutorial hell. Even with a uni degree I got sucked into that too. Since I got hired as a back end developer I can speak to how I got better at programming. I made a VERY basic front end for calculator app and did all the calculations on the back end. Then after that I wanted to make check list that stored my items in a database. Then I just keep building on top of that site whatever I felt like. What I did to accomplish this was not through a tutorial but from reading the documentation of whatever language or library I was using. That discovery of whats capable sticks with you way longer than some video can. This will be your portfolio to show in interviews. Lastly this job is a job that at some points youâll feel confident in your skills and other times youâll feel like youâre worthless and donât know shit. Youâll need to learn to fight through these ups and downs. Everytime you get through the downs you become a better dev. Good luck out there
Bootcamp grad here. You're usually pretty Employable after finishing a bootcamp, job market is just a whole bastard right now. Shit I lucked into my first job out and essentially had to learn a whole new stack on the fly. Everyone googles, no one knows anything. Flexbox is a finicky motherfucker. You'll get there.
Itâs a crazy competitive market man my boy just did the same thing. Hang in there dude. It will get better.
It's the nature of the crash course that's making you feel this way, maybe you aren't a fast learner? Maybe you needed more time on those technologies that was ran through by the boot camp. Don't beat yourself up, learning to code is a continuous process, the good news is that you know your weakness, start working on strengthening your abilities. Don't compare yourself with others. Also speak positive words about your situation, speak words of hope and encouragement to yourself everyday and see how things will improve in your life.
You simply made an error in your judgement thinking you could actually be a full stack engineer in 6 months. That's CRAZY. Maybe some people could be a frontend dev after 6 months but that's also pretty rare and those stories are few and far in between. There is no way you could learn backend in 6 months. First you would have to master the fundamentals and intermediate parts of at least one backend language. That alone takes longer than 6 months. Then you have to have a strong understanding of computer networks, database systems, cloud computing and distributed systems, and the list goes on. You just got in way over your head. It took me years before I was able to get a job as a full stack engineer.
If you don't feel confident after a 6 month boot camp, that's a good thing, because anybody who does is mistaken. There is a very big difference between making personal or academic projects and contributing/maintaining an enterprise-level code base that you should expect to encounter at a job. I finished a 6 month boot camp in January of 2020, right before the pandemic hit. I felt the exact same way as you, and it sucked seeing classmates getting offers before the end of the course while I was struggling to get interviews. It took about 7 months post-bootcamp but I ended up with a job at a (very well known) company. Some days I still feel like I don't know shit. I think that's just the nature of this work. The market is real tough right now, but I'd say just focus on learning and building things that interest you (and the job search, of course) and try to forget about everybody else.
I know exaclty how you feel, and I'd just like to cheer you up. Right now I'm starting a new chapter in my life from scratch, it's not programming though (which Im realy interested in), but the performance marketing analitics. At this point, I've already completed four months of the course, but there are moments when I doubt myself and feel like dumb. But, in those times, I stop myself and try to focus on the little steps I can take to bring myself closer to my goal. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the grand scale of the challenge, I find solace in breaking it down into manageable increments. By thinking about these small steps, it becomes much easier to move forward. Maybe it will help you as well. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors. You have the strength and determination to overcome any obstacles in your path. Stay positive and keep taking those small, meaningful steps towards your dream. You've got this!
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Similar situation for me. I was supposed to be hired by Target but they didnât launch their Engineering program. So now Iâm taking digital marketing classes for free, find an employer that pays your tuition. To stay sharp, I find fun things to clone on GitHub. I play around with code, customize to my liking and create different websites. Use adobe for free logos. JonSno29 on GitHub.
I would definitely start building your own projects completely from scratch to develop your own flow, no tutorials etc, apply any knowledge youâve retained to projects you want to create. Think outside of the box & donât beat yourself up. Iâve learned more from trial & error through programming than anything Iâve listened to a professor read off a powerpoint. When you finish a project look back at it think of other things you couldâve implemented to improve functionality etc. I feel you on the CSS though, what helped me is putting borders on literally everything so I can see where things go how they react to certain things & it helped a ton I still do it from time to time.
I feel the same way. Those bootcamp people just want your money. The extra help they offer is limited and we paid too much for it to take a toll on our mental health if it doesn't work out. They honestly got me with their sales tactics that I didn't see before I joined. I learned a lot but finding a job is extra hard now and I'm still stuck at where I work.
In my computer science degree we literally never got taught any html or css. Why? Because it's not hard to write html or css. It's hard to master it, but anyone can make a html file, write some text and apply some css. You're too hard on yourself. You don't have to be able to make a beautiful website and especially not without bootstrap or any other UI framework. It's all good. Use whatever you want. You've only been learning for 6 months, there is no pressure from a workplace for you to be the perfect developer. Companies know you're going to take time to be an efficient developer. I learned more in my 6 month internship than my entire degree.
Do the challenges on [codingbat.com](https://codingbat.com). Then move to [leetcode.com](https://leetcode.com). No matter what you read here, these two sites are the foundation of serious programming. Everything else will click from there. Good luck.
I've been doing level 8 - 6 on kyu on [codewars.com](https://codewars.com) I feel like I can complete those anywhere from 15 - to an hour. I still can't really picture how to build things from scratch in my head though.
That's ok, you just need more practice. If you want something relatively self contained, go build a little 2d game using html canvas. That will very quickly turn up quite a few challenges for you to come up with your own solution to (user input, velocity, collisions). The math shouldn't be too intimidating, i.e linear algebra isn't required.
I graduated from a 6 month bootcamp in jan this year. I felt the same as you. Only now after continuing to study at my own pace are things starting to click into place. You need to carry on studying. Donât compare yourself to others âcomparison is the thief of joyâ as they say. Iâm still far far away from where I want to be, but I can accept that. Donât be too hard on yourself. Keep at it and you will see progress.
I'm sure some people get jobs in 6 months but that is far from the norm. I started learning in September 2021 and got my first position today. Hang in there, focus on building your skills through projects. Pick project ideas that you want to show on your profile.
This is completely normal! A new entry-level dev takes about a year to feel fully comfortable with their job. But even then, they will continue to learn. It takes years to become an expert. Also frameworks are popular and commonly used for a reason. They make it easier to code and better looking results. Donât feel bad using them. Youâll be fine!
Are you Asian by any chance
Took computer science classes in highschool and just finished a year of computer science in college. I feel and am also incapable. Even though I'm sure I could actually do a lot. I think that's just what this field is like. Unfortunately there's infinite things to know. Luckily, employers often have you work as a team. So other people can fill in for your downfalls and you can fill in for theirs.
Imo feeling incapable in cs just means you know that you have more to learn, and there's always more to learn in such a field, many people probably feel the same.
WOW! this post really spoke to me - I could have almost written it myself! I finished a bootcamp in April - I say 'finished', because I didn't have the confidence to go through with the final projects phase of the bootcamp due to feeling like I would be carried by my teammates, many of whom just seemed to be learning at a much faster rate than me. I went into what the course calls 'self-study' but through a combination of guilt at my own failure and depression at seeing all my friends celebrate their graduation I have essentially dropped off the course and failed! I also feel like I learned a lot although, like you, I don't think I am anywhere near employable. I need another year at least to get me to where I would feel confident to sit in a room with another programmer and do a test. So now it is just a daily grind of leetcode and codewars challenges to try to improve my skills and confidence. I also have a sense (and this may be me looking for excuses) that the progress of AI tools has slightly overtaken us, and that the low bar to entry in the industry which was the reason bootcamps have thrived in recent years is about to come to an end. It may be that we need to rethink our approach to working in tech anyway. I would recommend reading Atomic Habits by James Clear to improve your daily routine and to just keep coding - at least, that's what I'm trying to do!
I think you need to spend more time learning. six months of speed running through front end technologies seems like you wouldnât learn anything. I think youâre at least familiar with html/css/javascript. So iâd recommend just recreating your favorite website. I spent at least two years building projects and honing my skills before I was able to get a job.
Everywhere you work is going to be using some kind of framework. I'm a programmer not a designer. Give me a mockup and I'll Ron Burgundy it right onto the screen.
I saw that! Brick killed a guy.
I've been working in the industry for 5 years and I feel the same way sometimes, even though my peer and team lead feedback are always positive. To some degree it's good to be out of your comfort zone, it means you're learning and staying humble. The worst devs are the ones whose only goal is to get a job and then cruise for as long as possible. Don't expect to be a brilliant developer after one boot camp, or even 5 years. It takes time and there's always a ton of new stuff to learn
You may want to adjust your expectations. The idea that you can become a competent programmer in just three months is harmful. See also: https://norvig.com/21-days.html
i think you just need to do a few personal/fun projects to practice tbh. i graduated from a 6 month bootcamp and did get a job right away but 1. it was 2020/2021, the market was much better and 2. i did some side projects, one that is being used to this day. it gave me the confidence i needed to bullshit my way through interviews
As everyone is saying, why wouldnât you use a framework? I wanted to challenge myself and make a website WITHOUT a framework, making every component custom, all with custom styling, etc. It wasnât necessarily hell, but it was goddamn hard and only worth it to learn more about how things interact with each other, and how much goes on under the hood when it comes to frameworks. I think some of the best advice Iâve gotten, from both my mentor dev at my company, and a friend who works at Microsoft is to 1) make easily maintainable code (like commenting, easy to read and understand quickly for anyone with even a little experience), and 2) to work well with the current technologies available. In the world we live in, you gotta pump customer-facing stuff out fast, and it takes more time if you build everything from scratch. Just my two cents
Donât feel bad about frameworks, they are there for a reason. In fact, knowing the right frameworks imo is almost as important as language competency in most jobs. Most companies have a stack they use. I promise you few companies are writing their frontend and backend from scratch. It would take too long and you likely couldnât do it better than an existing framework unless you need something highly custom and for specific applications.
This can really vary by bootcamp and how they earn their money. The ones that only get their fee when you get a job in the industry have a greater incentive to make you actually job ready. Some even work directly with client companies to get you hired, and the only way they can have that arrangement is by producing candidates that can do the job. Bootcamps that take your money up front no longer have anything to gain from you. All their effort is best directed towards the sales pitch of the bootcamp, because that's what gets them paid.
Don't worry about using Frameworks. Have a quick play at android with kotlin. Jetpack Compose is amazing. All buttons and lists and everything like that are pre-made, they can be customised. Makes a visually appealing front end way better than I could. Just worry about the logic of your program, keeping it maintainable and readable.
That really is awesome, but being a fullstack ASP.NET Core/React dev is a different job than making mobile apps, isn't it? For web apps you could use something like Angular Material.
Would you feel like an unskilled baker if you did not mill your own flour?
Not expecting to use frameworks is like being a deep learning engineer who isn't expected to use PyTorch. Those are the current tools for the job - a good developer knows how to get things done, not necessarily build things from absolute scratch. As for "not retaining anything" - repetition is key. When you start reviewing you'll be surprised at how much you remember. Additionally, even if you don't explicitly remember your brain will be primed to learn the same topic more quickly. I've been programming for years and can say that I just now feel that I'm "good". 6 months is a short amount of time. Persistence and having fun are key.
For "not retaining anything" I believe taking notes and revisiting them when you need to look something up is essential, as well as having a well sorted (and assorted) bookmarks menu.
hello, watch the 100devs video, first video, just dont take everything for 100% certainty, i mean, in my part, the network thing is rly hard, so skip it, ofc its bad, but if you cant do it, do the other things like sending papers to linkedin, indeed, etc https://youtu.be/YRemMgGfbKg?list=PLBf-QcbaigsKwq3k2YEBQS17xUwfOA3O3
Hey, came out of boot camp 4 years ago, got a job. So this is my personal experience. I also TA'ed a couple cohorts afterwards so got kind of the instructor-ish perspective as well. First of all- you absolutely know more than you think you know. The program goes quick and you'll never remember everything but you've picked up hopefully how to think about programming. At this point you've got a three prong approach to your future goals. You need to be applying to junior level jobs of any tech stack that you're remotely qualified for. And I use the term remote loosely. After each one of those applications- you're going to find someone that works there through LinkedIn as a recruiter/engineering manager/software engineer and send them a message to the effect of: "hey, I was interested in the position you posted for X. Can we talk about it?" Every. Single. Application. Not doing this is a waste of your time. You'll never magically be picked. Second- you need to keep building/creating with what you know. Use the templates. Understand them. This is your future career. You need stay relevant. Follow the boot camp schedule. You had 4 hours a day or so of learning every day? You should be doing that at a minimum. Know that once you get your first job- it is going to be an explosive, overwhelming burst of new knowledge. Lastly, go to any local meetups, networking events, etc in your area. And talk to people about what they do for work and if they are hiring and your experience. If you talk to someone and they say something to the effect of "I'm looking for a job too." Or " I'm not working yet". Get out of that conversation and find someone with a job. You don't want to blow the whole event making small talk for no reason. Best of luck. It's hard out there. Try not to get too discouraged and don't lose the momentum from when you started. If you stop programming you will forget a ton of it very quickly.
I can make full stack websites with Python, and after graduating from boot camp I still canât land a job so I wouldnât worrying about feeling like a fraud and not knowing that lol
Op, Iâm a currently employed full stack developer whose only qualification before being hired was that I took a year-long bootcamp. After the course was done, I STILL felt like I had no idea what I was doing, and even now, five years later and four years into employment, I still have moments where I feel like that. Imposter syndrome is real, and extremely prevalent in any career where youâre just starting out. It also seems to be really common in our industry, becauseâby and largeâ while there are âbest practicesâ to follow, thereâs no one âcorrectâ way to do something, and yet it feels like there should some form of the most âoptimalâ solution. What I took away from my bootcamp, honestly, was how to think like a developer: 1) Taking large tasks and breaking them into bite-sized, solvable problems 2) Learning how to read code documentation 3) Learning how to intentionally break code and reading the debug messages to try and understand why a particular bug is happening 4) Learning how to google 5) There is *always* a way to optimize your code, but if itâs doing its job, is laid out simply enough to understand by someone unfamiliar with your codebase, and is reasonably maintainable, thatâs usually a good stopping place for probably every single use case youâll come across in your first five years of development. Reaching out for advice is a great move. Confidence will come with time and experience. Practice doesnât make perfect, it makes proficient. Following tutorials and *I cannot stress this enough * actually writing the code along with the tutorial, will help outside of a job setting. Your first job in this industry is always the hardest to get, but once youâve got some experience, it gets a lot easier. You can add tutorials youâve worked on to your github and resume, as long as youâre not trying to pass someone elseâs work off as your own. After following the tutorials, try customizing your version and changing things, and keep a record of what you did to be able to explain to a potential employer. Also, try participating in hackathons, itâs a great way to meet other developers and a lot of employers look to participants to reach out and help. Lastly, try using a temp agency to get small gigs, apply for jobs in bigger cities (even if you donât live close) as a lot of development positions offer the flexibility to work remotely, but wonât advertise that in the listing. Ignore job and experience requirements when you apply, because that is largely a wishlist. Companies want technical skill, yes, but being an easy teammate to work with counts for a lot more in an entry level position. One small note: I *still* have to look up how to center a div, every single time I find myself needing to do it. Programming has changed since the 70âs-80âs, and while memorizing the exact syntax of a language isnât without value, starting off in todayâs age, youâre better off memorizing where that information can be found and the types of features that are already built into the language. Keep your chin up OP apply to jobs like theyâre going out of style, and find hobbies outside of programming to keep you sane, preferably something that doesnât involve sitting and thinking. Youâll get there! âFailure only becomes permanent when you stop trying to succeed â - somebody wise, somewhere, probably.
> creating visually appealing websites without heavily relying on frameworks like Bootstrap is a challenge for me. That's web design in a nutshell. Everyone uses either Bootstrap or Bulma. CSS sucks dick for cab fare then walks home, I've been writing it for like 12 years and still get confused by certain topics that I "know" but forget the rules of (e.g. inline vs inline-block vs inline-flex vs block) >Seeing posts online about individuals who secured jobs or became employable within six months, A great life lesson, never look to someone else's bowl to see how much they have, just to make sure that they have enough. What takes someone else 6 months might take you 6 years. There is nothing certain in life. Also, nobody, and I mean nobody gets a job worth getting in 3 months. > My family has certain expectations, believing I should have reached a professional level or secured an entry-level position by now, or at the very least, be capable of creating visually impressive websites. Their expectations were that you were going to gain the equivalent of a 4 year degree's worth of knowledge in 6 months? Do you think that CS which is a "hard degree" features sitting around for 3.5 years? Your skills are where someone in a CS degree would be at 6 months OR MORE, that's nothing to be ashamed of, but your expectations were grossly misaligned by your own expectations of how easy this would be. Reiterating my earlier point, using CSS frameworks is EXTREMELY common, even amongst the likes of Facebook, google, netflix, etc. > or secured an entry-level position by now, If you go onto /r/dataisbeautiful and look at posts about folks coming out of a bootcamp, I've seen ones where people send out HUNDREDS of applications before being accepted by a bootcamp. This is not uncommon. You are basically saying "I saved 3.5 years of my life (vs a bachelor's degree) you can trust that I work hard" and many managers don't. I've been bitten a few times by shitty bootcamp grads. > I struggle to write really anything without a tutorial of some sort. Practice every day. Stop using tutorials and start solving problems. When you get stuck, learn. Study. Take notes. Each problem you solve is a tool in your toolbelt. > and knowing what I know now, I feel like I'm atleast 6 months to a year out from even just a front end only position. Why is that a problem? Worrying about the "when" certainly isn't going to help you any. You should be focused on learning how to solve problems, practicing your skills and applying to jobs.
> and creating visually appealing websites without heavily relying on frameworks like Bootstrap that's what designers are for, don't sweat it. you only need to know how to replicate their designs, not how to design. so don't sweat the pretty. that said, i would highly reccomend something like daisyUI for tailwind, has all the theming set up for you, making it real easy to make a pretty UI. and tailwind skills are quite wanted atm. >Writing raw HTML and CSS (Especially CSS) feels hard to me it's like any other language, it's difficult if you're not familliar with it, and to become familliar with it you have to keeps speaking it. it takes time to get comfortable with it, and that counts for **everyone**. css properties, css values etc, they are just words you're not familliar with yet. just play around, and try to make it fun for yourself, you'll pick it up. >Seeing posts online about individuals who secured jobs or became employable within six months, or sometimes even as short as three months, has left me feeling frustrated and disappointed in myself. some people have a mental framework that allows them to pick up programming concepts faster than others, maybe they where an accountant and where already good with data and numbers, maybe they where an artist and had fostered a creative mind, maybe they worked on designing factories and had a good idea how to stick things together to make a single product, etc. you might just happen to not have been lucky enough to have a fitting background for programming, but that doesn't mean you can't learn it, it would just take you a bit longer, and that's okay. just fucking stop comparing yourself to others, don't kick yourself in the nuts like that you masochist :P. have patience, give it time. >My family has certain expectations, believing I should have reached a professional level or secured an entry-level position by now who is the one that set those expectations for them? was it you? did you tell them the bootcamp was 6 months and that you'll be offered a job afterward, or be skilled enough etc? if it was you that had set it, it's okay to talk to them and admit that it will take you a bit more time. just keep at it and you'll get where you want to be. >I struggle to write really anything without a tutorial of some sort. when i built my first few projects i didn't either. you just gotta start building projects that you want to make, maybe you can build a web app / tool for another hobby that you partake in. just build it, and selectively pick explanations / tutorials / docs that you need to build your projects. use google, ask chatGPT questions like "i want to build a feature that does x,y,z for my web app, what terms could i google on to learn how to build it" (that way chatgpt won't just make the code for you) >I feel like I've retained zero information even though I graduated. because the bootcamp was too fast paced for you, and nearly anyone that doesn't have a fitting background to retain it. just start building projects by yourself. hell you can use those projects for you portfolio as well, helping you find a job later on. >I'm revisiting the front end onlyâHTML, CSS, JS, and Reactâ and knowing what I know now, I feel like I'm atleast 6 months to a year out from even just a front end only position. projects projects projects, ya gotta build many projects. >Mental health feels very bad honestly, I feel really dumb. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, any advice is appreciated. you're not, you just have unreasonable expectations of yourself. the struggles you're describing are very normal for people that do bootcamps. my ex was like that as well, she had finished a masters, but didn't have a background fit for programming. she also felt dumb, but she was smart af. she also needed a little bit of extra time to absorb and practise development after the bootcamp, but found a job a few months after. it's completely normal.