Weekly Update
On Monday we worked remote. President Trump held a last minute rally for the Kentucky Republicans and there was concern about traffic being congested. On Tuesday, Kentucky elected a new governor and UK opened their basketball season by defeating #1 Michigan State.
Awesome Inc takes ping pong pretty seriously. There is a tournament every year, and several Inc-ers are highly skilled. I’m trying to get better but still manage to lose just about every match I play. We played some round robin ping pong this week. You have to volley and then run around the table to return the shot.
On Thursday, our informal Bootcamp Lunch Club™ ate at Sunrise Bakery. They have a cool “make me a sandwich” option, so we all took our chances with mystery sandwiches. On Friday we had Bootcamp Happy Hour! About 2/3rds of our class met up at Marikka’s for drinks and games. Below is a picture of Abram beating Taylor and I two-on-one in foosball. On Saturday, Anna and I went to Sahara. Ethan has been telling me how good their food is all semester. I was really impressed — their garlic sauce is awesome!
Sunrise Bakery: Homemade Oreo, Pear Pastry, and Pecan Bar
Sunrise Bakery: The "make me a sandwich" option
Sahara: Chicken Shawarma — 8/10 spice level
Bootcamp Update
Last week we continued working on learning Laravel. I worked through the remaining Laracast Videos and then began working on the Laravel Library project. This is the first time that the instructors have assigned this project, and apparently they didn’t think we could get it done in the allotted 3 days. On Thursday, 6 of us stuck around the classroom until 8 or 9 pm to finish in time for Friday Demo Day. There might have even been a blood oath to not leave until the project was completed…
I had a lot of fun working on the Laravel Library. I learn more by doing and after following along with the Laracast Videos for several days, I was really ready to jump in and start coding! This project has made me realize that I like Back End. I really enjoy the problem solving aspect of Back End programming, and found using foreign keys to link items between tables really neat.
On Thursday we wrapped up the HackerRank morning warm-ups 😕. I have really enjoyed starting the day with some fast paced problem solving. Although we now get an extra hour to work on our various projects, I will miss starting the day like this.
We are officially 2/3rds of the way through the Bootcamp! On one hand, it seems like the time has absolutely flown by. I was a little worried that 16 weeks of daily programming was going to be hard to get through, but now I can’t believe that it’s almost over! It’s also hard to believe that in July I knew nothing about programming, and now I feel comfortable with a (small) laundry list of languages and frameworks: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, React, PHP, MySQL, Laravel…
Upon completion of the Bootcamp, I hope to continue refining my knowledge portfolio. I obviously think that I will learn a great deal at whatever job I land at, but I also hope to use a 30-60-90 day plan to augment that learning with some work on my own. A 30-60-90 day plan involves determining what you should be working on now (your 30-day goal), what you plan on working on next (60-day goal), as well as looking to the future, and brainstorming what might be on the horizon (90-day goal).
I’m looking forward to this final stretch of the Bootcamp. Although I don’t actually want it to be over, I am really excited to find a job and starting work as a web developer!
Bonus
This week I learned that I write my alphabet backwards. This is news to me. I had never paid any attention to how I write letters, and I had assumed that others write their letters in a similar manner. Midweek, some fellow Bootcampers saw me writing on the white board, and commented that something seemed a little off. I ended up writing out the entire alphabet (thankfully I still remember the song). Apparently my e’s are the worst offender.
