Reflections of a Bootcamp

Posted on 07 February 2017

I write this post on the eve of my last day as a student at General Assembly. Thursday and Friday I get to go to my first tech conference - RubyConfau - courtesy of Lookahead Search.

I remember when I first found out that I was getting the opportunity to go to RubyConf - I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be at the end of the course and preparing to go out into the real world.

Since I’m feeling reflective I went back to look at some of the first javascript functions I wrote in week 1, and while I can see my logical thought process behind what I wrote - I can also remember how difficult I found it. It’s reassuring of how far I’ve come to look at something that took me hours that would now take me five minutes.

I remember how bewildering Rails felt when we first started playing around with it and how differently I feel now. The experience of trying to learn so much content in three months has taught me to embrace that feeling of discomfort, and it’s been helpful when studying things like React.js, Immutable.js and Redux outside of class time.

I would be remiss not to talk about how I’ve met people in this course who I hope will be lifelong peers and friends. Both my fellow student and teachers are excellent human beings who I look forward to knowing outside of the school environment.