A self-learning program to help bridge the gap between graduation and landing your first job as a developer.
There are a lot of routes into launching a career in tech, some traditional and some less-than-traditional. While formal education offers great support and transition from student to professional, most other forms of education are lacking in that department. Bootcamps and other expedited programs offer a great foundation, but often don't bring students to the point where they could successfully find or secure their first job.
This project seeks to do that.
I believe in free and accessible education, especially in a space that normally charges gobsmacking prices for a dream that actually requires a lot more effort and connections than most are able to muster. I aim to make this, and future versions of this, free for use (so don't hate me if ads suddenly appear).
I am a bootcamp grad myself. I was fortunate in my timing, having graduated at the end of 2018 when the market for juniors was an massive. When current job-seekers ask me for my experience in landing that first job, I struggle to give any answers that would be useful today. I firmly believe that it was not my skill that got me there, but more of a right-place-right-time. Today the landscape is incredibly competitive and there are a lot of unspoken rules and expectations that juniors needs to meet in order to land their first job as a junior developer.
Previous to my career in tech, I worked for a university registrar, as an academic advisor and admissions officer. I helped students with life skills, communication, resumes, and more. Upon completion of my bootcamp, I accepted a position running the bootcamp's local campus, including student support and career services. I spent just under a year working with companies and graduates and consulting everyone in between to figure out tips and tricks for getting juniors their first big break in the industry.
I started mentoring and teaching coding fairly early in my career as a developer. While this might not be the best-case scenario for students looking to learn from industry experts, it helped me develop my skills and gave me insight into the ever-changing landscape of the junior developer market. I eventually left my first fulltime job and transitioned into contracting, including taking on a role as an instructor. I found I was increasingly being asked for advice on bridging the gap between graduation and employment from past students. I built an 'office hours' program with the bootcamp that I was teaching with at the time where students could come and ask questions and work on skills, both technical and otherwise. I decided to move on from that work after 8 months, but within that time I was able to work through a nearly identical workflow with students who were uncertain of how to begin their journey into tech.
Since leaving freelance and contract work, I have refocused my efforts into upskilling and filling in my own knowledge gaps. Something that most employed bootcamp grads forget is that, while choosing that faster route is not a bad idea, it does leave out a lot of valuable knowledge that is essential in growing your career as a developer. Bootcamps are a great way to jumpstart a career, but there is a not-insignificant amount of work required to both stay and grow in the industry after that.
Release: Spring 2024 V1 (aka MVP) will mostly be ideation in the form of text. I would like to release this self-directed program to be used by grads as soon as possible, which means that it will be the least high-tech delivery method possible.
Release: Fall 2024 As a child, I loved text-based adventures on computers. Seeing the prompts and then navigating in the DOM without really knowing what you were doing was so fun. I've played around with different versions of this over the years for other projects, but I'd love to build it out full with this. Plus it is still just text based so that is a win.
Release: 2025 The final version of this will eventually be a fully realized platform that you can interact with. It will likely be full front-end and you'll have to build your own version to track your progress and work, but that is part of the fun