IT Bootcamps. Find the right one.
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Uncertainty. Get comfortable with it
IT Bootcamps. Approach them the <right way>
Welcome to a summary of proven thoughts and advises to look for when deciding which path to follow inside this (most of the times) fantastic IT world.
Reflect on yourself
Take some time to reflect on yourself, your current journey and understand more about your inner motivation/s (a.k.a reasons) to get into this world and review them from time to time.
Such motivations could belong (but not limited to) within one or many of these categories:
Economic compensation.
Learning new skills to get more job opportunities.
Learning new skills for career development.
Switching careers.
Early in my career items 1 and 2 were all I cared about. Over the last 4 years, item 3 also became another motivation: adding infrastructure knowledge on top of my software engineering background.
Learning about your own reasons will save you A LOT of time and pain and suffering and indecision down the road, don't underestimate this. Check on them from time to time.
Uncertainty. Get comfortable with it
Since uncertainty is a reality for every aspect of our life, it would be unfair to say it doesn't play a part within the IT world as well.
From new frameworks being born and existing frameworks updated to programming languages evolving, uncertainty is something you need to get used to.
To deal with it in a proven way, focus your energy on becoming a generalist first, then specialize yourself in one or two areas you believe have the right potential to help your career keep growing.
Here is a list for you to go through. The order you follow the items on the list is also recommended.
Algorithms: basics and workflows (if/then/else & recursive)
Abstract concepts.
Troubleshooting many issues before achieving what you were supposed to achieve in the first place. Get comfortable with that. It happens sometimes.
No two paths are the same (as it happens with any other career). Your friend might have an easier time learning and working with a framework that's given you headaches every time you try it, and viceversa. Get comfortable with that. It happens sometimes.
A career in IT may represent many things but one thing that it does represent for sure: an ongoing learning process. A process that you should be comfortable with from time to time.
Once your learning curve for a specific framework/tool/area is achieved (a.k.a plateu), you most likely won't have the need to study something new immediately after. Try and spend some time getting deeper knowledge of your existing tools before moving forward again. This "plateau" could vary from career path to career path for sure, mainly based on your motivations.
IT Bootcamps. Approach them the <right way>
The <remote only> revolution has been with us for almost 2 decades but it seems the last 2 years (2020 and 2021) is where this working methodology has peaked its maximum levels of awareness around the world (a.k.a 2020 pandemic forced a lot of people to work from home or switch jobs that allow this).
Over the last couple of years the number of IT bootcamps has increased significantly and this trend is nowhere close to stop.
After a decade (started in 2012) of working and learning within the IT world, these are the most useful questions that will help you understand your motivations and direct you on the right path:
Question 1: Is your choice of bootcamp solely based on the supposed "compensation" you heard/read (or were told) about IT workers on this <remote only> era we are living in? If the answer is yes, then you should also ask yourself:
Question 1.1.: Am I in a situation where money is everything I care because I need it based on X situation I'm currently experiencing"?
If then answer is yes, then go ahead with your bootcamp.
If the answer is no, then you should research more on courses you are actually interested in or you care about.
Important notice
Please, be aware making these kind of decisions (applies to every other aspect in life too) solely based on money, is likely to lead to several moments of frustration when troubles within the learning curve appear (trust me, they will).
And they will keep appearing as you move along subjects and frameworks within your IT career.
If money is the only thing in your mind, you are leaving behind several factors that can keep you in this career longer and having a more fruitful and enjoyable journey.
Many years of focusing only on money will most likely provide you stability and "peace of mind". This is actually a temporal state.
Soon after, the subject of purpose will appear and you will spend lots of times wondering why you're not as motivated as in the beginning, why you feel depressed even if you accomplish work goals within time limits and so on.
These type of initial questions will provide you with a longer and a more fruitful career and enjoyable journey that you will be able to sustain and grow and diversify for years to come.
Manage Expectations
Expectations are one of the most underrated subjects in life.
They rule silently over every achievement, no matter the size of it or which area in life, we have within our personal and professional endeavours.
Duration and Outcome
Are you expecting to finish that "5/6/7/8 months course" and immediately get a job at a <your country's dream company to work at> ?
Statistics say you are most likely to be wrong
Personally, I'm aware of this trend about certain courses that promise:
Short timeframe spent on subjects delivered by people in the IT world with years of experience.
Subjects of study are highly technical and require several knowledge items from different backgrounds but somehow you will be able to understand and build really awesome and professional stuff with them in no time.
By the end of the course, you should be able to land the job you want (or one that is close enough) or join one of many companies that support these bootcamps. This is also wrong.
Second language
For my fellow nonnative English speakers:
Do you expect to work in IT and never learn a second language (most likely English)?
You are most definitely wrong. Please have a look at these articles for reference:
Ranked: The 100 Most Spoken Languages Around the World
The 10 Most Spoken Languages In The World
Coding Is for Everyone—as Long as You Speak English
Ok, where do I start?
At the end of the day, there is a 99.999% chance you will be working within a team of people, hopefully cool and nice people, in building and maintaining a platform that provides a service or a product for thousands/millions of users.
That being said, it would be nice to know the basics on how interactions within a team happen, expectations when developing a feature, common standard team practices and problem-solving techniques that will help you ease your way and hit the ground running on day one.
Here are a few material sources I'd highly recommend for you to go through that will give you all these insights and hopefully will spark your curiosity to learn more as you look forward to your first job:
10 PMI Certifications to Level Up Your Project Management Career (2022)
An Overview of the Scrum Framework | Scrum Alliance
Another great and useful way of getting acquainted with tools and frameworks is interacting with services over the internet (e.g.: APIs or Application Programming Interface) and understanding what kind of requests we need to make in order to get the response we are expecting to receive.
This is the main reason I've got a dedicated post for this topic with free resources/tools and frameworks to start learning, please feel free to check it out:
The ultimate guide for API builders
As always, keep collaborating, keep writing, keep learning and building something you're proud of.
Stay safe,
Juan.