When I decided to learn at Flatiron school, there was much known, and more I didn’t know. My previous experience was as a Graphic Designer, and I created a web design of a potential web application. After entering the Bootcamp, I needed to learn how to structure my time. The time I gave at the beginning was the time recommended. Still, when learning a new curriculum you’ve only had a brief time with, there should be an effort on your part to touch upon your learning skills. Learning my study habits and reworking them was difficult and took patience. In the beginning, I had to relisten to lectures and pay close attention to the labs. When it came time for my first project, I was behind and worried. The confidence I gained came from the amount of material Flatiron provides. There is so much to find about how to implement one thing or the syntax of another.
After passing my first assessment, I was less confident because of the hurdle I took to get passed it. What challenged me was that I learned that I need to find more time to study and practice coding. Learning out to take notes and recite them when asked is essential. Practicing all the code I’ve learned plus more. The concepts of what worked and what has changed tripped me up on my next assessment, so I repeated the section. The Rails framework was so dense, and I thought about studying it without forgetting Sinatra and Ruby too much. Still, in the end, I needed to not worry about failing because it repeated itself in some instances.
Active Record is where learning about your server-side application uses all of your prior knowledge in theory. Much of my experience was with CRUD being the backbone of Rails. Looking into the routes and learning the flow of it all to the controllers. After I passed my Rails application, I thought that JavaScript before looking into it was like building forms. Still, then I had to learn how to use the fetch() method and about Object-Oriented JavaScript. These concepts were challenging, and again I needed to make a plan to transition. It is responsible for looking into the technologies you will be using before you start the curriculum. I learned this the hard way and tried to get a feel of things on the go.
By the time I made it to the last module, I had figured out a way to learn React and Redux and still practice my previous lessons because I knew they’d come in hand. I was getting familiar with projects that used React and examples on Redux, Components, and import/exporting modules. All came in handy when building out my applications. I made two for practice, and whatever I knew was implemented into my final. They were not entirely different from one another, but I would have fun with other domains. Working on all of this was possible with a ton of support, great cohort leads, and educational coaches.