Week 6 at LEARN Academy
This is part 7 in a series about my experience at LEARN Academy coding bootcamp in San Diego, CA. You can read why I decided to go to bootcamp here, and also catch up with my thoughts on Week One, Week Two, Week Three , Week Four and Week 5.
Week 6 – SQL and putting it all together
This was a big week at LEARN. We began with SQL and by the end of the week we had put together the previous five weeks of learning with our new database knowledge. The sprint to full-stack is over and now we can focus on fine-tuning our skills and putting them into practice.
It was fun for me to dig deep into my past and remember my database days. We began the week with basic SQL, and moved on to joins and learning about relationships between tables. I was reminded about how much I love working with databases. I thoroughly enjoy joining sets of data and extracting specific information.
Using Postgresql as a tool took a bit of getting used to. It helped my confidence that I already have a good knowledge of databases. I just needed to focus on learning the new tool. After a few days of Postgresql, we moved on to Active Record and the “model” part of MVC in Rails.
I was confused at first as to why we progressed through the curriculum the way we did, but by the end of the week it made sense. I like how we always learn concepts and how things work before we move onto learning the tools that make things easier for us.
On Friday we were worked on a project that put all 6 weeks of our boot camp learning together into practice. I’m excited to say that I am now a full-stack developer. I have all of the basic tools I need to build a web application from the front-end to the back-end. It seems so crazy!
This week was personally very mentally challenging for me. SQL wasn’t complicated or hard to understand, but putting together six straight weeks of accelerated learning of complicated subjects has been really taxing. By Friday I wasn’t sure I could take on any more new information. I felt like my brain was full and if I was to try to add in anything else it would just spill over into oblivion.
The good news is that the upcoming week is professional development week, where we focus on preparing for the future. It will be a much needed break from new technical information, and we can take some time to process all of this new knowledge.
It has been a crazy sprint to get here, but the hard work has been more than worth it. Learning to code is something I have always wanted to do. It has been extremely hard, but if it was easy, there would be a lot more people doing it. I’m so proud of myself and I’m excited to see what amazing things my future holds.
Only one new lunch spot this week, Al Reef mediterranean for a delicious gyros sandwich. The rest of the week I returned to some familiar lunch places with my cohorts. We went to Thai Time, urbn, Luche Libre, and Florentinos.
Up next – Professional Development Week