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Table of Contents

Our Approach to Learning

Dev Bootcamp requires you to acclimate to a new learning environment and mindset. You will be confronted daily by your own technical and cultural limitations. Without grades, you will have to assess yourself and determine whether you are progressing at a rate that satisfies you.

A Dev Bootcamp teacher's role is to act as a guide and resource, rather than a transmitter of information or an "expert." You will learn new information and technologies mainly through challenges, spending the majority of your time working and learning with a pair or group.

In order to be successful at Dev Bootcamp, students need to:

  1. Be comfortable not knowing everything
  2. Be willing to make mistakes
  3. Turn failures into learning opportunities
  4. Ask questions, even when they think they know
  5. Be excited to teach others
  6. Adopt, adapt, or create approaches to solving problems

Remote learning requires an organized approach. You will have to manage peer pairing, Guided Pairing Sessions, challenges per week, reflections, etc. Phase 0 also requires you to communicate a lot. We depend on you to initiate a conversation when you are falling behind or having difficulty. Dev Bootcamp relies on students taking the initiative to learn.

Also see Learn to Code or Code to Learn?

Tips for Success

Whatever your learning or thinking style, here are a few strategies you can try to incorporate to help you learn and succeed.

  1. Take Breaks You'll be amazed at how much easier it is to solve problems after a quick walk or a cup of tea.
  2. Get Sleep If you aren't making progress and you are tired, go to bed. We guarantee you that you will have an easier time solving the problem tomorrow.
  3. Pseudocode Do not expect yourself to write code without having to think through an approach, and give yourself the time and space you need to think and pseudocode a strategy. Practice pseudocoding even when you think you don't need to. It will be even more important when you get to more intricate problems, and you don't want to have to learn how to do it when you need it most.
  4. Be honest with yourself If you don't understand something, ask. Each person comes to the program with different knowledge, levels, and experiences, and it's important to give yourself the space to ask questions. No one knows everything, and contrary to what you may feel, you aren't the only person who doesn't get something.
  5. Be curious If you don't know why something works, go into IRB and break it down. Figure out what it's doing at every step. IRB is a great way of really learning how to tinker with code and learn what methods are doing. Challenge yourself to use it and never be satisfied with not knowing how or why something works.
  6. Be true to you, pt. 1 Don't think you have to ascribe or assimilate to some stereotype of how you think programmers work. If you need to work with people, seek out your cohort mates, attend meet ups, pair with friends to get what you need. Don't lock yourself in a room for 12 hours while you bang your head against a wall hoping to figure it out because that's what you think programmers do. If you need to stop programming at a certain time, do it. Whatever you need, do it.
  7. Be true to you, pt. 2 Also, recognize that you don't have to "fall in love" with coding. It's ok to be frustrated, it's also ok not to have fun occasionally when you're stuck. If you see coding as a means to an (awesome!) end, that's fine. If you see coding as a be all end all, that's fine too. Avoid comparing yourself to a stereotype or "typical programmer" that you've made up to determine your value, aptitude, or ability.

##Things to be Aware Of

Not for Everyone

That said, the Dev Bootcamp experience is not for everyone. The curriculum condenses an inordinate amount of information into 9 weeks, and the rigor, pace, and teaching style does not suit every student's needs. It is important to be honest with yourself and your teachers if this teaching style does not suit your learning needs.

Yellow flags

We gauge a student's fit in Phase 0 and Dev Bootcamp through their kindness, integrity, and effort that they put into the program. Participation and communication are key components. Students who demonstrate any or a combination of the indicators below may be put on a path for monitoring or being asked to leave. These indicators, or Yellow flags include, but are not limited to:

  • Leaving challenges unfinished
  • Not following the submission procedure
  • Copying code on solo challenges
  • Demonstrating apathy for their pair or the challenge
  • Letting a pair drive and navigate during a GPS session (taking a back seat)
  • Missing Guided Pairing Sessions (GPS)
  • Missing scheduled peer-pairing sessions
  • Having difficulty engaging with a pair
  • Lacking the ability to demonstrate the learning outcomes
  • Failing to submit or rate feedback
  • Not submitting the Reflections

Getting asked to leave

It's not our goal to kick people out of the program. It is our goal to identify people who will not thrive at Dev Bootcamp. We take the decision to ask a student to leave seriously, and we do so after considerable thought. Having one yellow flag emerge during the course of Phase 0 is NOT a deal-breaker in and of itself, but showing a combination or repeatedly demonstrating any of these indicators is a problem.