It's always a little scary changing jobs. It's frightening changing careers.
Fortunately, I chose the right one.

In January 2018, my experience with coding was, well, Myspace layouts in the mid 2000's to junior computer science courses 7 years ago in high school. In July, I went from barely getting my way around a command line prompt to pumping out full-stack web applications I could be proud of.

I will say, this is not a magic pill you can swallow, nor is it to be looked at like a passive investment you can throw money at to instantly become a coding wizard. It's a serious amount of work that takes serious dedication. You MUST have an inviting, open-mind with a desire to learn, yearning to go home and research more about what you didn't digest in class, discipline in practice, and you need to be able to handle rejection. Your computer will (likely) reject every problem you try to solve 9 times out 10 until you try that euphoric number 10, and your current solution works as desired (sometimes).

Ultimately, everything you do boils down to 0's and 1's. If you do not have any of the traits above, you will be hitting 0's and not meeting the necessary conditionals, yet if you can do all of the above, you are a perfect, sweet, beautiful 1 and can do whatever you want.

The class begins by walking you down memory lane of the beginnings of the internet and how absolutely horrible we had it. You'll learn how to operate a command line, HTML and CSS (Myspace anyone?), then you'll get into Javascript and Jquery and you'll feel terrible about every life decision you made to that point. But don't panic, the class will move fast, and you won't feel confident and comfortable with every step. But you will practice, and you will learn on your own, and then you'll practice, and then you'll watch some kid on YouTube breeze through something you thought was practically impossible, and then you'll practice, and then you'll do your homework, and then you will get more practice.

You'll learn what an API is, move on to database management like Firebase and MySQL, and those together will change your views on how the world handles, stores, and processes information (sometimes, a lot of the times, your personal information!). You'll get into Node.js and not have any idea what it is until you start doing it and continue to do it and, of course, practice. And after that, you might still not know what it is, but you might, probably just know what it does but, eventually, you'll get into firing up an Express server and BOOM, you've created a full-stack application with no clue on how to replicate it aside from looking at previous class examples and/or your code.

And that's okay, keep doing that.

After that, holy smokes MongoDB, why do we even use SQL databases anymore? To make a long story short on that, it's flexible, easier to query (and store data) and there are dozens of free services that do most of that for you. But, on the other hand, SQL has the upper hand when it comes to joining and organizing two or more sets of data. But that's not relevant right now. 

What I was getting to this entire time was the mac-daddy React.js. This is going to be very painful, but it is going to be the MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE CLASS. I said that right, it will combine your entire set of skills up to that point and test your patience on multiple levels. React.js is a front-end framework (what does that mean? *answer: GOOGLE IT*) that the lizard people over at Facebook developed that changed the game for web development (I'm leaving Angular and Vue out of the conversation because I don't know them and I don't talk to strangers). But for real, it's a tough-TOUGH part of the curriculum because it leaves a lot of what you've done with HTML/Handlebars/Jquery by the wayside and makes you rethink the way you construct your applications. Luckily, elements of the above still apply which means you can squiggle by, but it will be an essential part of your hiring process as multiple companies are looking for Full Stack MERN (MongoDB/Express/React/Node) Developers. 

This class will not hold your hand through the experience. You will be challenged. You will need to practice. You might be in luck, like I was, and have an awesome, engaging, experienced instructor and supported by patient, graduates of the program in teaching assistants and it will make your life easier.

I landed a contract position with an IT service management company two months after the course ended, and you'll see me in February as a patient, graduate of the program, teaching assistant.

I recommend this to you on the previous conditions of 0's and 1's.

var student;

if(student === 1) {

student = fullStackDeveloper;

} else {

student = unsuccessful;

}

Remember, Google and YouTube are your friends, reviewing your, or other people code is your partner, asking for help is your doctor, and practice is your job.

Good luck! 

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Hat's off to the entire staff that put together our Coding Bootcamp experience. Their passion for helping each student succeed far exceeded my expectations. As previously mentioned in the comments, the instructors are top industry professionals, knowledgeable about the technologies being taught and offer industry insight that you wouldn't get without on campus classes. You also have TA's available, ones that have already gone through the course with tremendous success. They understand the struggles and are their to guide you along the way. Our student success manager and career services team are also very helpful. Point blank, this team is full invested in your individual success.

As far as technologies, you start with a foundation in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. You are then exposed to more complex, but very useful tools, that help round out your front end skills before diving into database structures and back end technologies. Before you know it, you are designing a full fledge application using the MERN stack. After 7 months, you'll have an understanding of MVC frameworks, user authentication, JSON Web Tokens, React, ES6, and much more. 

The course is rigorous, fast paced, and demanding, but the hard hours are worth it. I feel much more qualified in my career transition than if I were to have studied on my own. I highly recommend this Coding Bootcamp to all interested in starting a web development career.

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I had no experience coding before starting this bootcamp. My experience was soley in the financial industry. I was referred by a friend to attend SMU's bootcamp because I have wanted to break into the tech industry for quite sometime now. After going through this program all I can say is wow. The sleepless nights are worth it when you go through this program. It is very hands on and challenging to say the least. The instructional staff are professionals who have experience in the industry. You get a student success manager, career services, and access to Teachers Assistants who are willing to help you every step of the way. 

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