DevMountain (What I've Been Up To)

(I wrote this last week, but then busy and forgot about it. It never got posted. Well, until now, obviously, or you wouldn't be reading it. So here it is, slightly out of date as I am halfway through my first week back.)

A quick update on things and life.

It's been seven weeks now since I started going back to school, but not your typical school. It isn't a college or university, and it isn't quite a trade school, but it's similar. It's a bootcamp for coding, more specifically for web development and it earns the name of bootcamp. They say each day is equivalent to about a week in a more traditional school. I believe them.

Each day of the first six weeks has been spent learning new programming languages, libraries and frameworks in the morning with a hands on mini project with the instructor to try and help drill home what we're learning. Then after lunch we're on our own for the daily project with focus on what we were learning earlier that morning. The day starts at nine and ends at five. Monday through Friday for six weeks it's been this way. In the hours that are not technically school hours, there's more studying and practicing and working through problems and assessments. And if you ever reach a point where you feel there isn't anything else to do, it turns out, there is.

I spent most of those six weeks away from my family; working, learning and studying. I have so far reserved the weekends for them, though in the coming weeks, from my understanding I may need to work Saturdays as well (I decided at the beginning to keep Sunday's for my family).

This last week was our interim week. A break week. I'd planned on splitting my time between studying some new coding languages and spending time with my family. As it turns out, something funny happens in the early morning hours. My bed comes alive and the sheets knock me unconscious again. As a result, I spent my waking hours with my family. (I felt too guilty to spend much time away from them working, when I spent my working time sleeping).

Monday will mark my return to school and a new routine, spending most of my day programming. I'm sorry to be away from family again, but it's only another six weeks and then the course done and, hopefully, I'll be employed, making more money than I was when I worked for discover.

My experience so far at DevMountain has been fantastic, I've learned an incredible amount in a short amount of time and I'm looking forward to the rest of the course. For anyone interested in learning web development, whether for a career change (like me) or may because you're curious or just want to further you're learning. Or if you've already decided computer science is your thing and don't want to spend four years doing it. DevMountain is an excellent place to learn and develop new skills quickly.

Click here to learn more about them.