Should I Start a Remote Coding Bootcamp During a Global Pandemic?

Well, first, stop letting random people writing Medium articles determine what you do next with your life.

In terms of answering the question at hand: self-awareness, as with anything, is needed.

do you have the time?

I recently spoke with someone who found my experience interesting but said he couldn’t consider it because he works 18 hours a day….fair. There are online, self-paced, and on-campus options all with their own time commitments so you can determine for yourself which best fits your schedule and your needs.

do you have the money?

Honestly, this one doesn’t matter as much if you’re fine with taking out loans because you approach the course as an investment rather than a cost. There are scholarships available and crowdsourcing if you’re comfortable with putting yourself out there. Nonetheless, if you’re going to starve to attend, I might reconsider my options.

do you have the energy?

THIS. THIS is the right question to be asking. I’m in class every day for 9 hours from 9 am to 6 pm. That is not a typo. That is my schedule. And it has been for months. My shoulders are hunched from bending over a keyboard from sun up to sundown and my lower back often hurts because I sit in a plastic chair building React apps through a screen the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Quite frankly, I’m not sure why you’d bother spending thousands of dollars and commit yourself to be out of work for months if you weren’t truly dedicated but sometimes people are weird so I must address it.

If you’re not passionate, you’re not going to be able to cheat your way through this one.

do you have the vision?

Do you even know why you want to do this? Because that WHY will be the only thing that allows you to sleep late and wake up early because of code only to find out this whole time it was a typo on line 66. Yet, you still have a smile on your face and eagerness to learn more.

This isn’t a cute joke where you keyboard smash and magically break into Fort Knox. It’s hard work.

If you’re unsure, I’d say test for yourself how committed you feel by learning from the free resources online like YouTube and W3Schools before committing stacks of cash to something you might not pass. But if you’re prepared for it, all power to you and I wish you the best of luck in starting your new journey in software development!

Feel free to reach out if you need anything or refer back to my previous posts for some coding content.

Thank you for reading!