How I finally got to go to a coding bootcamp...for FREE!!!

OH MY GOSH!!!  I don't know how I didn't find out about this till just this week!  You know how I taught myself to code and got hired at ZipList this past year and my life has been great ever since :-)

That is true, however I have a lot of knowledge gaps.  It has always been my dream to one day be able to attend a Coding Bootcamp and fill some of those coding knowledge gaps.  I have never been able to make that dream a reality do to having a family, overall cost, and not being able to make an income to pay for me bills while attending the Bootcamp.  I have heard countless horror stories and sad tales of Coding Bootcamps, so I have always looked into new coding schools carefully.


I have done my research and found what in my opinion is the best Coding Bootcamp in the world: Hack Reactor.  The "Harvard" of Coding Bootcamps if you will.  I have never heard anything bad about the place, I've talked to one of the founders Shawn Drost, and have decided that it is without a doubt the best Coding Bootcamp there is.  Hack Reactor is not cheap, it is one of the most expensive bootcamps out there, and I think they are justified in there tuition costs.  When you leave Hack Reactor you walk away as a full blown developer.  They don't simply make you a junior level developer.  That is the main difference with the school versus any other Coding Bootcamp out there.


Now, for me, everything has changed.  I finally found a Coding Bootcamp that is actually recommended as the "next best" option by Hack Reactor's co founder @shawndrost.  If someone who co founded the best Coding Bootcamp in the world recommends it, than I have to check it out!

The name?

                          Epicodus.


The cost?  Extremely affordable!  The founder of Epicodus @michaelrkn is almost running it in my opinion as a non profit :-)


Here is the truly amazing part, Michael Kaiser-Nyman is SO nice, he puts up the entire Epicodus course work online for anyone to go through for FREE!  I can't tell you how many people have gone through cheaper online Bootcamps paying somewhere between $3,000 - $6,000 dollars and come out on the other side not being able to land a job.  I always tell people to stay away from most Bootcamps and to learn it on your own.


Well now, there is no excuse!!!  I can't figure out why the entire Internet is not blowing up over this Epicodus boot camp???  I have stopped doing my other courses and am dedicating myself to doing the entire Epicodus coursework. The Epicodus course is 40 hours worth of work for 16 weeks.

My goal is to study 2 - 3 hours per night 7 days a week.  If I can study between 14 - 21 hours per week on top of working and family, I should be able to complete the entire coursework in 30 - 45 weeks.  The earliest time frame would put me at March 1st 2015, the second best completion time frame would be June 15th 2015.


I am finishing my 3rd day of doing the course, I am not skipping anything I don't care if I think I know it or not, I am going through the entire course no exceptions!  I have put in 5 hours 10 minutes of studying time in the previous 3 days, so not too bad if I can keep it up :-) 


I don't know if down the road Michael Kaiser-Nyman founder of Epicodus will take the coursework down, I hope not.  Anyone who wants to learn how to code would be stupid to not do the entire Epicodus course work.  Better yet go to the school itself.  Here is where you can go to do the Epicodus course work: 

                                              Epicodus Coursework



I hope I can help to in some small way repay Michael Kaiser-Nyman for his amazing course and generosity by putting his site permanently on this blog. I want to help to get the word out about the Epicodus course, I will let you all know how it is going with updates about the program coursework.

From just the few online videos I have done on the Epicodus course material:

http://www.learnhowtoprogram.com/

I have been absolutely blown away by how incredible Michael's teaching style is.  If I could compare him to any other course or coding instructional tutorial I've ever taken it would be closest to Mattan Griffel of One Month Rails.  His teaching style is phenomenal which is why I can't believe how awesome this opportunity is!  Anyone and everyone who is trying to learn how to program and than get hired on an engineering team, should take the course!


OKAY...I will stop rambling, I am in cloud 9!!!  My life is good.  In other news, I am still doing the ambidextrous hammer and non dominant cursive writing training.  I'm still pair programming with my brother Cody every Wednesday till around 1am  :-)   I Shot my lowest golf round ever a 103, I even had 1 golf drive that went just over 270 yards!  Life is good my friends!

Keep coding peeps  =-)

Pair Programming

There is nothing like pair programming with someone else till 1 a.m. in the morning!  Magical things seem to happen when you are up that late trying to learn more about coding :-)


It's so much better to be hired and be able to practice coding than to simply be reading about it and studying on your own time.  For example, when I took an online Rails SASS Berkeley course on EDx, the course talked about Agile methodologies, User stories,  3 week coding sprints, and software life cycles.

I passed the course, got my grade and felt good.  The truth is I didn't know anything about Agile or how it worked.  When interviewed I mumbled something I had heard in class about weekly Scrum meetings being important.  I still don't know much about Agile and don't pretend to.  However as ZipList ( the company I work for ) ZipList just launched the new website yesterday, a project that just started when I was hired on in August.  I find all of the Agile terms meaning so much more to me and not just something to say in an interview.


I am loving learning, loving this whole coding thing!  I still have a LOT to be desired in my skills and abilities, which brings me to pair programming.  Every Wednesday evening from 7:30p.m. till usually 1a.m.  I pair program with my brother Cody.  I love that after every coding session we both walk away just a little bit better in some way.  There is nothing that will help you learn faster than pair programming with others at least once a week.

I am fairly good at Haml and Scss, and Git.  My brother is a coding logic savant.  He eats tough coding challenges and laughs whenever I get stuck :-)  In fact after I showed him Project Euler he went home the next day and decided to easily complete problem 168 without much difficulty.


I help him with his front end knowledge and he helps me with coding logic, a perfect match.  Find someone to study with.  You will have a lot of fun, help each other, and grow your coding knowledge like you are on steroids!


In other news I am re-doing my entire book "No Degree, No Problem".  It needed A LOT if editing and grammatical cleaning up.  I am also adding several more chapters that I think will help people learn how to code and get hired much faster.  Hopefully next month the book will be done and re-released :-)


Keep coding peeps, it gets addictive after a while  =-)

Coding Bread Crumbs

I realize my writing isn't that much about code anymore.  Not because I don't like to code, on the contrary, I find myself wanting to learn more then ever.  I never wanted my blog to be only code tutorials.  I wanted it to be a small path of helpful breadcrumbs to show others where I went in the mysterious, dark and sometimes lonely coding forest.  A small trail that others who got lost in the forest might find to help guide them on their way. One thing that hasn't changed since getting hired is the need to learn.  Learn as much, as fast as possible, without much training or help.

My course was almost completed. Now there has been an unexpected "monkey wrench" thrown into the mix.  That's okay, the only thing that doesn't keep changing is change itself.  The one natural talent or God given gift I possess is determination.

Whenever in my life I have gotten complacent, something happens that jerks me back to reality and reminds me of my one true strength grit.  The same toughness that allowed me to shoe 20 horses in a single day. The same never give up attitude that left me unable to drive home, laying on the ground vomiting from heat stroke waiting for my wife to come drive me home, all to keep my word to finish all of the horses I promised to do. The same ability to mentally deal with the pain of my pinkie and thumb broken, and shoe another 5 horses before I stopped for the day.

Life is like that, some things change, some things don't. I am grateful for the ability to be tough when things get hard. Sometimes I should give up and I don't. There is so much to learn in software, you never really make it. It reminds me of looking out at the ocean from the 16th story of a hotel room, feeling so small and the ocean so vast.

People have accused me in rather mean emails of romanticizing the 'learning to code' journey, making it sound easier then it actual is.  I hope I only convey the love for learning and for the ability to take life by the horns and change your life for the better.  I get excited about that, I get excited when some coding problem 'clicks'.  Sometimes, I notice how big the coding ocean is and get scared.  Usually I just focus on making myself better at navigating my coding ship. So one day, I may be able to hold my own through small waves and eventually a real storm.

I love the 'WBP' coaching I am getting from Michael Lavery, but will be stopping for a little while as I need to focus on re-doing my course to make it a better fit for beginners as well as some other things that I can't mention here. I was able to bounce a golf ball 374 times in a row with my left hand off of a 16 oz. claw hammer.  If you've never tried, you should.  Most people can't bounce a golf ball 3 times in a row.  I really feel like my corpus callosum is feeling the effects of all the brain training exercises I am doing.  I feel my speed is increasing at learning new things.  I am still sleeping like a baby :-)

As we approach the 1 year anniversary of my book I thought what better way to say thank you to everyone then by giving a lot more incredibly useful information at no additional cost :-) I am going to be editing, revising, and adding a whole lot more content to the book.  Originally I was going to write another e-book that I was going to release this fall, showing people how to speed up their coding abilities entitled: "Hacking How To Program"  The book's main purpose being how to help people learn how to code much faster simply by learning the 80 20 rule of coding and get past a lot of the 'sticking' points of learning how to code.  Now though if you have bought my book previously, I am sure that Amazon will send out an updated copy of the book once it is finished.  You don't want to miss some of the secrets I have learned the hard way while learning to code!



Keep coding peeps, the seas eventually start to calm :-)

Ambidextrous Coding - 2 week update

Well things have been happening, life is good! This Whole Brain Power training is really working. Everything in my life right now is improving.  My golf game is doing better, I typically drive a golf ball 200 - 220 yards, after 1 week of intensely doing the 'WBP' training regime my drives now average 220 - 240 yards.

I also took up juggling and have caught as many as 402 throws in a row without dropping any of the balls, after only 10 days! My wife knows sign language so I had her teach me the alphabet. After watching her and trying 4 times I was able to memorize and do the entire sign language alphabet!!!

It honestly felt like someone else was doing the learning for me that's how much easier it was for me to retain the new information. Instead of it feeling like I was trying so hard to remember each hand sign. it was almost like I couldn't forget the hand gesture as I went back through the alphabet to recall each one! The same for solving a coding issue or 'bug', this week at work I seemed like I was able to get unstuck from issues 50% faster then before starting the 'WBP' training program.

My course is almost done, and should be live on Udemy on July 1st, it has taken a lot longer, and has been a WHOLE lot more work, then I had originally anticipated it would be. I am feeling SO happy to almost have it completed.

Since starting the 'WBP' training 2 weeks ago, I have lost 2 pounds (without changing anything to my diet) and feel stronger then when I was shoeing horses everyday for a living. My mood is more elevated, I can feel myself being able to focus like a laser beam for an extended period of time without really trying.

If you are learning to code, or learning a new programming language you need to get Coach Lavery's  Whole Brain Power book and try the brain enhancing exercises for 30 days. I wish I had started doing 'WBP' at the beginning of my learning to code journey.

Here is a sample of me learning Javascript, writing out the data types in left handed cursive ( I am a natural right hander), YOU CAN'T forget them after doing that :-)

Keep coding peeps! You can do this =-)

Whole Brain Power Coding

I promised to always tell you what I am doing to improve my coding skills, to be honest on what works. 2.5 years ago I read this book: Whole Brain Power by Michael J. Lavery and started doing 1 of the brain training exercises suggested in his book to improve your brain. I did the hammer drills brain training exercise which I shared previously with you as one of the best things I ever did while learning to code to help keep my mind fresh here in this post: The blacksmith secret I use everyday to keep mentally sharp.

What I failed to mention is, I am not the originator of this learning 'secret' but in fact Mr. Michael J. Lavery. All I did was find another application for how to help myself learn to code quicker. The main reason for me not mention Mr. Lavery's book previously, was I felt weird enough already with my unusual background, education, and learning strategies to feel comfortable sharing more unconventional ways of learning.

However things have changed, I feel so strongly about Whole Brain Power 'WBP' and Coach Lavery's training methods and to techniques to radically improve your brain, I have decided to do coaching with Mr. Lavery himself. I am also having a link to his site: http://www.wholebrainpowercoaching.com/ and his book.

This is not any kind of affiliate link deal where I receive money when people click on the link or buy the book. No, the purchase of the book goes straight to Mr. Lavery, not me. Just so there is no misunderstanding :-)

After talking to Mr. Lavery about the fantastic clarity and focus I am having by using the hammer drills Coach Lavery promptly let me know that I was actually doing less then 30% of the the training methodologies he teaches in his book. He also conducted a 20 minute 'communications game' on the phone where it was painfully obvious how sloppy I have become with my speech.

On the bright side after realizing how little of the Whole Brain Power training methods  I was currently incorporating into my daily life. Coach Lavery was quick to encourage me that if I would commit to doing the entire 'WBP' training program, I would soon see nothing short of incredible changes in my brain, body, and furthermore my focus would go through the roof.

I have taken the good man's advice and for the past 5 days have done absolutely everything suggested to do in the Whole Brain Power book and am already seeing huge improvements in my speech, focus, mental clarity, and also my sleep.

From staying up into the early hours of the morning for the past couple of years, pushing myself to learn how to program, I have develop a terrible issue with being able to sleep at night. I am not a whiner which Is why I have never mentioned this issue before.

I would go to bed exhausted but unable to sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning most nights. I would then wake up the next morning at 7a.m. feeling very tired. I started taking some natural essential oils to help myself go to sleep.

After the first day of doing the 'WBP' left handed writing exercises for 20 minutes. I slept like a baby!!! Deep restful sleep not my typical 'light' sleeping. It felt SO good to experience the kind of sleep where your muscles feel relaxed when you wake up. Long story short, my sleeping is getting way better!

I finally decided to get over my awkwardness and let you all know about 'WBP' and how it is helping me. I apologize if I sound like a used car salesman in need of a buyer. I really believe 'WBP' is helping me learn Javascript at a much faster rate then before and to retain the information. As a recreational golfer I want to improve my golf game which I don't have the time to practice except for once a month. Coach Lavery tells me that if I really do all of 'WBP' training I will soon see incredible improvements in my golf game as well.

I am so excited, I recommend you not only get the Whole Brain Power book and read it, but also to try it out and do the exercises in the book as Coach Lavery recommends. I will be keeping you up to date on how things are going for me with 'WBP'. My learning of new languages like Javascript, as well as my overall brain improvement, and in my golf game.

People told me many times when I started this 'learning to code' journey that I was dumb to think I could simply 'learn to code' and expect a company to hire me without any degree or background in I.T.  I am sure I will hear that some more from people as I begin to push forward with something as unconventional as 'WBP'.  I say to those people in advance: "I don't care how unusual something is as long as it gets results".  If something doesn't work, you will see me running the other way as quick as possible, I have no time to waste on unproductive learning.  Whole Brain Power is not one of them.

Give the book a read and try the brain improvement exercises for yourself, I promise you will not regret it. Keep coding peeps! :-)