My Flatiron Experience
When I joined Flatiron I did not know what to expect besides the fact that I would be working hard for the next 15 weeks. Currently, I am in phase 4 of the program and have passed the final code challenge. I’ve come to notice a predictable flow that might make it easier or less stressful for someone joining the program. I will be going over how I felt during each phase, what we learned during that phase, and hopefully ensuring you that it will all be okay.
Phase 1
At the beginning of this phase I was already nervous, being that I had no programming background when joining Flatiron besides some Codecademy and the pre-work that they give you after you are enrolled. Day 1 they release all the labs for you to start working on and lectures to watch and it felt overwhelming. The learning curve of the environment, working with Github for the first time, and not knowing how to ask for help makes you feel like you a drowning. I felt this way the whole first week, and it just got worse as the week went on and additional information got hurled at me. The weekends are for catching-up and completing labs. This is when you really digest the information and things start to click. Preparing for the first code challenge was stressful as well. How stressful can depend on the person as I get bad test anxiety. Project week, when you create things on your own and put into practice what you have learned, really helps you understand the material and you start trusting the process Flatiron has created.
Phase 2
The feeling of confidence and trusting the process quickly dissipates as week 1 of phase 2 begins. In this phase you go from just playing around with Ruby and building command line interfaces to learning Rails. Week 1 of every phase is the hardest as all new information gets thrown at you. It again comes to see if it can break me and really makes me rethink if I belong. Again it follows the same process as phase 1. It takes a bit to start understanding and I was stressed the whole time. But surely enough, like phase 1, you keep pushing through and you start understanding enough to make it through. You will get to touch some html in this phase as well. This project will be much more polished looking compared to the project you made in phase 1 and you will feel very proud of it.
Phase 3
In this phase you will be learning JavaScript and learn how to build out CRUD for the frontend and do fetches. You will have fully built out CRUD in Rails in phase 2, but that is more for you to understand the concepts and build out a backend local server. The week 1 struggles came for me again, and at this point you will start to feel burnout and mentally tired of the pace of this course. You will be warned about burnout the entirety of the program, but there is little that can be done to avoid it being that the workload and learning curve is so steep. The code challenge this phase was personally one of the harder ones being that the whole challenge builds off of the previous questions, so one error will throw everything off. When I survived this phase I felt like I would actually make it through the program. This built a little more confidence. I started to really lean on people in my cohort to help me understand subjects which really made everything easier. The design of cohorts really does build a community that supports learning and growth and helps break down personal feelings of imposter syndrome.
Phase 4
At this point I became a bit numb to the learning pains. So the week 1 shock of “I know nothing” started to become less of an issue. In this phase, I learned about React. React is still part of JavaScript so the learning curve was less steep. I am currently in the project portion of the phase, and I have really enjoyed it so far. Working on projects is really the best way for me to gain a better understanding of a new skill.
The Take Away
The things I am taking away form my Flatiron experience is not only learning of new languages like Ruby and JavaScript, but being put in a new environment and feeling lost and knowing how to deal with it. The struggle I went through at Flatiron made it so I can push myself through any blockages I might face transitioning into the workforce and solo learning. You will not become a master of Ruby or JavaScript in just 15 weeks, but you will learn how to gain the knowledge to become one. The flow of the program, putting you at an extreme pace, makes it so you are under a pressured learning environment, but also teaching you that it is ok. Anyone who makes it through this program can be dropped into a workplace and will be able to adapt to the learning curve of a new job quickly and know how to deal with the stress. Overall, even though I am not quite done with the program, I feel like Flatiron does a great job at preparing people for a new career path.
