milacodes

[milacodes]

One Year Later

One year ago yesterday, I stepped into Coding Dojo’s Bellevue office. I was excited and terrified. Today, I feel the exact same way.

Quite a bit has happened since the last time I posted. I had a birthday. I was on the news. I started day-drinking. I watched a lot of HBO Go and Netflix. I adopted a Ukrainian toddler. (One or more of those things may or may not be a lie. That’s for me to know and you to find out.) Also, my basketball team won our Hoopfest bracket - again!

Oh, and I still have a job. So that’s awesome.

Things at work have been intense, hilarious, hectic, encouraging, disappointing, worrying, inspiring and a lot more. On a daily basis. I’m still on the WebOps team, helping TV stations with all their tech problems as best as I can.

Most of my time is still spent providing customer service/tech support. I had hoped to be doing some basic UX/UI development by now, but there just hasn’t been time or space for it. Even though we’re backed by a large broadcasting company, my office environment still feels very much like a start up. There are a lot of projects being developed and even more on the way, so it’s all hands on deck. As a support team, we have to know the products inside and out in order to know what the heck people are talking about when they call in and say something’s broken.

As a result, there hasn’t been a lot of time to step back and shadow a developer, or take time to tinker around on my own. But this company has a lot on its plate and they’re really trying to break new ground, so it’s an interesting place to be right now. And actually, our VP just sent out a company-wide email telling us that there are some awesome things on the horizon, and that now is the perfect time to carve a space for ourselves:

“I encourage each of you to spend time with me to understand how your work makes an impact and how we can invest in you as professionals in that context... If you have needs and expectations for your future, let's discuss them... Ask questions, figure out how you fit in, and ask for a career path you want as we grow.”

Plus, my manager (Brian) has been giving me small projects outside our regular support work to assist on and sometimes be a point of contact for. For example, I maintain the Wordpress site of one of Sinclair’s other sites, American Sports Network (ASN). And soon, I’ll be taking care of another Wordpress site that Sinclair manages - so I’ll be building my debugging skills because my main tasks will be to check out errors in code that I had no hand in writing. (Shout out to Shana for helping me debug my first WP ticket, by the way).

Also, with work piling up because of all of the new projects, there will probably be an opportunity for me to get my hands dirty with some front-end code. In fact, in the words of Brian, I’m “gonna get thrown in the deep end”. So, that’s...exciting and terrifying. Just like my first day at the Dojo.

AND, Brian saw my blog (when I applied for this job because I added the link on my resume, of course) and he’s given me a little writing outlet at work. I send out a weekly email (if I remember) to the WebOps team discussing recent issues or updates within the small side projects that I’ve been assigned to, just to keep folks abreast in my own quirky way. So, (almost) every Thursday, everyone learns about ASN or mobile app issues in my weekly digest, titled Thirsty Thursday - cuz them suckas is thirsty for knowledge. Every Thirsty Thursday ends with:

Stay thirsty, my friends. Mila

Or if I forget to send it on Thursday, it becomes a Fresh Friday and the sign off is:

Stay so fresh and so clean, clean. Mila

Either way, they’re reminded of something awesome - a fascinating ad campaign or one of the greatest rap groups of all time. You’re welcome, WebOps team. You’re welcome.

[milacodes]

OhMyGodINeedToDoMyTaxes (and other updates)

Heavens to Betsy, I need to get my taxes done. Time to call my accountant.

My accountant, James.

On an unrelated note: You guys remember when I said I would update you with how my first week was at my new job? Whoopsie daisy!

I’m about the start my 8th week, so there’s a lot to catch you up on. Strap in.

The Office My office is right next to Seattle Center. I’m actually in the KOMO building, on the same floor where they film the news. So far, I’ve had Molly Shen, Brad Goode and Steve Pool sightings. Look ‘em up. The People My coworkers are awesome. I can talk sports with at least 2 of them. Another taught me the history of Fiji and the different cultures the country has. And I can drop lines from Anchorman with another. Milk was a bad choice.

The Job It’s been interesting so far. I’m on the WebOps team, which provides customer service and support for the TV stations that use the CMS (Content Management System, like Wordpress) that Sinclair Digital built. Most issues the TV stations have are simple fixes like giving someone access to a certain site, or making edits to pages on the CMS. But every once in a while something in the CMS breaks and emergency calls start coming in. That’s where the WebOps team shines - or in my case, panic and escalate the problem as quickly as possible.

Me, whenever the phone rings.

For the first 7 weeks I’d been doing only customer service/support work and hadn’t looked at any code. That was a bit disappointing, but there were a couple reasons for this. One was that I needed to fully understand the process of helping customers navigate the CMS. Another was just the fact that I didn’t have the right computer. But that’s going to change soon. I’ve finally gotten set up on a Macbook pro with all the programs that I need. Soon, I’ll be able to take on some of the work that requires a code change, but doesn’t need to get escalated to the developers that are focused on other things, like implementing new features for the site.

Other Junk

I’m still an instructor for Girls Who Code. I was afraid work would be too busy, but my manager, Brian, has allowed me to participate every 3 weeks, so that’s awesome.

Brian has set me up with a mentor. She’s one of 2 female developers in the whole office. Our meetings have been helpful. Since I haven’t touched code yet, I haven’t had many work related tech questions to ask. But her main advice to me is to stay busy building my own projects so I don’t forget what I learned at Coding Dojo.

So, I dragged my friend, and fellow Coding Dojo grad, Shana into a weekly coding night. Both of our jobs aren’t code-heavy, so we meet every Wednesday after work and attempt to code. So far, I’ve built...nothing. But it’s the thought that counts.

I’ve realized how hard it is to have side projects outside of work. I need to keep up on my skills, but Grey’s Anatomy isn’t gonna watch itself, amiriiiiiiiiight?

Ugh. Taxes.

[milacodes]

It’s Black History Month, Y’all! (and other updates)

Hello, everybody! First off, Happy Black History Month. Let us all praise Queen Beyonce.

Good. Now, I know it’s been about a month since my last post, but, boy, do I have some updates for you. I had to take a break from posting because there were only so many times I could talk about my job search (aka lack of employment) before my soul crumbled to bits. But guess what! Last week, I accepted a job offer! It was only 6+ months ago that I started at Coding Dojo in order to gain a skill that would make me desirable enough for companies to offer me full-time, salaried positions, doing creative, challenging work. I guess all that hard work paid off. I got a job, y’all! I’m out of the contract game!

Hallelujah!

The company I’ll be working for is Sinclair Digital, which is a small offshoot of Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG), which owns a bunch of TV stations across the US, including Komo 4. SBG is headquartered in Baltimore, but their Sinclair Digital branch has set up shop in Seattle. So, I’ll be working in the Komo 4 building, down the street from Seattle Center. I get to stay in my city! Hazaa!

My role is Web Operations Support Associate II. Basically, SBG has a bunch of TV stations that need websites built. That’s where Sinclair Digital comes in. But those websites also need to be maintained and/or updated. So, those stations submit requests for changes/fixes. That’s where I come in. I can either check out the code to try and find the issue myself, or send it to proper team to make the fix. (I think that’ll be the workflow. I haven’t started yet. Countdown til Feb 22nd begins...now.) I think this job will be a great opportunity for me because it combines a lot of skills that I’ve built throughout my short career. Customer service (from the movie theater and Expedia), Code (Coding Dojo), Quality Assurance (Google, and my Software Testing/QA certificate from UW), and I get to be near media! During my interview, on my tour through the Komo 4 building, I actually saw spaces where they film news segments! So, I’m a little pumped about this situation right now.

How I feel.

In other news, I started volunteering with Girls Who Code a few weeks ago. The school I got placed at? None other than the great James A. Garfield High School, my alma mater. It was definitely weird to go back, but it’s awesome to see how it’s changed. Mine was the last class to graduate from the original building before it got remodeled, so everything’s a little different. The girls are quiet, just like I was (and very much still am), but the fact that they attend this after-school club shows that they know exactly how important code will be for their careers and future. They’re ahead of the game. I’d expect nothing less from a fellow Bulldog. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep helping the GHS Girls Who Code club now that I have a job, but I’m hoping the scheduling will work out. We’ll see!

That’s all for now! I’ll be sure to keep everybody posted on my first day. In the meantime, I have to take a drug test to complete my hiring process. Wish me luck! Just kidding. I’ll be fine. I’m not a hooligan.

[milacodes]

Happy New Year / Life update

I’m about a week late, but Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a very nice Festichristmahannukwanzicas season. Mine was delightful. Everybody came home for the holidays. My mother gave us all animal t-shirts.

I shall cherish it forever.

In other news, I’m still searching for a job. A lot of people from my cohort are still looking, too. Hopefully, now that the holidays are out of the way, things will pick up. I think one issue I’m encountering, though, is that there don’t seem to be many entry level or junior developer positions. Seems like companies don’t want to take the time to invest in and train folks anymore. Does everyone really have to come in with mid-career experience?? I don’t know, but I have hope that I’ll find something. I have to face every day like this dog:

Anyway, in my last post I said that I would update you on my portfolio. Update: it’s been done. Check it out on milacodes.github.io. It took me a while because I built it without the use of a front-end framework. I wanted to see how the image carousel, text animations, and all that jazz truly worked before I started using shortcuts. I think it turned out alright. Now that I’m done with that, I’ve started a couple courses on Udemy in order to learn some new skills and stay up on the skills I already have. I bought like 5 courses. I got a little too excited when I saw all the topics I could learn. They were on sale though, don’t worry. New Years Resolution sale for the win.

Me, when I saw the deals on Udemy’s site.

So, that’s about it. I spend my days finding jobs, filling out applications, watching videos on Udemy and continuing to build. There isn’t much of a schedule and I end up working til pretty late at night. It’s midnight as I’m writing this right now. I usually always feel like I had a great day since I got a lot of work done, but that thought always fades when I go to bed... Staring at this bright laptop screen so late into the night is really messing with my sleep schedule. Last night I went to bed at midnight. The last time that I saw on the clock was 3am.

It’s pretty terrible. But when I’m laying in bed, all I think about are sites that I want to build. Or techniques I want to learn. Or features I want to implement. I'm always thinking about code. So, I guess it’s not all bad. Or it is. Either one.

[milacodes]

Dear Mila, Thank you so much for the inspirational articles. They are entertaining and I took a very good lesson from it. I love programming and planned to travel to the US from Africa to learn code. I applied on Coding Dojo, I passed the assessment questions, my Skype interview scheduled for tonight. If everything is going right, I will be another black guy at CodingDojo :-) BTW, Congratulation on your black belt. Thank you!

Thanks for reading! And good luck on your interview!

[milacodes]

Quick Pre-Christmas Post

Hanukkah’s over, but there are still 10 days til Xmas and 11 days til Kwanzaa. And for all you heathens, 8 days til Festivus!

So, happy holidays, folks! I know it’s been a while since my last post. Now that the bootcamp is over, there haven’t been as many crazy/amazing/stressful/awesome things to report. But I still wanted to keep everybody in the loop. Since the bootcamp ended, as you know, I had one interview that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. But in my last post, I talked about how I’m okay with that. Since that interview, I have been working on polishing up projects and deploying them onto the interwebs for the world to see. Took me a while but I finally got that done. In fact, take a look at this one. It’s my own little scheduling app for all the pet/house-sitting I do around town. It was built using the MongoDB, Express, Angular and Node technologies, or MEAN, aka that one test I didn’t pass... Pfffffffft. Test, Schmest. MEAN can’t hold me down!

Anyway, now that my projects look fairly presentable, I’ve moved on to building my online portfolio, where I’ll introduce myself and display some of the projects I’ve done. I’m nowhere near being done, but here’s a lil preview. Don’t mind the mess.

The building of my portfolio is basically all Front-end web development. I won’t need to store any user information, so I won’t need a database or server. This website is purely HTML, CSS and JQuery (which is a library of pre-built JavaScript code).

In web development, to make things easier and faster, there are these things called frameworks, which are packages of standardized code. If a developer wants to quickly create a responsive site (able to scale to different screen sizes for phones and tablets) that has a polished look then they can easily use a front-end framework which has the necessary HTML, CSS and JS documents pre-built. Some of the most popular front-end frameworks are Bootstrap and Foundation, and in fact, each of my main projects uses a different front-end framework.

However, I am choosing to build my portfolio site without the use of a front-end framework. If I want to be a front-end developer I want to show that I know the process going on behind all of the pre-built code. This is taking a little longer than I thought, though...

Here are some things I’ve learned while trying to build my portfolio from scratch:

This is hard.

The learning never stops.

This is cool.

Now it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid...to be over. I’ve run out of classmates to profile. Since graduation, everybody has gone their separate ways, so I have no more pictures. Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted!

I’ll be checking back in to update everybody on how my portfolio is going!

[milacodes]

Post Thanxgiving Update

I just flew back from New York (where my family spent Thanksgiving) and boy are my arms tired... because they’re sore and achy, probably because I may or may not have the flu. But I knew it was coming. My body always does this to me. It holds on strong during the stressful or important times, then when it sees the coast is clear...BOOM. Mila gets sick. I can’t tell you how many times this happened to me in college, after finals week:

My good, old immune system held on through three months of an intense coding bootcamp, one month of residency, and one week in NY with the family. Now, it deserves a break. That’ll do, immune system. That’ll do. (Say it like the ending to Babe.)

Anyway, I’m a little under the weather right now, but I do have some updates to give you. Breaking News! There are now THREE black women on the Coding Dojo Black Belt wall! Congrats to Porsha R. for passing the MEAN stack test! Porsha is an awesome lady who has a coding blog of her own. Check it out here!

Not So Breaking News. My interview I had a couple Mondays ago didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I was asked to solve an algorithm that I was able to solve, but not without a little help from the interviewer. I also don’t think I talked out my thinking process very well. There were a few times when I was staring at the whiteboard thinking about my next steps, and the interviewer was left wondering what was going through my head. It’s necessary in these technical interviews to always communicate with the interviewer, so they know how you’re thinking and how well you communicate issues with others. However, with me being a prime example of an introvert, I’m used to being in my head; thinking things out before I act or speak. Soooo........that’s gotta change. It sucks that the interview didn’t go well, but I’m honestly okay with it. This was my very first technical interview and I know there are going to be some growing pains. I figure that I have to get a few more of them under my belt before I’m completely comfortable. Seattle is a major tech hub and I’m sure there will be more opportunities. I just hope I don’t run out of money first...

And now it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid! This week, meet Steven and Preston.

Steven is a UW graduate and Biology major. After realizing that he didn’t want to go to medical school (his original plan), he came to Coding Dojo, where his younger brother had succeeded a few cohorts before ours. Preston had an interesting job before Coding Dojo as a Surgical Recovery Tech. What do they do, you might ask? Well, according to Indeed.com, they are “responsible for the aseptic surgical recovery of donated cadaveric tissues and organs that are used in transplantation”. Bless your heart, Preston. Excuse me while I tend to my queasy stomach.

[milacodes]

Post Graduation Update

Long time no see, folks! Sorry for missing a couple posts. I’ve just been busy trying to get myself together, so I’m at least a little bit ready for the professional world. I am two weeks into Coding Dojo’s residency program; two weeks to go. My main focus has been completing/polishing projects so that they can be added to my portfolio/personal website (which I’m also building at the moment).

All of my projects have the same issue/fix that needs to be addressed. I’ve gotta make it look pretty. Coding Dojo’s curriculum is very ‘back-end’ heavy. The back-end of a website consists basically everything that the user doesn’t see, including properly inserting and retrieving user data into and from databases. I can understand Coding Dojo’s approach - if the data isn’t right, then the user is not happy. However, if the data doesn’t look pretty, or isn’t displayed in an aesthetically pleasing way, then the user isn’t happy either. So, I need to study up on ‘front-end’ development. At the dojo, we definitely learned the basics of HTML and CSS, but I want to learn more about the different front-end frameworks available, as well as interactivity and basic design principles. Plus, in this mobile world, I need to make sure that a site looks good not only on a laptop, but also on a phone. And I’ve got to hurry because throughout the program I realized that front-end is actually the area that I want to go into, career-wise. I’ve got a lot of YouTube tutorials to watch...

As a result of my push to learn front-end (and my need for a job), I’ve had to let go of a dream: I can no longer chase after that second Black Belt. I spent the most of the first week of residency preparing to take the MEAN belt over again. And that Saturday, *breaking news*, I failed again. My only consolation is that, unlike the other times I took the test, this time there wasn’t a specific error I came up against or issue that I couldn’t solve. I just ran out of time. If I had just another half hour, I know I could have done it. I was .5 points away from a passing score. This was the closest I had gotten. Unfortunately, it’s the closest I’ll ever get. *sigh*. MEAN belt, you have eluded me, you scoundrel. But I’ve spent too much time on you. I’ve got to move on...*sniffle*

But for any future employers out there, please understand that just because I didn’t pass the test in the allotted time, it doesn’t mean that I don’t understand MEAN. In fact, I have built more complete projects using MEAN than anyone else in my cohort. Literally. Each Belt test is a mini project and before we could retake a test, we had to complete/fix our previous one to make it a ‘perfect 10’. I have completed this process...ahem...a few times. Plus, my personal project that I started during project week was built using the MEAN technologies. Please believe. I can get MEAN. (It may just take me a little bit longer, is all. Don’t worry about it.)

In other news, I have a job interview on Monday. Whoa.

Now it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid! This week, meet Mark and Erika!

Mark is a graduate of UW who spent time as an English language instructor/translator in Germany before coming back to the states to learn Web Development at the dojo.

Erika spent time working in the marketing department at a mortgage company before deciding that coding was the way to go. Good choice, Erika. Good choice.

[milacodes]

Graduation and Beyond

Welp, we did it. It was a crazy 3 months, but we did it.

Now when I say ‘we’, I could of course be describing my whole cohort. But I’m using ‘we’ specifically for me and the two other African American students in my cohort, Cornell and Shana. We came in with a goal to earn our Black Belts and we reached it. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you look on the Black Belt wall and see almost no one that looks like you, it kind of is. So I’m giving us all a shout out. Cornell is the 3rd Black male to earn his Black Belt at the Bellevue Coding Dojo, and Shana and I are the only Black women. There are a few more Black students in the junior and freshman cohorts, and I can’t wait for them to earn their Black Belts, too. The wall’s still looking a little bare.

Even though we’ve finished the 3 month coursework, we’re not even close to being done. We’ve got more career workshops, more resume and Linked In updates and plenty of portfolio and project prep to get ready for interviews. That’s why Coding Dojo has created their own Residency program. Any recent graduate that wants to can keep coming to the dojo and work every day. In exchange, we sign up for times to be a TA for the newer cohorts, which will not only help the new students, but reinforce our knowledge. Residency is structured to help us fill out our portfolio (there’s a real push for polishing up projects or add new features to completed ones) and to prepare us for interview (the morning algorithms don’t stop). Plus, we’ll be mentored by one of the instructors and we’ll have code reviews with our fellow residents. AND, we can retake any tests that we need. MEAN Black Belt, I’m still coming for you.

Sooooo, I’m definitely signing up for residency...

And now it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid! This week, meet Eric and Rovshen.

Eric is a mechanical engineer who came all the way to the dojo from Miami. He hopes to get into IOS app development and even virtual reality.

Rovshen is from Turkmenistan. You read that right. Turkmenistan. Find a map. I’ll wait... Found it? Good. Rovshen loves the Ruby language and hopes to find a job working with it.

[milacodes]

One. Week. Left.

Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it. Time has gone by so quickly and there’s still so much more to do. So, this post is going to be a little short. It’ll be more like a list of all the craziness that has happened and will happen in the coming weeks.

1. Black Belt

I have officially earned my Black Belt. I passed the Ruby on Rails exam last Friday. I’m pumped, but I’m not done. Going back to the MEAN stack. Trying to get on that Double Black Belt status.

2. Phone Screen

My phone screen with the recruiter went well. (If you don’t know about the recruiter and my awesome Metro bus networking methods, read my Talking to Strangers post.) The position is part of a new program that this company has launched, which takes coding bootcamp graduates and puts them in a more transitional role, rather than just throwing them in deep end. Sounds like an awesome opportunity, because I've been thinking a lot about going from a supportive learning environment to an office where it may seem like we’re on our own.

After the phone screen, the next step was to fill out a short questionnaire which will be sent to the technical team. They’ll decide if they want to bring me in for an interview. So...now we wait.

3. Career Coaching

Once my cohort hit our third and final stack, the career coaching began. The job search and all of the preparation it requires is almost as hard as coding. We’ve had career workshops every day on topics like resumes, LinkedIn profiles and Boolean search tactics. We’ve had 1 on 1 meetings with the career coaches. Plus, we have career based homework every night. Coding Dojo’s career coaching program is WAY more intense and in depth than I expected. And for that I am grateful.

4. Portfolio and Polishing

Since we’re in the midst of a job search, we need to make sure that our portfolios are on point. For most of us, that means polishing up projects already completed, finishing those that are incomplete and building our personal brand. The issue is that we’ve spent so much time learning, learning, learning these new languages that we haven't had much free time to create our portfolio/website. And those are a big deal. That’s what we want to direct recruiters and hiring managers to in order to show that we have a body of work and are capable of doing whatever job is given to us. So, it would be nice if a portfolio is built before we actually apply to jobs.

Buuuuuut, that’s not the case, so creating a portfolio/personal website is another item added to my list. In semi-particular order:

Pass MEAN black belt test

Build project for Project Week (last week in every stack).

Polish completed projects

Complete incomplete projects that I want to use in portfolio

Fix resume

Fix LinkedIn profile

Build portfolio

Apply to jobs

Work on algorithms for when I do get a job interview

Blog

Basketball

Breathe

Now, it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid! This week, meet Derek and Vanessa!

Derek, a criminal justice major, is from Bonney Lake, WA and went to Central Washington University. As a graduate of Western Washington University, I should be offended, but I’ll let Derek’s choice of university slide because he’s a great guy.

Vanessa is from Pennsylvania but came to the dojo from Hawaii where she was a teacher. She hopes to use the skills learned at Coding Dojo to make educational web apps and maybe move on to educational software.

[milacodes]

Talking to Strangers

Your parents are all liars.

Let me clarify.

You know how they always told you, “don’t talk to strangers”? Well, I’m here to tell you, here and now:

That’s right. You heard Frau. All lies. See, talking to strangers can actually lead to life changing events. You might meet a client (for whatever business you have. I don’t know, woodworking, maybe?). You might meet a workout buddy. You might jump-start a career. You might make a friend. You never know.

So, one of the great things about Coding Dojo is its location. Right in the middle of Downtown Bellevue, it’s near quite a few tech businesses, including Expedia. And just down the highway is the city of Redmond, home of a little project called Microsoft. The dojo is surrounded by opportunity.

Last month, I was riding the bus with a fellow dojo kid, Aaron. We began talking about how the program was going for each of us. The highs, the lows and everything in between. After a few minutes, the man sitting next to me lowered his book and asked me and Aaron what program we were talking about. We explained what Coding Dojo was and the man explained that he was a developer at one of the tech companies in the area. (Turns out the book he was reading was about JavaScript - the language that I was working with in the MEAN stack.)

Aaron and I continued talking with the man, asking him about everything we could think of. What language did he work in? What did his duties consist of at his job? How hard was it to learn a new technology? What were interviews like?

Before long, it came time for Aaron to get off the bus. As he exited, he introduced himself to the stranger (yeah, we forgot to do that earlier) and said goodbye. The stranger introduced himself as Will and bid Aaron farewell. I sat with Will, asking him questions for one more stop, then I had to get off. I thanked him for talking with us and headed home.

The next day, Aaron came up to me and asked if I got the man’s contact info. I looked at him, bewildered. What did I need that stranger’s email for? Then Aaron fussed at me, “We need to find him on Linked In!” Whoops. Totally slipped my mind. We missed a perfect networking opportunity. I wouldn’t let it happen again.

A few weeks later, I was on the bus with another dojo kid, Shana. Again, we were talking about our experience in the program, when a stranger lifted their head from their book and asked us what program we were talking about. This time the stranger was a woman named Renee who works as a front end developer at another company in the area. I didn’t get to speak to Renee for long because I had to get off the bus. But as soon as I hopped off, I texted Shana to get Renee’s info so we could connect on Linked In. I never expected what was about to happen next.

Over the next few days, Shana and I found Renee on Linked In and thanked her for speaking with us on the bus that day. A few days after that, we got a message from Renee, saying she passed on our information to a recruiter at the company she worked at. Days after that, that recruiter reached out to the both of us and now I have a phone screen scheduled for next week.

Even if no job comes of this phone call with the recruiter, I’m still extremely grateful for Renee and the fact that she took time out of her day to give us a hand. I am in awe of the kindness of that stranger.

So, you see, folks? The moral of the story is DO talk to strangers. You never know what may come of it. You may get kidnapped, you may get a job. Either way, it’s going to be an adventure.

And now it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid! This week, meet Ryan and Aaron.

Ryan is from our state’s capital, Olympia. He is a lover of ALL THINGS University of Washington. Every day he has on different UW gear. Go Dawgs.

Aaron is from Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was a member of an improv troupe over there. I vote for Aaron to give our graduation speech. It’s gonna be hilarious.

[milacodes]

This again? The battle continues

I was hoping to not have to write another one of these posts. But I want to be honest when sharing my experience at Coding Dojo; plus, maybe writing it out will make me feel a little better: I didn’t pass the retake of my Black Belt exam on the MEAN stack. No, sir, they did not lie when they said the MEAN stack was hard. I have now failed the Black Belt twice. I sort of can’t believe it, because this time I thought I had it. As soon as I opened up the test, I just knew I was going to earn that Black Belt.

But I came across an error that I couldn’t troubleshoot. In fact, there wasn’t even an error message. My data just wasn’t displaying. Except for my navigation bar and heading, it was just a blank page. I tried to figure it out within the time limit, but the clock hit zero and I had to accept defeat (in that moment).

The minute the test was done, I emailed my instructor to ask her to take a look at my code as soon as she could. I had to know where I went wrong. Everything looked correct. I tried to compare my code with other MEAN assignments I had done. I tried to compare it with code in the lessons on the Coding Dojo platform. Nothing jumped out at me. Every comma was in the right place. Every ‘t’ crossed, every ‘i’ dotted. The code was doing exactly what I told it to do. The problem was that I wasn’t certain what that was.

The next morning at school, I had one of the TAs look at my code and even he didn’t know what was wrong. It wasn’t until late afternoon that my instructor had time to look at it and she told me that with one line of code, I was resetting my information every time the page was being loaded. So, even though the code to display information was correct, there was no information to display anymore. It had been wiped clean.

I was relieved when she found the mistake, but now the hard part starts. See, my cohort has now moved on from the MEAN stack. We are now all learning Ruby/Ruby on Rails. A whole new language, all new frameworks, a new database. Yesterday was the first day of Ruby and I want to keep on pace, but now I have to pull double duty. According to Coding Dojo policy, I have to complete/fix up my failed test in order to have the option to re-take it (a different version, of course). So while I’m stuffing my brain with this new language (Ruby), I have to think in the old one (JavaScript). And with the pace this program goes, that’s going to be a bit of a battle.

But, to me, there is no alternative. I told myself at the very beginning of this that I would earn a Black Belt. And in fact, I’m calling it now - I’m going to earn a double Black Belt because I’m going to pass the Ruby on Rails exam when the time comes. It may very well take me 3 times for that test, too. Maybe more. But I see these exams as a way to show what I’ve learned; a way to show that I can create anything in that particular language. And I just don’t feel comfortable applying for jobs without that knowledge and these ‘belts’ under my belt. Failure is not an option.

This is our 3rd stack. Our 3rd month. This is it. It’s time to finish strong.

And now, on a lighter note, it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid! This week, meet Cornell and Brandon!

Cornell, from New Orleans by way of D.C., is a former chef. He’s done everything from own a catering business to work on a cruise boat to work for Emeril Lagasse!

Brandon, from Bellevue, is also a former chef! He’s worked in all kinds of restaurants and hotels in the Seattle/Bellevue area. His favorite sauce is Mayonnaise. But not to eat. He likes the process of making it.

I hope these guys cook a big feast for our cohort when we graduate!

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A Day In The Life...

I read the news today, oh boy -- Just kidding. That was for all the Beatles nerds out there.

Anyway, I’m going to use this post to show you all what a day in the life of a Coding Dojo kid is like. But first, a progress report:

For the past 3 weeks we have been delving into the MEAN stack. First, we did a one-week review of JavaScript because, although our morning algorithms are always written in JavaScript, since just switched from 4 weeks of learning PHP, we needed a bit of a refresher. Then we got MEAN.

Node, Express, Mongo and Angular were stuffed into 2 weeks (my brain hurts), all culminating in our Black Belt exam, which we took today. Let us never speak of that exam again. What I will say is that it was REALLY hard to learn and understand how to implement all of the components of the MEAN stack well enough to feel prepared to take a timed exam in only 3 weeks. I will also say that I have the scheduled re-take date marked on my calendar.

Now, to my ‘day in the life’! To start... I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head -- I’m sorry, that’s the last Beatles reference...for today.

Again, anyway, I get to the dojo at around 7:30am and make some tea and breakfast in the handy dandy kitchenette.

Then I take a seat at my desk, which Cornell helped me set up to be more like my throne (2 extra monitors, y’all!).

I eat breakfast and either catch up on work or peruse the inter-webs until class begins. At 9am, it’s algorithm time. Every morning, at the start of class, we are given a problem to solve and we pair off or triple up to work on them at the white boards scattered throughout the room. The reasoning behind solving the algorithms while standing at white boards instead of plugging away at our computers is that solving algorithms on white boards and talking out our thought process is a common practice in job interviews. Here’s one that Shana and I did together:

After algorithms, we’re given a short lesson on topics we have been learning. Here’s my LAMP and MEAN stack instructor, Nikki, giving us the lowdown on routing between web pages.

After the lesson, we’re sent to either work on a small group assignment, or work individually to complete the coursework provided. However, if it happens to be a day of the week that starts with ‘T’, then that means it’s SPORTS DAY! On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the bball crew throws the coursework out of the window (for and hour or two), piles into cars and drives to a local park to play basketball. It’s fun and a great way to get a break from your computer. Here’s a pic of a few of the bball crew folks:

Once Sports Day is over, we arrive back at the dojo and work for the rest of the day. About once a week, there is a scheduled demo by an instructor or TA on an assignment that covers an important concept. Haven’t gotten a picture for that one yet.

There’s no set lunch break, just eat when you find the time. But if you forget lunch (and/or your $$), or you just get hungry, then head back over to the kitchenette to grab yourself a snack. Granola bars and fruit for daaaayyyyys!

People usually start trickling out at around 5:30pm. When I leave depends on what I’m working on and if I’m in a groove, or need to finish an assignment to be prepared for the next day. I’d like to leave at 7pm. I usually leave at 9pm. I’ve been seen around the dojo at 11pm. Just depends. So, that’s about it for a day in the life of a dojo student. Now it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid... This week, meet Jayce and Amin!

Jayce is kind of a big deal. He’s a former professional guitarist who’s had every role from lead guitarist in a punk band, to writing songs for Switchfoot. He finally settled down and got into project management. He’s at the dojo to further his skills in the tech world.

Amin is also kind of a big deal. He’s the founder of an anti-human trafficking organization called Redlight Traffic (I know, riiiiiight?!). He’s here at Coding Dojo to learn coding so that he can help teach and provide a skill for victims who have made it out of the trafficking world.

Coding Dojo. Where the Big Deals go.

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Oh, the places you’ll go

Another happy-sad moment here at the dojo. The upper cohort graduates today! 3 grueling months of learning PHP, MEAN, and Ruby on Rails (or Swift for iOS, if they chose that option) have come to a close. Now, it’s up to them to take what they learned and run with it.

Of course, I’m glad for them, but it’s really sad to see them go because (#1) they’re all awesome people and (#2) they were so willing to share their knowledge. On any late night at the dojo, when all the teachers and most other students left, there was always a crew of guys from the upper cohort working on their own projects or assignments. But it was never a problem for us new cohort kids to bug them with our questions. They were practically our personal tutors.

Most of them will still be in the dojo for the next few weeks, fixing up their resumes and portfolios, and applying to jobs. But one by one, as they get hired, they’ll slowly fade from the dojo, like the boys that moved away from the neighborhood in The Sandlot. Remember that? No? Here ya go.

Anyway, congrats to the June 2015 cohort and thanks for all your help! In this post’s Meet a Coding Kid segment, I’d like to give a special shout out to a few of the guys that helped me from the very beginning.

Minh was a pre-med major who couldn’t bear the thought of 4 more years of school, so he traded it in for 3 months of intense coding. Andrew, a former mechanical drafter, came all the way from Florida to study at Coding Dojo! And Brian was actually the first person from the upper cohort that I asked for help during my early struggles with PHP.

All 3 guys have earned their Black Belts here at the dojo. They are also members of the Sports Day bball crew. In fact, the only reason I felt comfortable asking them for help in the beginning was because I had already played bball with them.

Basketball: bridging the gap.

[milacodes]

Now that’s more like it.

Sorry for the delay in posts, folks. This was our first week in the MEAN stack and I wanted to make sure to get started on the right foot before I took time to write a post. But now that the week is over I have time to give you this riddle. Who’s 6ft tall, loves chocolate milk and passed her Red Belt retake with a perfect score of 10? I’ll give you some time to think about it.

... ... ...  ... ... ...

Welp. Time’s up. The answer is me. I did. And it’s actually a little rude that it took you so long, but I’ll let it go because I’m a nice person. Anyway, I passed the retake of my Red Belt test on PHP + CodeIgniter! Here’s the sticker to prove it.

After I turned in the test, I felt really good about it, but I wasn’t expecting a perfect score! So that was an awesome surprise. I am now back on track to complete one of my goals of being the first Black woman to earn a Black Belt (at least in the Seattle Coding Dojo branch. Who knows what’s going on in California?). I’m almost glad I failed the first time. Now, I’m not saying that I want to fail every test from now on, but failing showed me exactly what I needed to work on. Now, if I were given the task of building a small site in PHP with several view pages, and a MySQL database connected - all in 4 hours (which is exactly what a Red Belt exam requires), I am totally confident that I could do it. And now that that’s all over, I have to focus on learning the MEAN stack so I can do it all again in JavaScript.

Speaking of MEAN stack, let’s talk about it. MEAN is a JavaScript framework used to make building websites and apps more dynamic and efficient. JavaScript is the actual language we’ll be coding in (like PHP was for the LAMP stack last month) and the stack consists of MongoDB, the database (like MySQL was for PHP); Node.js, our server; Express.js, a server framework for Node.js; and Angular, a front-end JavaScript framework. Put it all together and what do you get? Mongo, Express, Angular, Node = MEAN!

MEAN is treating me pretty well so far, but folks in the upper cohort have been telling us that MEAN is the hardest stack to learn. This week, I’ve been trying to get slightly ahead, so that when I do hit the hard part, I’ll have a bit of a cushion of time built in for the struggle. Hope my plan works!

Now it’s time for Meet a Coding Kid! I realized that I may have more coding folks to present than Tumblr posts to write (unless I posted every day, which is especially time consuming while learning numerous coding technologies via a 3 month intensive boot camp), so I’ve decided to double up some of the coding kid intros. Today, meet Dan and Connor.

Dan and Connor are both members of the Sports Day basketball crew (more on sports day later). Dan is from Bellevue and is in a tie with Shana for best hair in the cohort. He has no competition, however, when it comes to best posture. Connor, a Biology major, hails from San Francisco. He had experience in MySQL and decided to come to the Dojo to learn web design to fill out his knowledge.

More next time!

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Black Belt Wall Update

The Black Belt wall of photos was recently updated with the images of students in the upper cohort who passed their Black Belt on the Mean stack (which is the stack that my cohort starts on Tuesday). I am happy-sad to say that I can no longer be the first Black person to get my picture on that wall. Congrats to Obi from the upper cohort for passing his Black Belt exam!

Now, even though I can’t be the first Black person to earn a Black Belt, I still very well could be the first Black woman... Keep hope alive!

P.S. I took the Red Belt exam again this afternoon. More on that later...

And now for a segment that I’ve decided to call...Meet a Coding Kid. This week, meet Jay!

Jay had a career in construction before deciding it was time for a change. Now, instead of waking up at the crack of dawn to construct buildings, Jay’s at the Dojo by 6am, learning to construct websites. And I’d like to give a shout out to Jay for running the dishwasher every morning! Lord knows no one else does it!

[milacodes]

One stack down, two to go

Welp, ladies and gentlemen, by the stroke of midnight on Saturday morning, I will have officially completed the first stack at Coding Dojo. 4 weeks of intense learning have given me the skills to build a website from start to finish, front end to back end, in the programming language called PHP (using SQL as our database language). After Labor day, we do it all over again with JavaScript! But for now...

This week is dedicated to working on a project that will require all of the different skills and languages that we’ve learned so far. Our job is to create an eCommerce site. We’ll build the front end with HTML and CSS. We’ll store user and product data using SQL, and we’ll do all the dirty work in between with PHP (and its framework CodeIgniter), and a lil bit of jQuery. However, I have yet to start the project.

See, project week can also be used as time to catch up on assignments/work you missed, or to polish already completed assignments so they can be loaded to GitHub (which can be used as sort of an online portfolio for developers) for all to see. Another option for this week is to prepare ourselves for the retake of our Red Belt exam (this Friday morn). We can’t retake the test until we’ve fixed all of our errors from the original test and have had it approved. All of my fixes were completed and approved this afternoon, so I am ready to go! I’ll get started on my eCommerce project first thing tomorrow morning.

On another note, I realize that I haven’t told you much about my cohort/everyday life. So I think that at the end of each of my posts from here on out, I’m going to throw in a tiny bio about a fellow coder (if they gave me permission, of course). I’ll start it out with the curly haired lady that sits to my left: Ms. Shana B. (Missing from pic: Shana’s curly hair)

Hailing from NYC, Shana is a hard worker who loves PHP and her dog, Matlock (pictured below, chilling at a Saturday Coding Dojo study session).

More next time!