#devbootcampsf

I thought I’d only have the challenge I had due last friday and the one that was due this past Tuesday, but things are picking up once again (in a good and bad way). I literally have had 4-5 more assignments thrown at me this week, so I’ve had something to do everyday.  It’s great and all, but I’m also lagging behind in taking care of myself. By that I mean, I need to get my finances taken care of and also continue exercising, dancing, and eating more. Going to be a busy rest of the week! I’m lucky I can’t really grow facial hair right now, cause I’d come out of this week looking like a lumberjack of sorts. Song of the day: Stay Here by Alfa & Emmavie https://soundcloud.com/alfamist/stay-here?in=alfamist/sets/alfa-emmavie-epoch

HYeah so I’m late with the blog post, I know. I’ll do the pushups and situps..soon. But I will, cause exercising lately has been super refreshing lately despite the smell of sweat. Seriously though, sunshine is great, especially when you’re able to get a full dose of it on Karl’s days off. I have a lot to write about, but I’m just going to talk a little bit about my interview experience and process for cold calling /emailing companies. I would talk about the hiring mixer, but I’m still working with some people from the event in a way so I’ll write about it in due time. I wrote a quick post about 2 weeks ago about keeping your head up. Moving forward with the job hunt adventure, it’s super important to give yourself advice that you can really take to heart, because the job hunt can really be emotionally, mentally, and physically draining. I won’t deny that I’ve been a little bit bummed, but for me, I find myself being able to treat each experience as a learning experience. So what happened? Well, I interviewed with Playstation Network a few weeks ago, that’s what stemmed my other blog post. It was crazy how it all happened, and the fact that it even happened still blows my mind. It turns out that my resume was found through a recruiting site. How did my resume make it to that recruiting site?  I met up with a recruiter, who I owe a lot to and whose name I will not mention for his privacy, who I essentially cold called. His energy was amazing, and he wore a hawaiian shirt to boot. You kind of know you’re in for a good experience when you’re with someone who is wear a hawaiian shirt. Long story short, he gave me a tour of his company and kindly let me know that they weren’t hiring at the time. Let me just pause real quick. In a lot of cases, from what I’ve seen and heard at least, people basically drop the ball here.  NO. That’s not what you should do, ever! As long as you’re still on the court that is the job hunt, you have to keep on dribbling. Go for rebounds, follow up, and see things through to the end. That’s an analogy/metaphor that I literally just came up with on the spot.  Is it hard to maintain interest? Sometimes, but you really ought to make the MOST out of every opportunity. Because who knows what’ll happen down the road. Don’t be the kind of person who says “Hey are you hiring?” and leaves upon hearing “Sorry, we’re not hiring juniors right now.” The key phrase in that response that you just got is NOT “not hiring,” it’s “not right now.” That basically means, maybe later.  So what do you do? Keep on shooting and be the person who shows that you’re still interested, because you’ll end up being the person to leave a lasting impression. Now do I think that I’ve left lasting impressions? I don’t know to be honest, but I’ve been generously connected with other recruiters from VC’s and companies by the people that I put the effort into maintaining a relationship with (not sure if relationship is the best word to use in this case). The thing about networking, is that the whole idea of it can be very distasteful to some people. I’ll admit, I sometimes think it is. But something that’s been driving me forward lately is the mentality I have when I go about it. What’s really worked to my advantage is the fact that I’m not actually from the Bay, I’m from the East Coast. That, and I’m REALLY trying to stay out here or get a job that I’ll enjoy, not a job that simply helps me pay off my loans.  I treat each person I meet here as a potential friend really, and that’s really all there is to it. I don’t agree with asking people for introductions if I don’t really know the person I’m even asking the favor from (grammar check please). Seriously though, in a lot of cases, people treat other people as tools when it comes to networking, and that’s just not the way to do it. Why? Cause there’s this thing called karma and it can really come back to kick ya in the butt later. Anyways, I digressed. A lot. Playstation Network. So, I basically made it to the second round after having a great initial phone call and technical phone screen, and received the coding challenge. It was extremely fun and rewarding for me, because I got to practice my Vanilla JS. I won’t go into details about the challenge, but I basically learned about making XHR requests using Vanilla JS which was awesome. That, and I also flexed a bit of my creative sense which they really liked.  Come judgment day, I found out that I didn’t make it to the next round. But for me, the response I received wasn’t informative enough, and by that, I mean that I didn’t know where I fell short.  So I asked for feedback, and that’s where things really turned around for me. I was told that they were looking for candidates with a bit more experience and a stronger sense of code. I took that well, because I know darn well that I’m new to all of this and well, I was simply glad that I completed their challenge. But they also noted that they liked my design sense! That honestly was enough for me, although I would have liked a bit more feedback so I could know how to improve my code. At the end of it, I was still able to make a new LinkedIn connection, and hopefully manage to keep my resume in their system for potential candidates. Actually, they posted more jobs recently and I’m trying to get back in touch to reapply. That’s just one of the experiences I’ve had so far, and to write about every other one will honestly take forever. So in short, based off of my experience, I encourage all junior devs, especially bootcamp grads, to keep looking for opportunities, and when you can’t find them, make them. Perseverance seriously goes along way, but even more so, being genuine has its benefits. Make sure you stay true to yourself as you carry on with the job hunt, because it really can be a dog eat dog world out here. Just keep your head up and carry on, and walk along confidently with a clear head and pure heart. I felt like I just threw up a bunch of the cheese from that poutine I just had from dinner (which was for celebrating one of my best and first friends from DBC accepting his job offer), because that last line was suuuuper corny. I also don’t even feel like I really got around to writing about what I meant to write about, but hey, I wrote a lot. Anyways, here’s a song that my friend from the NYC Bees cohort just shared with me, check it. By Surprise by Allure https://soundcloud.com/allureproduction/allure-by-surprise

Note to self. I’ll explain later, but for now, just do what you’re telling yourself to do now, Harvey. Song of the day:  Keep Your Head Up (Junior White Remix) by Kirk Franklin https://soundcloud.com/jrwhite-dj-gospel-project/kirk-franklin-keep-your-head

A lot has been going on the past week. Hiring mixer, behavioral and technical phone screens, dealing with more financial related things as always, planning coffee dates, catching up with family and friends, etc.  It’s a healthy mix though, unlike Chex Mix which I am an avid fan of. You know what I’m thinking about. Yeah, the rye chips. Anyways, an update on my job hunt so far, cause that’s what you currently-non-existing-but-to-be-future followers will probably be asking about. I submitted my solution to the tic-tac-toe challenge and received really great feedback. That doesn’t mean I did great on the challenge. That also doesn’t mean I did poorly on it, either. What I mean by that is that the feedback was the kind of feedback you’re taught to give at Dev Bootcamp. I didn’t write tests for my tic-tac-toe solution, for some reason I didn’t really know how I’d write tests for a ‘simple’ game. I was wrong. I was told that tests are a MUST, and that I should take the time to learn Jasmine in order to write unit tests for all of my functions. In a way, I consider writing tests to be a more sophisticated and complex way of writing out if else statements, so the idea doesn’t sound so bad.  If only it was that simple. But regardless, I did have the intention of learning Jasmine soon anyways seeing how I’m learning more about JavaScript. And I really need to prove that I know about test driven development. So yeah, Jasmine it is. But for now, I’m tackling my 401k business again, so that I can make sure I’m able to afford my next 2 months here in San Francisco. That aside, I recently went through a technical phone call on Wednesday with a company that I really want to work for, and ended up making it through to the 2nd round. I just received the coding challenge, and that’s pretty much become priority number one for me.  For the most part, I’ve actually finished the challenge, I just need to style the UI elements and refactor the code to make it more presentable and object oriented. I’m fighting myself right now, thinking about whether or not I should submit the solution early to be like, “Hey, I finished early! Here’s the repo but I’ll still be working on it”, and try to prove that I’m determined and all that, or if I should just “Wow” them with surprises on Monday when it’s due. SO yeah, that’s the current dilemma.  In terms of the mixer, I will definitely be sure to write about that later, cause right now, I’m focusing on my top priority like I just said. And the whole mixer experience itself deserves its own post because I personally feel like that’s something all potential Dev Bootcamp applicants and just junior devs could benefit from. Stay tuned for more updates, and stay in the mix. It’s good for ya. Song: In the Mix (Roger Revisited by Dogg Master & Man Man) by Zapp & Roger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFLWGV1R3uw

https://soundcloud.com/cerealmag/ta-ku-cereal-flight-track-vol2 Not sure if I posted it before, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t repost it either.

with family and friends definitely makes the day fly by. But I’m feeling fresh and rejuvenated as we get ready to head into our final week of Phase 1. Today was just great, and unfortunately it’s rather late right now so I’ll have to raincheck on blogging about the past few days once again. But today involved a beautiful hike around the Marin Headlands with some cohort buddies, grocery shopping at this cheap but good quality Asian supermarket that my other cohort buddy told me about, catching up with my Pops for fathers day over the phone, catching up with two of my best friends over Google Hangouts, catching up with my mom over the phone, grabbing ice cream with my friend and roomie, catching up with my friend who is currently in CR over Snap Chat (idk why we didn’t just text), and prepping a non-pasta/steak based lunch for tomorrow. Hopefully it’s enough to get me through til dinner though.  Currently testing out meal plans for the week, testing out sleeping more and all that jazz even though we have our first real assessment this week. For some reason I’m just not that worried, probably cause I just had a great and relaxing weekend. Finally got to enjoy some good music without being overwhelmed with any kind of thoughts. For songs, check out: Songs To Make Up To by Ta-Ku Been waiting for the album/EP for a while, very pleased. Excited for The Internet’s new album next week and a week off to boot.

I will write a post tomorrow to talk W-F. That is all. Song: All I Really Need by Kenzie May https://soundcloud.com/hillary-reid-1/kenzie-may-all-i-really-need-mahogany-session

Song may feel all over the place, but if you enjoy the original then you’ll appreciate the twists put on this mix.