There is a famous story told four years ago that tainted the name of Code Schools. A story of a Code School graduate who was hard-done by his potential employers because he was struggling with an easy line of JavaScript code. The potential employers deemed that particular line of code too simple for a competent Code School graduate to be struggling with it. So bad was the situation that the graduate wanted to sue the Code School for having have wasted his money. He felt that the amount of information he got from the school was insufficient and that they had half-baked him before releasing him into the job market.
Reading the whole story, I couldn’t help but realize that the particular Code School was almost entirely getting all the blame. From highlighting poor resources to a depressing learning environment, everything in the story seemed to point out that the graduate failed because of the school. Nobody was keen enough to think of the possibilities of the particular graduate having have failed at taking his classes seriously. Little did people know that the story would have negative ramifications on the way people perceived code school! I couldn’t help sympathize with all the Code Schools out there which were doing everything possible to make sure that the world has competent programmers. Being a successful graduate of one of the most famed Code Schools myself, I have to state that the schools are doing a stellar job and they should take very little blame for the incompetence of some of their graduates. In the wake of that story, I decided to write this article to advise all those looking to take up programming in Code Schools in order to get a tech job in their cities. If you want a tech job in your city and are considering joining a code school, you have to study hard and do your homework to be successful.
I have to admit that the number of code schools mushrooming all over the webs and physically in America is somewhat ridiculous. Some are just jumping into the programming industry without the required resources and knowledge to succeed in this precarious field. Actually, a good number of these institutions are here for the money. They have come to realize that the future of the world is technology and are therefore cashing in on people’s attempts to equip themselves with programming knowledge. They claim to offer top services as far as programming goes but in real sense, they are a waste of time and will extort money from you before dumping you. As much as I am levying some of the blame on the graduates therefore, some of the mediocre schools are part of the problem.
Back to the graduates though, what should you do in a Code School to guarantee a successful career tomorrow? The first step is to obviously choose the Code school you want to attend wisely. Be careful on the choices you make without delving too much on the funds that you are required to pay. Seek proof of previous success and the required legal licensing for the school to offer the purported programming lessons. Don’t be easily fooled by some inflated numbers which are clearly used for marketing purposes. Such can be damaging and will only mislead you. You want a school that is fully compliant with the regulatory bodies and that they are reliable. The fees they charge should not bother you much because this is what most cons use as a weak link to exploit those looking for cheap alternatives.
The next step after selecting a good code school to join, is to be clear on what you want to achieve at the end of the program. Do you want to work as a freelance programmer or as a full time professional with aspirations to work in the Silicone Valley someday? The moment you are clear on what you want to achieve, studying towards achieving your goal should not be as hard a task.
Classwork alone is not sufficient
This is the most important bit of this whole story. Classwork will only contribute about 40% of the total information and competence you are required to have as a professional. The other percentage is strictly supposed to come from you working as hard away from class as possible. You need to do your homework and put in extra effort to make sure that you graduate job-ready. You need to dedicate a lot of your time to studying and putting your knowledge to use in everyday endeavors. Practice as much as you can and consult when possible. The classwork bit is meant to just introduce you to new areas and give you a skeleton of what you need as a programmer. It’s up to you to make sure that you fill up the skeleton with the required muscle and become a complete graduate ready to work in any institution without getting hard done by simple lines of code.