I’m now through my first 3 weeks at Dev Bootcamp (DBC), and, after just 3 weeks, I feel much further along than after 3 years of haphazard self directed learning. Here’s why.

Learning on your own is isolating and frustrating. Trying to decide what to study and when to study it is hard. After selecting a few online courses I was left doubting whether these were the right courses to be studying at the right time. And even if I stayed disciplined and worked through whatever learning regime I had prescribed, I would come across small problems that would derail me for a few days and made it hard to stay on track.

At DBC, the curriculum is chosen for you, which removes a lot of the doubt as to whether you’re studying the right stuff at the right time. The community is awesome. Having a cohort of 70 classmates going through the same learning challenges at the same time, means there is always someone who can help.

While teaching myself, I didn’t build a practical foundation. I would dive straight into CodeAcademy or even Artificial Intelligence for Robotics on Udacity, where I learned how to write particle filter algorithms for robot localization. What I didn’t learn was how to actually go out and build anything on my own. I didn’t learn how to use the terminal, a text editor, git or github, all of which are essential tools of the trade. As soon as I was outside of the structured online environment of Udacity or CodeAcademy, I wasn’t sure what to do.

At DBC, you learn how to use all such essential tools from the very beginning, and their use is built into every aspect of the curriculum. As a result, the learning and work you end up doing feels much more real than typing code into a browser.

Finally, DBC creates space for learning. 20 weeks where your only focus is to learn to be a programmer. Not just how to write code, but also how to collaborate with others in the process. Creating that space allows for a lot deeper learning than trying to build self-structured learning into the mayhem of everyday life. Add in 70 classmates as a community and support group, and I’ve found it so much easier to stay engaged.

So what was the hardest part of the first three weeks? For me, figuring out how to much time to devote to each element of the curriculum was hard. Some parts were familiar, others completely foreign. With each new concept came questions of how deep to explore on my own. Also, since the first 9 weeks are remote, even with a community of learners, staying consistently engaged in the material can be challenging.

Finally, the hardest part has probably been learning to reflect meaningfully in a public format. Reflection is built into every phase of the curriculum. Most of the pieces take just a few minutes and are shared privately within the cohort. Other elements though, like this blog, are shared publicly. As someone who leans towards the Concrete Random spectrum of the Gregoric Thinking Styles, posting what feels like an unfinished product born of a continually evolving experience is an exercise in vulnerability. But, DBC says it’s supposed to help me practice empathy and learn :)