today, we're gonna talk about how to get started. In Tech, there are a lot of different ways to learn how to code. And in this episode, we're gonna discuss boot camp, self directed learning in computer science degrees. They all have their benefits and have brought a lot of people into the world of programming. But each also has its own challenges. We all learned to code in different ways, and we'll incorporate our experiences. Our observations today. Let's get started. Welcome to the ladybug podcast on Kelly. I'm Allie. I'm Emma

and I'm Lindsay and were debugging the tech industry. First things first. Where did we learn to code? I know you can go first.

So I was in college. I actually was a biology major in college and then quickly realized that I was terrible at it. And so I switched to actuarial science where I took an inch or two computer science course and totally fell in love with, like, binary and Hexi decimal in Octel. So the rest is really history. I So I studied computer science in my first language. Was Java end. Yeah, I was a little bit of a late bloomer, but I thoroughly enjoy it. So, Kelly, where did you start? So I have a little bit of a funny story about Java as well, but I got started when I was 11 years old. I wanted to build my own community on neo pets,

and if you're not familiar with what Neopets is, eyes this Web site where you can have your own virtual pet and you can feed it and play games and you can have your own communities and all kinds of stuff. And I really wanted to build my own community and customize it, but you need to know how to code to do that. So I asked my dad for, uh, an HTML book, and my first book was HTML Goodies. And I was like, Awesome, This is a lot of fun. So fast forward to high school and I take AP Computer Science. And my first language and color in high school was Java, and I was so bad at it that I needed a tutor just to pass the class. So I was like, I'm never going to do this,

ever. But, you know, obviously 17 years later, and I'm very clearly still coding so something eventually clicked. But it wasn't Java. Anyway, Lindsay, go ahead.

So I was an admin assistant, Really? Aimlessly going through my job was very miserable. My dad sort of suggested coating to me and was like, worst case scenario. If you hate it, you could try something else. So he bought me a introduction A droop A ll book. And quite frankly, I do not recommend starting out Asdrubal when you're learning to code. But that's how I did. And I just continue learning, continue working in the mornings before work. And then I got my first triple job. So a few years into that, I started learning about accessibility which will probably talk about more on the podcast. Then if a year or so after that, I started learning about react and view Js and now a reactive helper and the rest is kind of history. Ali, what about you?

I actually want Thio. I want to interject here for a second. Lindsay, can you explain what Drew people is

sure? So truthful is a C. M s, which stands for a content management system. It's similar to WordPress, except a lot more complex in a lot of ways, so it's not always the right tool for that job. Hopefully, all the people in the dribble community aren't hating me for way. Explain this, but it's a very opinionated way of doing things. And it's basically a CMS, so a place to store your content. The reason why CMS is that we're really cool at the time that they started coming about is you no longer had to call a Web master to update your content. You could just update your content by yourself and hire somebody to build all the other things. And you could have ownership of your content. And did it need to be a coder to update it?

Cool. All right, Allie, let's hear your story Totally s. So I learned to code, and I also was a sophomore in college. Similar toe Emma. I had no idea what coding even was, but I had an extra credit in my time. And so I decided to send out for it, cause people were always like it's a good thing, the alert, and it'll help you no matter what. So I signed up for it, and I honestly thought that I was going to be learning how to like format word documents while or something like that had no idea what code was. But I was instead rating python. It was super fund.

We were building G m's. I just thought it was magical how you could puts up together and have a program come out of it. So I completely agree. Configured my schedule. I was like, I'm gonna double major in computer science. This is my future. This is so cool. And so I started my second class, which was in C plus plus and it was a super intense date. Instructors and algorithms class very much a weed out class, and I was pulling all nighters and working so hard in that class trust to understand it. And I did come out of it with a good greed. But I was like, If I have to work this hard, for it means that I'm not good enough at it.

And so this is really just not for me. Then when I was a junior in college, I hot an internship doing mostly Excel data analysis type work, and I figured out that I could automate a lot of my own job using the price on skills that I had. And so from there I got a software engineering, internship and transition to working full time in code. I also do you have the context of working on a boot camp, too. So I work full time at General Assembly for a few years and still work for them part time, so I can definitely give more context on that, too. There's a lot of stipulation in the tech industry about whether or not you need a computer science degree to be a successful. And what I find really endearing is that we all came from different backgrounds. And yet, you know, we're all I would say.

We're all successful right in our own ways in terms of what success means to us, right? It's relative. But this question that keeps floating around is you need a computer science degree to be successful and back in the day. It used to be that you didn't even need a check degree because they didn't exist, right? So my parents, like my mom, is a senior designer, but she's a math degree, and my dad has a new engineering degree, but now he's a computer scientist that my question is like in today's day and age, Do we need the C s degree to be successful? And I'll kick things off by say, You know, I have a siesta,

Gary. And in all honesty, I don't necessarily think it helped me all that much. Um, so let's just chat a little bit about the pros and cons of getting a degree. Totally. I So I think the biggest pro I would think of is the potential to be taken more seriously. People see that you have a computer science degree on paper and are like, Oh, this person really knows their stuff. There's a lot of different knowledge that I think that you get from a computer science degree that you then you get from a boot camp for being self taught. Usually, just the path is a little bit different. So I think that they're definitely huge. Froze to it. Well,

let me quickly to just describe the coursework that I took. That might be, ah, quite helpful. So I started out insured a computer science, which was based in Dallas. So it's just drag and drop tiles for coding, and then we moved into Internet programming, which was taught in Java. We learned object oriented, and then my junior year was more about analysis of algorithms and data structures. We also took an assembly language programming class, which is really cool to actually like create, you know, work at that that low level and actually build bread boards and memory and whatnot. Then I also took like a database course.

And then I took a Web development course as well, a software engineering. So we got the full blend of, like, all of these different things. And what I will say is, I think I learned the algorithms and the analysis of, like, big overrun time and big data and whatnot. I learned to those things quite well, but where I actually was lacking was the programming knowledge. So, you know, we learned job about like, realistically, I didn't walk away with real programming knowledge.

I walked away with theory, and that's actually uninterested point, you know, coming from a self taught background, I know how to code. But I was, you know, up until recently I could never really tell you why I was doing. What I was doing is just like I knew this works, and I'm gonna keep on doing it. But if somebody asked me the theory behind what I was doing, I would just shrug my shoulders and safe. I

don't know. Yeah, I think the interesting thing, too, is so many of the words in programming that you hear from C s degrees are actually not as scary as I thought they were. But a lot of times I always found it very scary to hear about, like, data structures and algorithms and basically object oriented. And all these words they always scared me. And I hear about the way you just talked about it. And I'm like, Oh, that actually didn't seem too too

bad. So the question to you is do we need computer science principles to be a good develop worry and, um, like, especially when we get into technical interviews, which we won't necessarily cover today, but they test a lot of these algorithmic, you know, data structures and run times. And do we need that? And I think my answer to that is yes, at a conceptual level. Like I need to toe understand why one algorithm like wire invested four loops exponentially worse at runtime. Then you know, just to four loops that are placed outside of each other on the same you know, lateral plane. So understanding that conceptually is great.

But, um, asking someone exactly what's the big fate are big over in time of this. Like do we need that? I don't know. What do you think I would say, You know, like getting close toe coming up on 20 years on coding I would completely fail like a white board interview like a technical interview. I would not be able to do it. So I absolutely think it's important. And in certain situations, when you're having to put yourself in front of a new interview room and answer these questions like I absolutely could not do it. Yeah, I feel really lucky that I do have some computer science knowledge that I did take those couple classes and learn from that context they're being so I think that the stuff that I learned myself that has been a little bit more Web Dev Focus has been stuff that I use more every day, whereas that stuff is more important for understanding the context behind it. I think honestly,

if I had gone Kelly's route and learned programming from a young age and then took computer science, I think it would have been excellent because I would understand the context and all that. But as my first introduction was like, I don't understand that I don't understand why you use this. Like with c++. I was like We have Python lists are built in. You don't need to build a lake list. Why would you do that? And that wasn't explained to me. But if I had more programming experience before that, I think that it would

have been, Yeah, I always find to that having the why is so important. There are so many things that I've learned, And it wasn't until I learned why that they actually clicked in my head, like even accessibility stuff. I remember actually, this isn't an episode about my excessively stuff, but I will say once I started learning about it, I literally was just popped in there like fixed it and I had no idea it was about people being able to access content. I was just like I don't know what these errors mean and why I have to fix them, but okay.

And well, this is, uh,

you know, once I learned why, I think just, you know, circling back, understanding why with what Ali was saying if she had been doing Web Deb stuff and then understood why it would have probably been really helpful for her.

Absolutely. There's there's a great book I want to call it. It's called Start with Warrants by Simon Cynic. It's one of my favorites, and it talks about having, like, I think, What is it, the ethos behind everything like, Why do we do the things that we do? And I think that's why we have all been so successful is we've all had this guiding why, behind all of the content that we produced, which is, you know, another episode. But what I lacked was the why behind all of the things that I did. I did them because it was part of my curriculum and and that was the track that I followed right eye.

And that's why I believe that 95% of the stuff that I know today I was self taught with, and it has struggled for a long time because I had no. Why in my degree, other than it's my degree, right? Like I didn't have a guiding force. Let's switch maybe a little bit into, um, talking about the concept of, like, college instructors versus self guided learning, right? So the instructors, I didn't really get a chance to pick and choose, like the people whose learning style that I clicked with verse is when you're self taught, you get to kind of play around with different tutorials and instructors and even mediums, whether you like to read or watch watch tutorials. So what do you think? The pros and cons of that ISS having a dedicated instructor, maybe to give more guidance versus Be able to kind of choose your medium and your instructor but not having the reassurance if you need extra

help. I have a feeling Alley has opinions on this. Yeah,

I have a lot of opinions on. This is so fun Fact about me. I actually have more formal education experience than I have computer science. So I was an education minor in college and have before I dropped one credit early. Anyway, that's another story. So I also taught in middle school for a little bit student TJ and then taught more formally as a boot camp instructor. And I think the interesting thing is that most college professors don't have any instructional training. They're mostly there as researchers and his academics, and the teaching comes second to a lot of them. And I just I guess I don't understand why that's a thing and why colleges air still doing that. So I think that you can get really lucky and have these incredible instructors at a college level. And I had one instructor. It was incredible. I teed for him or assistant top for him afterwards, and it was great. But I think a lot of times you see these lecture halls where there are 400 students being taught something and they're just being spoken at,

and that's not how people learn. And that really bothers me. And I think to that point. So I went to a really, really small liberal arts college that John Popper actually went to the same one. Funnily enough, what was great about that. As the classes were small, we had maybe 30 students, but and while I did have great professors, there was when I remember particular and he taught multiple because it was such a small school. I remember it was interested programming, I believe. And he First of all, we had to exams a midterm and final. And he said to all of us,

my exam is so hard that it is open book, open Internet and the majority of you are going to fail it. If you would rather take a 50% and not take the exam, you'll probably still do better than if you try. So here you go. And I was sitting there like that is the most demeaning and just courage and comment that you can give a room full of bright minded kids. Really? We were kids, and so, like that for me, was hard being set up for failure just because you don't know how on instruct that was very hard for me. Yeah, I've never really understood that. Like, you know, not I went to college for a really long time of two masters degrees as well.

But whenever I'd have a professor who would do that like you're why are you studying the students up for failure? Don't you want to see a succeeded Yeah, it's un riel, especially weed out classes where they're trying to get people to drop the major because they don't have enough room for everybody or something like that. Like then. Come on, you're just heading up The people who had programming in high school to succeed in this programme and those were people from wealthy suburban high school is those are the people who have that right? And so you're completely waiting people out based off of their prior knowledge, not be soft power. Well, there they're doing in your class, and that's not I. I will say no hard feelings to my college. I love to my college Santa. I thought it was a great school, and I,

you know, I wouldn't be where I am today. But that being said this one, Professor additionally would also get up in front of us and tell us his favorite students. And I'm sitting here thinking this is so He was Ah, very nice person. But he was one of those people who didn't necessarily have the social skills that it took to, you know, guide Ah, young minded people. And that really hindered me because when I got to my first job. I was so overwhelmed. I cried for probably the first year. And so I would say when you have great professors and you're in a setting that is conducive to absorbing that information is great. And when you don't like, you're a little bit lost.

But not only that, let's talk price because this is expensive. And, ah, I think we can all agree You definitely do not need A C s degree to be successful, and I think we're all living proof of that. But I can tell you right now I paid well over $100,000 for four years of undergraduate school like it was probably between 120 to 160,000. Now that was a small private school in Albany, New York so it was expensive. But the benefit ihsaa not a benefit. You don't need your master's degree, which is great. I mean, it can help you salary wise, but you don't necessarily need a master's degree to get a a desk job. But when we're talking in comparison to boot camps, you know degrees are a lot more expensive. Yeah, and in the time to be everything of the opportunity cost of four years versus a couple of months. That's four years of work experience that you're

kind of missing. Even when I started teaching myself to Kodai was only teaching myself for maybe 18 months. So even then you think about the opportunity cost. It still took less time and obviously less money. Definitely a good point there. I didn't even really think about the opportunity cost, but

neither I can definitely say that I was a very busy middle schooler. So I know we had limited time to actually teach myself to code thing.

Um, yeah, no, very interesting. And the funny thing is, I think the thing is, is I can see your faces and nobody else can. And I know they always say this on podcasts, but when Emma said that they were doing or picking favorites, my job just is like,

yeah, e I mean, the fact that I'm still, like, salty about it to this day is kind of like with the heck,

um Oh, I'd still be salty.

What's so funny is like, you know, one of the other points last point I wanna make about CS degrees they focus primarily on back and deaf. So I learned Java. I learned assembly language myths. There was one webbed, of course, which I was mandated to take because, ah, when I got hired for a full time position, IBM most hard is a job of developer. And then a few months before I started, they called and said, Hey, we want you to do friend and I was like, Oh, h two miles Easy,

cool. Let's do it. And then I took my webbed, of course. And what I learned intraday HTML introduced to CSS Cem barely barely like basics of job description that started the work, the bare basics of Java script. And then what? I learned Bruce Drop and I learned PHP and that was it. And it was so high level because again the professor's didn't fully understand. Like, um, what it took to be relevant didn't cover any job script frameworks whatsoever. Um, and so I get to my first day of work, and I'm like, Oh,

there's more to it than writing each to Mo Marco. Oh, crap. I'm And so why do they only focus on back and Jeff? And especially because we've been fighting this notion that back ends better than friend and it's like, No, it's it's not better. Nothing is better, right? They're different. And we should also be teaching Web Deb as a legitimate course to go into when you're exploring text. So how do we feel about that? I think, in relation to the amount of time it takes to complete a degree. Think about you know, by the tiger used you start your you know,

your computer science classes. Let's say you have course to get out of the way. Let's see you start to hear computer science classes for a sophomore year. By the time you reach your senior year, we're all using new technologies out in the wild, and it's really, really difficult to keep up with. You know what everyone's actually using in real life situations, and you're always good. I mean, it's actually a good lesson to learn when you're learning how to code is that you're always gonna feel like you're a little bit behind, and that is totally fine because I mean it. We've coated our own site in react, and Gatsby and I have only built one site using gas be before, and it's a lot of just like jumping into the deep end and trying to figure it out as you go. But my whole point is that this kind of carries around back thio getting a computer science degree on the learning on the front and side.

There's only so much they can teach you just because every single environment on every single text that is gonna be slightly different depending on where you go and it becomes difficult to have to, like, somehow, be able to teach everything by the time you're ready when you leave when you graduate, I think the best thing that instructors could do more generally is teach you how to teach yourself rather than teach you any one thing particular So and I think that the class is where you learn a bunch of stuff that do you help with that? But also learning one thing in depth means that it's easier to move just learning something else, whereas you, if you're just learning that bare basics of a 1,000,000 things, then you're not really learning much that can actually apply to the to the job or to writing your own projects And so I think that that's another place. That good instructor. Yeah. And I think I think ultimately when we get down to a C s ticker gave me two things. I want to give me a problem solving skills and you gave me something nice to put on my resume. And as shallow as that sounds, it's true, right?

Why do we do these things so we can get a job? I do think that that unfortunately ah, when you look at the totality of this industry, I think it does put you a little bit up like he puts you higher up in the ranks initially, right? Because when ah, these recruiters air looking at your resume or whatnot, they give you what, 15 2nd look over. And so I think that helps a little bit. I would love to challenge that, though, because some of the best developers I know either don't have a degree at all or they're definitely not in see us. So is it me and the best developer? You know, not even a question.

You were in a magazine. So in any case, uh, but let's let's switch gears and let's talk about boot camps, so I was not a boot camp grab. But I taught it one for a long time, and I guess teach but not full time. So hee think you're really, really awesome and a lot of ways to because they allow you to learn job applicable skills in a very short time frame so you can learn the basics that you will need in order to do above developer job. Usually these people funnel into front and jobs, but you could go anywhere in the stack and usually 12 weeks. Baby six months if it's a different type of boot camp and they have all sorts of different formats, so they have self pieced ones where you're learning online and, um, completed your own piece. There are online ones that are instructor led in a way that they are more piece where you have deadlines for stuff and there's a truck that you're following.

Then there's also in person once, and so that's where I have the most experience. And those were really great because you're in a classroom with an instructor. Morris similar Thio ah, high school or college class, and you have a group of other people that are learning along with you so you can really support each other. That's one of my favorite parts about boot camps. So have you all worked with a lot of big camp crowds?

I've worked with a few. I have varying opinions. I think for me, the boot camp grads that I've worked with are either amazing or annoying me, uh, and love your honesty. E No, I I should probably be a little bit more sensitive, but the ones that are great are really freaking amazing. They're so cool. They're really eager to learn there. They have, like, the background knowledge that I would expect, but they're also very ripe and fresh for the learning. And there they got the best of both worlds where they have some knowledge, but they're also super eager.

And then I have people who I've encountered who are just too just wanted to go into the boot camp to get a good job and don't want to learn anything else. And there will be like I've had people talk down to me and act like I don't know what I'm talking about, and I remember one specific issue was in CSS and he had five different classes chained together, and it made it really hard to overwrite things on us, just like you only need one. There were two C s s classes that are trained together Thio for specificity. And he told me there was no way it was possible to do it the way I was suggesting. And then I created PR with what I was suggesting, and it was really frustrating because it took a lot of my time as it cause I was team leader at the time. Actually, you know, this is literally the only person that have had this issue with So maybe action, generalized, It's either awesome or that one person.

Well, let me make a quick comment to your to your point. It is if you are in this industry to gain a paycheck, quick, you can do it. But like, you really should love it, right? Like the most successful people that I've seen love, what they do, and they're really good at it. If you're here to collect a paycheck, you can do it. You can make good money in tech, but at the end of the day, like it's gonna you're not gonna enjoy what you do, and this goes for anything in life.

But, like, enjoy what you do. Life's too short. Now that I have let me get off my soapbox, I have a couple of questions. So let me just ask them both together and weaken iterated on it. But one what types of boot camps are out there so like a general Assembly is maybe one. So if we could name a couple, popular ones would be cool. And then also, who's a good candidate for a boot camp? So would it be someone used fresh, You know, out of high school? Is it someone who's been in the industry but also needs to like maybe up there? They're coding game. So let's talk about those. So

I have a few opinions on that, Um, I think it also comes down to learning style. I'm very much a self directed learning type of person because I'm I just get very anxious and classroom settings, but I'm also very highly motivated. Some people need the structure in orderto really show up, and there's nothing wrong with that. I've never needed that structure personally, and the structure actually stresses me out more than it helps me, but some people are totally the opposite there, like I need that structure. I need that structure. I need that accountability and that's great. Just doesn't work for people like me.

Yes, so I can keep going off of that. I think that that's one of the best parts of it. The other thing is that if you're doing self directed learning, there's nobody there that's really checking your work right, so you could be learning something totally, incorrectly and never have somebody to reel you back in. And so that's one of the really great parts of having a boot camp is that somebody is there who's grading your assignments? Who's looking stuff over that you have for office hours that if you have a really hard bug, you can go ask them. Where is you Don't really have that as much when you're doing self teaching as faras, different camps that are out there at least in the markets that I am most educated on. I think that General Assembly and the Flatiron School, their two big ones and then online there's Lambda School, which is kind of another one that's taking off. But there are different ones in different areas, and you all may have different ones there.

And then, as Faras, who is a great fit for a boot camp, someone that I see the most often is courage, genders. So somebody who has had a successful career who is don't something for a while but wants a change, wants something new for some sort of reason, whether it's that they have started self teaching themselves code and really, really like it, or they're looking for greater opportunity and their lives, which is gonna be a great motivator for people to. So that's the vast majority. There are the people that just got out of high school that are trying to do this instead of college. Those air pretty were. And then they're also another category of people who are not actually looking to a crew change. They're just there to learn another skill,

whether that's to manage better because they manage developers or just because they like learning things. So definitely a wide range of boot camp students of all different ages and experience levels. My biggest piece of advice before you joined a boot camp is this self teach for at least a little bit first s so that you know that you at least somewhat enjoy writing code. You don't have to be in love with it. You don't have to think it's magic, but you can't hate doing it and think that it's this awful thing and then want a career change in order to do it full time. You won't have fun then another awesome thing about it is that Who cares? Really? A move crazy fast. That's just the way that boot camps work. You're in a limited time frame. Everybody has to be learning together. That's just the way it works. So if you have the knowledge coming in in the first week or two can go a little bit slower for you because you know these things coming in. That's a huge asset to you, and you'll feel more comfortable so highly recommend doing that,

even if you're going to do boot camp to self teach for a little bit first, it's really good advice as a couple quick questions. Sorry it Kelly, Uh, do you want to respond directly to that, or can I interject a couple questions you can interject. Just just two questions, though. Just D'oh. Okay, um too. So one, Is there anyone who shouldn't attend AA boot camp in my initial reaction to this is Yeah, I'm gonna ask a question and answer is fine. My initial gut reaction of this is like, if you are not maybe advanced or you're not,

you know, beginner level. I maybe wouldn't recommend a boot camp alley. I would love to hear your take on that, um, and quickly at a second judge mentioned. So I don't forget is how much can someone expect to pay for a boot camp? Yeah. So great questions both of them. So the 1st 1 actually would disagree with that. So I've had students who were actually employed as software engineers with computer science degrees who felt like they were in over their head at work and did a boot camp in order to feel more confident. And it did wonders for them. They completely transformed their career with it. So that's totally on edge keys and definitely not your average student whatsoever. But I think that that can actually work. And especially for computer science students who maybe didn't have the practical experience.

It could be helpful there. I would agree that if you're super super advanced and have, like a master's in computer science or something along those lines, they probably won't help you as much as a beginner student. But everybody's different as far as price goes, most of the in person one's run around $15,000 at least in the bigger cities, whereas smaller cities could would probably be a little bit less than that just because crossed the living and cost of running a business and all that. The other thing is that a lot of them are moving thio payment plan where you only pay once you get a job and you pay back a percentage of your salary. So land the school is like very well known for this. But the other boot camps actually have this in places. Well, it's just one of the payment options instead of it's such a great option as well, especially for second career people or third or fourth, because obviously you have bills to pay. You're not just fresh out of high school, and being able to not have to worry about taking on that immediate burden and be able to comfortably change.

Your career is incredible. Totally, totally. And it's less of a gamble, too, Like you have to be making decent money in order to even, um, have to pay any of the money back and so very much Get your toward yeah, something to consider it. I have one comment to make, but and then, yeah, we'll have to move on since for talking for a long time about this. I'm an employer. So I have the opportunity Thio hire people for my team and higher developers, and I will save.

My favorite people are the ones who are either second career or they have work experience. And if they did go the boot camp option, they work for a little while before actually come into the boot camp. Because Luke aims a really great for, you know, teaching. You had a code, but you're going to get a lot more of the actual on the job experience. If you worked anywhere previously, do you agree? Disagree. Awesome. A Oh, really? I grass. Okay.

Another piece of advice is I would really day into their numbers before joining, so make sure that their graduation re is good. So people actually are completing the boot camp once they start it, that people are successfully transitioning out of it, that they're getting people employed afterwards. They're all those numbers should be online for your camp. Um, and also, if you're doing one of those Pieman plans, make sure to read the terms of that because some of them, if you don't graduate, then the payment terms become different. So make sure that you're reading those before you some wonderful advice. All right, so we could make an entire episode on just self directed learning, and we may end up doing that. But now let's just really quickly touch on the benefits of going to self directed learning route. And also, some really useful resource is for getting started with self directed learning. So I'll let you guys take it from here

s So, um Kelly, both in you and I have done Thea self directed learning, and I've been actually using that term instead of self taught a lot more lately. Because when it comes down to it, I think every single person who is a software engineer has to be self talked to some degree but I decided to take the trajectory of self directed learning for a multitude of reasons. And this will be quote unquote the pros. For me, it was money. I was making 35 k in D. C. Which is e a shoebox. Yeah, very, very not a lot of money. So for me, it was that.

And it also really, That actually is the major pro for me and also the go at your own pace. The go at your own pace is both a pro at a condo. The con with it is you're not gonna get a drop is quickly The pro with it is if you're like me and you get stressed out by the speed of things, then it's actually a good thing for me. I wanted to dip my toes in, go at my own pace. You know, I don't do as well in classrooms like I said, but it really, really helped me to get my own pace and make sure that, you know, I was understanding. And even with what Ali said before, is, even if you do do a boot camp doing a few self taught our self directed learning tutorials and whatnot is super critical to make sure you actually know you want to do it because I knew I wanted to do it because I was teaching myself and I was voluntarily waking up at 5 30 in the morning before work and teaching myself to code,

and I did that for 18 months and awesome. It's I think about it now. And I'm just like I'm trying to give myself a pat on the back like that's kind of cool. And he did that so But, you know, some people get overwhelmed with that orthe lice happens. They need something that really structures it, so that even if life comes, they can have that as their set priority. Versus you know, I'm just learning to code on the side. It's a little bit harder to prioritize that unless you're super super dedicated to it. Um, and motivation is hard like, quite frankly, that's a big con Is getting motivated is a challenging thing and quite frankly,

I never lied on motivation, which is why I think I was really successful in teaching myself because I just literally had it as a habit but staying motivated, especially when you're like I'm on the struggle bus with best. I have a lot of challenges. I don't understand this bug. It can feel very isolating. So getting out too, uh like to meet ups asking for help Joining communities is way. I mean, it's critical wherever you are, but I feel like it's the most critical when you're doing a self directed learning trajectory.

Agreed. And the other great thing about self directed learning is you can base your projects on whatever interests you the most. And we are all queens of of, you know, side projects. So let's each talk about what interests us when it comes to building projects. Mmm. I love the stupid stuff that no one cares about. Ah, resident Sarah Vera who just like, builds dumb things. I'm trying not to swear. So, um, yeah, I'm not gonna use the exact phrasing, but like the other day,

like I was, I'm obsessed with cats. A czar most of us, I think, except for the player who looks like a cat, apparently, and, uh so, like, I was, like, surfing, like, how many domains can I by God, I can collect them all, And I was like,

random cat generator. That sounds great. And I literally just made it like you press a button and it gives you a new picture with cat. And like, I was like, Oh, this is a cool project cause I get to use open source AP eyes like I hadn't really done that like the AP, I think before because I kind of work on a design team in never needed toe interface with AP eyes, but literally like, take your interesting like mega stupid project out of it, right, like another one is like maybe just made a site that when you click a button, it changes the background call. It looks stupid things that help you learn specific skills I think are gonna go a long way.

Yeah, I I love I love silly projects, too. And I think something that I have known is really helpful for a lot of people is building or replicating an app that you know really well that you use like I am kind of obsessed with financial personal budgeting, and that's mostly because if I don't keep track of it, I will overspend. That's a different story, but I know very much what the rules are for A for that kind of app. I know that there's a total amount of income, their expenses, you subtract the expenses, you have income groups. So it's like, you know the rules. And I think that's why a lot of times games were really popular for side projects, building games, especially ones that air well played like tic tack toe and hang man and all that stuff because the rules are really clear. So you kind of have a good control to test against.

Yeah, going off of that. I really like games as well, because they're usually relatively small, and they're also really logic heavy. So building all that logic is gonna be probably more intense than building a recipe, app or a to do list or something along those lines. You're having nothing through the logic a little bit more. That being said, I think one of the biggest places with self directed learning in general is getting into the tutorial spiral. So you're doing one tutorial than the next tutorial than the next tutorial, and it's not clicking perfectly. But you're just keeping reading these tutorials and you're not building anything and it just spirals. And so I think even when you're reading those tutorials, having some goal in mind of something that you're trying to build and that you're trying to accomplish with that is really important to that. You're actually applying your knowledge because if you're not applying it, then it may as well not exist.

And that's how my personal site came about, because I really wanted to learn Gatsby and I'm like I can go through Radom tutorials that exists, but that's not really fun. So that's how I ended up building my entire my entire little website. And, you know, if you visit it, you could see like a section is liked by Kelly Coffee because I just wanted to see how the e commerce component worked. And it's kind of fun because every now and then I end up with, like, $3 in my bank account because somebody gave pieces in for coffee. Well, speaking to that, let's chat about Resource is so I have some of my favorites that are paid, and then I want to mention a couple free ones as well. So I think I started to learn when I had my internship.

I be Emma. I had to learn Python. Ah, And so I went to code Academy or code Academy? I don't know. It was confused with May I like. I feel like there's an A, but I don't think there is Nelson Mandela effect. Israel. So Code Academy is a great one. Free code camp is free. Uh, would be weird if it wasn't, uh, really like that one. But of course,

Egghead, his great friend and masters are also amazing. I love educative. I just found out about this because I was taking the system's designed course highly recommend. But there aren't videos. So I get in front and masters have videos if you like. Those versus educative is just reading. And I also, of course, of Linden tree houses or some great ones. Uh, my problem. It's going real quick. I'm all over the place, spiraling through these tutorials like I love all of them. I couldn't pick a favorite cause,

like, I just you know, they're all so different, and I feel like I get different things from all of them. But what that means is I rarely finished a course because I'm like, oh, another one on egghead. Oh, another one in front of masters, and I kind of, like, hop around. So do you have any favorites? Um,

I really like J s 30 by West boss, you know, Java script. It's one of those things that, like, you can get in tutorial health pretty quickly. You know, like Ali was saying it's tutorial after tutorial and one of my biggest problems with learning job a script is being like Okay, Yes. So you can do, ah, calculations. But what am I actually gonna use this for? Like so what? And something I really thought was need about J s 30 is you. Every video, you build something new.

And I remember that first lesson was, I think, like a jump a drum set. And I was showing my eye partner it was like, Oh, that's pretty neat. I'm like, Yeah, it's super cool. Super cool. I built that and you just have a little bit of a sense of pride. I really like that one. And I really like Wes is teaching style. So love that one. I also like egghead ahead for me has a different mindset. Like I always pick up egghead because their courses air super quick,

like 30 minutes, maybe an hour tops. So if I have to pick up a skill really quickly, But I don't have a lot of time at work, and it's an easier way to sneak at 1/2 hour course than it is to sneak a full, like eight hour course. So I've done that twice. Now. I did that with context for reacts and react Internationalization.

This is not gonna come at an easy price whatsoever, But I love Twitter. What? I know Twitter is amazing for asking. You have this huge community of people who are more than happy to help our in the few that just want to point out your mistakes, ignore them, but honestly feel feel comfortable. If you get stuck on something, take a screenshot of it. Or, you know, I guess you could take a picture of your computer screen with me and say, like, Hey, I'm stuck on this allergy shook her head. No, she disagrees.

Anyway, yeah, I mean, posted about it on Twitter, and I guarantee there are going to be people who are more than happy to help guide you towards the right answer provided the resource is you needs, actually, you know, solve the problem. You front. I mean, Twitter will give you advice even if you don't want it. That's a double edged sword. But also, like, how do you? But then,

here are the trolls be like but Kelly. I have four followers. How will I get traction on it? And that's a great question, because yeah, Twitter is useful if you have a following and you need to help. However, if you use hashtags for, like, different technologies and what it's a lot easier for people to find your question, but basically, like use the benefits of social media or, like used the features to help your tweak it found right. So, like hashtag job's great passion went not because people do search through those, and it's a great way to get noticed.

How shocking. What not is my favorite cash, Doug. What it's not even about. You can look it up later.

It's ah so good. Newbies. Actually, my favorite

one for you to change the topic. I know. It was like

a joke. I know. I love, uh, Kelly's dad jokes. Uh, we promised those in Ah, Twitter

land. I'm here to deliver while they're they're terrible or whether they're awesome. That's the beauty of dad jokes. You're the dad of Twitter, though I think so. For me, with resource is I think mine are a little bit different. I don't learn super well with video content, and so I don't normally go in that direction, which I think a lot of people actually do. And those tutorials are always super super popular. I personally gravitate towards blogger posts and just a collection of those that come out. And if something has a great set of documentation, then I'm so much more likely to learn it, because that's the way that I learned best and trying to build something with it. So I don't know, have good documentation will help me learn your things.

True. True, I feel like this is a great segue way. Lindsay. You want to take it away? Sure, so something

that we d'oh in women who co d. C. Is every Friday, I unless I'm not there in people take over. But I try really hard to prompt people to share one success or one win that they have every week just, you know, it doesn't even have to be a tech related. It can be personal. It can be. I actually slept. You know, I I love sharing those winds, cause I think it really helps us keep us grounded in the industry when there's always a lot of toxicity. So

who wants to go first? What's the other one? First I'll go. First time burst on our list. Okay, So All right. I almost feel like I'm humble bragging, but you know when I'm gonna own it, I'm gonna humble brag. So I had a goal. I had a goal. I'm gonna not humble brag. I had a goal this year to speak at one conference, and that petrified me. And so in lieu of that, I've decided to speak at 10 which is the ruling, but also terrifying.

So I'm really pumped about it. I'm also hoping that I survive it, but I would say, Yeah, that's a huge win.

Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. How about

you, Allie? Yeah. So I am relatively recently hit a 1,000,000 readers of my blogged, which is a big number and so excited about that. What? You hit a hunt a 1,000,000 subscriber readers. So people who have, like red by bog coasts, that is cool cash, lots of people. Yeah, there's a lot of people I don't know that many people saying

Sansom All right, Kelly, you

want your your Yeah, So I run a small business as I speak about very frequently on Twitter. And this past week a friend of mine just told me about a very affordable for one K option and where I can finally start offering retirement to my employees and I won't go bankrupt. I'm super thrilled about this. It's a guideline for a one K, or I guess it's just called guideline. Technically, if any of you are in the same boat as me,

that is awesome. So mine's a little bit of a delayed one, and by delayed, I mean, this happened, like, a month ago. But, uh, last month I actually spoke to the developers at Spotify about javascript inaccessibility, and it is probably the most confident I've ever felt speaking in front of people, and I actually walked away from my podium. I felt really cool and I had like a Britney Spears headset. This kind of neat I felt super, super like Oops, I did it again, But without the red jumpsuit.

Um, I'm next time next time. Okay? I got to get myself red jumpsuit. But so yeah, that was a super positive experience. Going to stop home and meeting some of the people that Spotify. So, yeah. Super Super

fun time, are you? Awesome. So with that, we will want to say thank you very much for listening to our first episode ever. Our first episode was not four minutes long. Y'all that was our teaser. Don't worry. Way got more great stuff coming down the pipeline in our backlog. So thanks for tuning in. We're really excited you're here and we'll see you next time. Don't forget to subscribe. Like and lever reveal. I don't know how these things work. I e thumbs up all the thumbs. Okay. Thank you.