Photo credit: Huyen.
It was May 17, 2017. That day, I was giving a piano lesson to one of my students, but I ended up receiving a lesson of my own.
After our lesson, we made small talk. The conversation somehow led to me telling him about my other sources of income (working at a restaurant on the weekends, teaching piano, and babysitting on weekdays). My student then suggested an idea I never thought I’d take.
“You should look into coding,” he said. “Maybe you’ll like it.”
My piano student was a software engineer who graduated from a coding bootcamp (App Academy to be precise). He gave me a list of coding bootcamps to research and free resources to start off. On my two-hour commute back home, I immediately started looking up some schools. Here were some of the ones that came up:
I settled on Fullstack Academy and decided to research the school. After reading multiple reviews online and speaking with a graduate through LinkedIn, the bootcamp stood out in terms of having high standards, consistent job placements for their graduates, and a friendly culture.
Beginning
At our next lesson, my student offered to exchange piano lessons for coding lessons. I enthusiastically agreed. So, he asked me to complete the Ruby course through Codecademy. For the next six weeks, I spent a few hours every night studying and practicing Ruby, the main language that was taught at App Academy—the first coding school that I was going to apply to.
Wait. What about Fullstack Academy? Well, App Academy was more feasible for me due to its deferred tuition model at the time. However, a week later, I found out about the Web Development Fellowship (WDF) program at Fullstack Academy, which was offering full scholarships for those who were eligible. After submitting an application, they sent me a “Javascript Jumpstart” course with a deadline to complete their online coding assessment.
I was nervous. Javascript was completely new to me, but my student said that I could apply the same logic from Ruby to Javascript. “I’ll help you,” he said. “Finish the Javascript course on Codecademy by next week and come prepared with any questions.”
Preparation and testing
The next week came rather quickly. By that time, I had moved on to App Academy’s second online coding assessment and was already committed. I continued to study more Ruby before deciding to take the second online coding assessment on the upcoming Sunday. Deadlines were approaching, so I studied and practiced harder than I practiced playing the piano.
On Sunday, I took the second coding assessment, which took me the entire two hours. Out of the three questions provided, I was only able to solve one. At this point, I was feeling hopeless. But then I received an email from Fullstack Academy that I was eligible for their WDF program. I took their coding assessment the next day but in Ruby, only because I felt more comfortable with it than Javascript.
Out of the six questions provided by that online assessment, I was only able to solve one, again. I had never felt more depressed and dissatisfied with my performance. I had an opportunity of a lifetime—a full scholarship to my coding school of choice—and I messed it up. The path that was lit before was suddenly growing darker.
On the way to my piano lesson, I started to think about coding even more. If I had more time, if I had studied more, if I was smarter, if I was better, if I was able to focus harder—all these thoughts were in my mind.
Acceptance
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