New Beginnings
I started CodeClan in October 2019, doing their 16 week full stack programming course. It is an intensive coding camp designed to take you from little to no experience to being well placed to start a job as a junior developer, with the tools to learn and flourish in the industry.
One of the reasons it has been so popular with employers is that it doesn’t weigh down learning with theoretical computer science. Yes, you get a basic understanding about behind the code - but, far more worthwhile to many, it teaches you principles of coding through practice, through projects and in a way that fits agile developer environments.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with CodeClan, and feel I have become very comfortable with the three languages we learned - Ruby, JavaScript and Java - and though I will miss my cohort and the team, I am excited to get started as a full stack junior developer!
Projects
Each week we would collaborate in solo, group and paired labs, creating projects as we went, meaning my github is currently littered with a number of half realised projects. Picking out a few that I enjoyed, please take a look!
- Metronome Project - Javascript, React - afternoon project to create a metronome using state and props. We took ours a step further and used CSS animations to bring a more analog metronome to life in our app (pair).
- TimeLine Project- JavaScript, MongoDB, Vue - adapting the popular card game ‘Timeline’, in which you try to order historical events into their correct order, into a single player variant (group)
- St. Tina’s Hope - Ruby, Postgres, Sinatra - a client management app for a fictional vet hospital emergency room (solo).
- Museum Api Project - Javascript, Vue - this was an open project to use an api of our choice and create a simple app from its data. Given my background in History of Art I was excited to tap into a gallery’s api, and the rijksmusem offered advanced access to their incredible collection. I created an app displaying the work of the artist Reijer Stolk who worked primarily with woodcut and linoprints (Solo).
- Beer Api Project - JavaScript, Vue - using the BrewDogApi we were to create an app which showcased their wares. My coding partner and I had a lot of fun building this app in an afternoon, and it opened our eyes to how powerful the technology we were learning could be, and how easily it could be deployed to create something visually interesting (pair).
- Card Game App - Java - we had to build the logic for a high card draw card game. We used terminal logging to create a more suspenseful experience that you could actually play (pair).
- Boatel App - JavaScript - we built a simple hotel reservation system. Our app decided the world was a boatel, and we had fun developing this theme (trio).