On November 13, 2017 I will be starting the web development course at bloc.io.
Why I chose Bloc?
So, here is the brief overview of my current situation. It will help to explain why I would chose a program like Bloc. For the past decade I have been interested and tinkered around with coding and web development. I am a self-taught, DIY kind of person. Over the years I have had some paying gigs developing websites for friends and people I had the luck of running into just when they needed someone to help them. These gigs usually revolved around wordpress. I learned CSS and HTML on my own and honestly found that to be pretty straight forward. However, wordpress uses PHP which is an actual programming language. I fiddled around with it, read documentation at php.net and tried to find as many tutorials on it as I possibly could. css-tricks.com was/is an amazing website and produced some really awesome videos that helped me learn the ecosystem.
The problem was that I wasn't learning how to program. I was learning how to hack and splice things together. How to leverage plugins to substitute for my lack of programming knowledge. Later on, I moved on to Python. I had decided if I was going to learn a programming language it should be an easy one. So, I did what any responsible adult does and googled "easy programming languages to learn." Python kept coming up over and over again. I decided that I would take the plunge and really focus on learning it. I watched tutorials on various websites like lynda.com and udacity.com. I tried course after course and book after book.. Still, nothing. I could follow along and sorta build things at this point but when the videos stopped I had no idea where I should go or what I should do.
I enrolled in coding dojo for one month. They promised to teach me to code. Maybe their program has been improved but they were not very helpful at all. The course was tough but there was not ecosystem or help besides an email. I got frustrated and gave up and got a full refund. I tried the freecodingcamp. It was about the same. I could only go so far and then I was stuck without any kind of support.
If you are reading this and have made it this far you might be thinking "Dude, stop bailing and just stick with something." That is how I felt after all these years, all of these attempts, completely defeated. Then I found a program called Thinkful. The program offers one on one support with a developer who actually works in the industry. I thought this was an awesome concept but what I didn't like about it was the pricing model. Yes, you get to meet with a mentor and pair code but it costs $300-$500 a month depending on the options. There is also no real set curriculum. You just work on things you are interested in. This may work for some people but I require structure.
Now, up to this point I have spent countless hours, hundreds, if not, thousands of dollars trying to learn to code. Sure, I understand what an array is. What a loop does. What a method/function does. What a class is etc.. But I still don't know how to fill in the gaps.
Then I found Bloc. I have read tons of reviews about the program. It has showed up many times in my search results but I never really took the time to see what the program was all about. Plus, I thought that I should focus more on a tangible career like IT.
With Bloc I will be meeting with my mentor twice a week. How sweet is that? Someone who can help me fill in the blanks, answer questions and hopefully inspire me to pursue my dream of becoming a professional developer. Bloc has a structured curriculum. That means I get to visually see that I am making progress. It gives me a roadmap for success. Bloc also teaches the latest technologies. I am not gullible, I know that there is no way any place can teach you EVERYTHING that you need to know but the MAJOR frameworks and such is a great starting point. I will get to learn how to leverage these tools to my advantage and ask questions when I have them instead of googling for hours and finding things that are "similar" but not really related. Bloc has a SLACK channel for students and alumni. I have checked it out and it seems to be a great place to ask students questions and get some much needed motivation. The most pivitol reason that I chose Bloc is because of their flexibility and financing options. I can code and work my full time job. That is a huge selling point for me. I can manage 20-25 hours a week but quitting my job, having no source of income while I learn is just not an option. I also financed the whole thing. So, while I am going through the course I will only be responsible for paying around $70 a month which I find reasonable. In addition to all this sweetness, they also have a career services team. I like that they are up front about it. Yes they can help you with your resume and such but it is up to me to find work. Having that extra bit of support after graduation is going to pay off.
Bloc seems to address ALL of my concerns and they have been around since 2012. I believe that this program is going to be my ticket at success. It will take a lot of work and time (6 months) but at the end I feel like I will have the tools that I need to get a developer job.