At the end of today (Saturday), I wrapped up my data structures work and finished my first week of Hack Reactor Remote! This was week one out of 12.

What’s next? The next 11 weeks of the program are divided and there’s a break after week 6. So far, I feel like I’m keeping up with the curriculum and learning at a fast pace. If I estimated my progress, I think I’m growing as a coder at an exponential rate. O(cn) anyone? (Okay, I get that it’s a description of running time, but still.)

Before I started Hack Reactor, I had a family friend ask me what I was up to at home. I told him about Hack Reactor. It turns out, he had heard of coding bootcamps and told me the experience ‘works for some’. I can definitely see why, considering what normal people are used to in a learning environment.

Since the majority of our learning experience is through ‘traditional’ schools including K-12 and college, I think we’ve come to expect and our minds/bodies have become attuned to learning in that fashion. ‘That fashion’, in my experience, is learning a bunch of subjects you may or may not need, erring on the side of ‘not need’, and as a result of knowing this, having divided attention, draining yourself of attention span and determination for your focus area.

One example would be in college, particularly state universities. Students take required classes at the start of their 4-year stint which barely relate to their eventual declared majors (because you can’t start taking specific major classes or classes that you semi-freely choose (constricted by a predetermined path of credit allotment associated with your major). Compared to what I feel is a modern approach in teaching, Hack Reactor is like taking the main bits of what a computer science degree teaches to prepare a student for the job and distills that down further to an ever iterating curriculum.

All in all, I think the no nonsense approach in coding bootcamps suits my personality of ‘getting to the point’ well. End rant. I look forward to my Sunday break, next week, and Christmas holiday (a nice surprise when the image of coding bootcamps is no breathing room for the duration).