Signed Up For The Iron Yard 12 week Course

The Iron Yard:

I recently made the decision to sign up for the front-end engineering with javascript and MVC frameworks course at the Iron Yard here in Houston, which I’m very excited about.

I’ve been considering this for a while. I talked to a bunch of alumni, visited The Iron Yard and Coder Camps, considered options outside Houston, researched the job market, and read about several languages and frameworks to explore their differences before finally making a decision. I’m excited about new career directions, learning lots of new technologies, and building cool new projects.

Start date is February 1st!

That gives me a month to absorb as much javascript as possible, gain a little exposure to back-end javascript frameworks, learn the first steps of leaflet, dabble in D3.js, and, hopefully, finish a few in-progress projects before class starts. As I’ve shifted to spending nearly 100% of my time on learning and applying code, there’s been some tension with how much to focus on learning vs. building a portfolio. Some of my project ideas will have to be put on the shelf, but I’m hoping to get the paddling experience map online before the end of the month and one or two other projects.

Update!

Got a job offer I couldn’t refuse. I had to drop the class. Now I go to work in a building with a Gemini space capsule in front of it. More formation in the Resume section.

Although I was only at The Iron Yard for one week, I can whole-heartedly recommend them. If you’re interesting in learning what they’re teaching in a short amount of time, definitely give them a look. I was impressed by the instructors ability to cram information into your head quickly while walking the ever-shrinking fine line between challenging and supportive. I was also impressed with the extent to which it is an organization living its values. I can’t speak for all the Iron Yards, as they have many campuses, but the Houston one definitely makes a strong effort to put the students first. Not all coding boot camps deliver on this or other metrics. Please email me if you have any questions. I can also put you in touch with students who took more than the first week.