It’s Project Week! — Coding Bootcamp

The course continues and after the battle to find my place inside the tech industry and the arduous journey to becoming a software engineer, I thought about sharing some of the magical moments that come when you finally see your hard work become something real.

At the end of every phase, we are paired with one of our classmates to bring our ideas to life. Together, we start a project from scratch and use everything we have learned so far (and a lot more) to turn it into something of our choice.

Phase 1 Project
Welcome to CLI App Mode! For this phase we were asked to build a Command Line database application. My partner and I are both coffee lovers, so we thought of nothing better than creating a coffee shop! Our app allowed the user to create an account and place orders. They were also able to collect rewards, add funds into their account, check past orders, check account balance, rewards balance and/or cancel their order. It was definitely a fun week where I got to learn a ton from my incredible partner all while being able to flesh out and share my ideas too.

Phase 2 Project
Welcome to Rails Project Mode! For this phase, we were required to build an application with ruby as a frontend and backend. My partner and I discussed at least 5 different ideas. We both liked each other’s ideas, so it took a while to decide which idea we would go with. Ironically, we unknowingly ended up deciding on the most challenging idea. Our app was built for two different kinds of users. The project manager could manage projects by publishing their ideas to reach out to the community and have volunteers to help them out. Project managers could edit project information in order to keep it up to date or even delete it after it was completed or expired. On the other hand, the second type of user is a volunteer. Volunteers could create an account to pick projects in their community they want to help with or make donations to. They were also able to edit their information and delete their account if they were no longer able to volunteer and/or donate. Not only did this project add contribute to my learning, but it also fostered a friendship between me and my partner. Project weeks are usually awesome.

Phase 3 Project
Welcome to JavaScript Project Mode! For this phase we needed to build a single page application. Our front end would be built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and it would communicate with backend API that we needed to build with Ruby and Rails. Coincidence or not, I was paired with one of my best friends in class, so we were both pretty excited and texted each other right away. She likes dogs, I like cats. She trains puppies! I foster kittens. I guess the outcome of our brainstorming moment was no surprise. We created an animal shelter! Our app had several cats and dogs available for adoption. Anyone could choose an animal and fill out a form in order to adopt the dog or cat of their choosing. Shelter staff could log in and check all adoption inquiries. Each inquiry was linked to a specific animal so they could keep track of the adoption process. They were able to edit animal information such as age or description and could also delete an animal from the panel in case that animal was no longer available for adoption. Originally, however, we wanted to create a panel where adopters could see all the animals that were already adopted, meaning that, instead of deleting the animal’s card, the shelter would deactivate them, but we ran out of time and couldn’t create it. Last but not least they were able to add a new animal to the panel so it could find its forever home! We had fun and ran into crazy, silly bugs that drove us up the wall until we find out there was a single, extra character that had created the entire mess. Oh also, she insisted that baby Yoda is a cat.

They might look like simple or basic projects, but all of us know the work we have to put into them. As a complete beginner in this coding journey, I’m proud of them, and sometimes I can’t believe how fast we all learned so much. It has definitely been a roller-coaster ride, but my cohort makes it enjoyable. I feel lucky to be part of this team and I’m looking forward to seeing everybody succeed with their own projects. Big shout-out to Brian Cook, Devante Lowery, and Emily Nguyen who were part of this adventure with me.

We are on our way to the project in Phase 4 and I can’t wait to find out what it’s going to look like. We will be learning REACT, so I know big things are yet to come!