Holy crap!

Is it true? Is the first week finally over? I’ve been having a blast but this is intense! 13 and 14 hour days straight for the last week. I’m going to sleep so hard tomorrow.

Except I probably won’t. My intention was to sleep in a bit today (hey, it’s Saturday!) which means waking up at 6:30 instead of 5:30. Naturally, 5:30 comes around and I’m instantly awake. So much for that idea!

BART is running a limited schedule today due to the holiday, so I was a bit afraid that the first train into the city would arrive later than I liked, so I took the bus in – it’s a good experiment to try since BART will be completely shut down during two days this summer and I’ll need to find some alternate ways to get to class.

Anyway, today was a slightly “easier” day. Maybe it’s because it’s the end of the first week, this is technically our Friday, or that we have a “social night” scheduled (more on that later).

We had a few lectures that consisted of:

- An algorithm of an algorithm: We talked about how to look at ways to approach and solve problems from a software engineering perspective.

-Advanced Data Structures and solutions: This lecture showed how to solve some of the crazy data structure problems we've been working on (involving things like hash tables, trees, binary search trees, and linked lists).

- “Blogging and You”: Hack Reactor highly encourages us to blog about engineering concepts that we learn, interesting problems we've solved or even the tools and apps we use on a day to day basis. They make a point that doing this makes it easier to market ourselves down the road, and prospective employers can learn more about us. I tend to agree, but I think the real question that most of us have is: when will we ever have time to blog???

- jQuery Presentation: This was the final presentation of the day and it was pretty light weight. We looked at the jQuery library and some of the neat things that developers can do with it. We've briefly played with it for some pre-course material, but it sounds like we'll be diving in more next week.

Spaced between those lectures was more time to code and work on our problems. It sounds like a lot of people struggled through this particular sprint. (By the way, I’m not sure if I mentioned it earlier, but a sprint is something that Hack Reactor calls a series of two-day long problem solving sessions and lectures. So, we wrapped up our data structures sprint today. On Monday and Tuesday, we’ll start an algorithms sprint).

It sounds like a huge number of us will be spending tomorrow (our “off” day, hah), hitting the books! I’m definitely going to be one of those people, since my partner and I weren’t able to finish all the problems in this particular sprint. On top of that, we have a brand new self-assessment test coming in on Monday as well, which will focus on the data structures concepts we’ve been covering.

This is actually one thing I’ve found slightly frustrating about Hack Reactor. One of the reasons I joined the bootcamp (and had started considering coding bootcamps in the first place) was because I wanted a more structured approach to learning these skills. Sure, I could have taught myself, but it would have taken ages and I probably would have skipped things that I found too difficult to grasp.

Hack Reactor provides a structured approach to learning these skills in that they have a roadmap that gives you a high level view of where we’re going, but when it comes to any particular detail within that roadmap (e.g., data structures), they basically make you sink or swim. So, my partner and I were forced to try and learn these concepts on the fly. When it finally works out and we get something, it’s a rewarding experience. But when we’re just spinning our wheels in one place, aren’t able to make progress on a single problem, and feel perpetually behind all our other classmates, I think that starts to become a problem.

Speaking of feeling behind and how difficult everything has been:

Toward the end of our lunch break, I wanted to do some extra studying, so I grabbed my laptop and went walking over to the lecture area (since everyone was having lunch in the kitchen, this ends up being one of the few quiet areas people can go to study). While walking that way, I saw a fellow student standing near some of the instructor desks (Hack Reactor is setup with this huge open floor plan).

He looked a bit defeated, so I went over to commiserate and ask him if he was struggling with some of these problems as well. He looked up at me and I could see his eyes were a bit read and watery – like he was trying not to cry. He shook his head and I immediately knew what was happening.

Earlier in the week, during one of our “Welcome to Hack Reactor” lectures, the instructor mentioned that they offer a “mulligan.” If, after the first week of class, you feel that the pace is too fast, you feel that you won’t be able to keep up, or have some other concerns, you can withdraw from the class and get your tuition back (minus the deposit).

That’s what this student was doing.

“It’s just too much. I need more time to focus on these concepts and maybe I can try and come back in a later cohort.”

Oh, man. My heart breaks for him. I know exactly how he is feeling. This stuff is CRAZY. Just absolutely crazy and intense. I don’t think anyone can blame him for wanting to withdraw. I’m sure every one of us have had those thoughts multiple times a day while trying to wrap our heads around these difficult concepts.

Anyway, I wished him luck and told him I could only imagine how difficult the decision was and wished him luck in the future.

After our last lecture wrapped up, it was time for our first SOCIAL NIGHT. This is something that Hack Reactor schedules every Saturday night after classes wrap up, as a way to foster friendships and get to know each other better. Usually, they’ll have us stay at school and watch movies, play games, or do other fun things like that.

For this particular instance, we went up to Fisherman’s Wharf to watch the fireworks show. Around two dozen of us left at around 6:30 and hopped on the bus. We had sat down on some concrete bleachers / seats right on the water at Aquatic Park. Since the fireworks show wasn’t going to start until 9:30PM, a number of students went off to find food (I recommended the nearby In N’ Out, which is where I think everyone went to). I had saved left overs from lunch and ate them before we left, so I wasn’t too hungry. However, a few of us sitting near each other realized we were “thirsty.” I say thirsty, because Hack Reactor has a strict no-drinking-at-school policy, so we weren’t sure what the status was (turns out, since we’re outside of the classroom, it’s fine).

So, I recommended the nearby Buena Vista Cafe, which is a legendary place known for their Irish coffee. (I’m starting to realize that the vast majority of people in our cohort aren’t originally from San Francisco and they came to Hack Reactor from far and wide – this is apparently making me the expert on all things related to San Francisco.)

So, four of us snuck away and I got to introduce some people to their first Irish coffees – which were perfect for a typically cold and foggy San Francisco evening. Anyway, it was a great time and I felt like I really got to connect and chat with some of my fellow students. Everyone comes from so many different backgrounds and walks of life.

After this, we bought a 6-pack and then joined the rest of the class for the fireworks show – which was unsurprisingly obscured by the thick fog. That said, it was still fun.

Once this wrapped up, a different group of us decided to go out – somehow, we ended up at a dance club (you know how much fun I have at those). Fortunately, all of us nerds were able to check our computer bags. We chatted, danced and toasted over the next hour or so. Then it was time to catch the last BART ride home.

Oh, man.