My experience at skaehub bootcamp.

Its funny how time flies when you are busy doing something you love . I was so surprised it’s already a Friday, time seems to be moving so fast . The last two weeks have been incredible. I met new people, got to learn a new language, got to learn so many concepts and above all got to do a python project which i implemented using all the concepts i learnt during the two weeks.

I found out about skaehub though instagram and applied hoping to get a chance with them and honestly speaking i never thought i could get this far. I was so excited when i got their invitation email to the bootcamp . Being the first bootcamp i have ever attended i never knew what to expect. We first began by team introduction and the bootcamp curriculum was shared to us via slack. The first day was nerve wrecking which made me realise the bootcamp was no joke.

After finishing day one of bootcamp.

I have always been a lover of programming hence learning a new programming language was not that difficult for me . Team work also played a big role in my learning process since most of the tasks given were done in groups.

The bootcamp program teaches one a lot of both technical and soft skills. It is an incredible experience more-so if you love programming. I learnt how to think and act like a programmer, how to tackle programming problems and how to test code among others.

Some of the soft skills i learnt were :

1. Team work. We tackled most of the problems as a team which made it easy for each one of us .Shout out to my team members John Kahenya and Joseph Mahiuha.
2. Communication. Meeting new people can be quite challenging when it comes to communicating but i blended easily with the others and also the facilitator and felt confident even while presentations.
3. How to think like a programmer. Most of the assignments were problem based hence one had to think like a programmer inorder to find solutions to the tasks. This is a really important skill to learn as a developer.
4. Asking Questions. Learning a new language can be quite challenging hence you need to ask for help whenever you don’t understand a concept. Humphrey musonye was very helpful in guiding us through the process,helping us whenever we were stack in a particular problem and most of all for being an inspiration to us.
5. Commitment and professionalism. The bootcamp needed one to be really committed since you had to learn a lot during a short period of time. The first week for instance, i had to wake up very early in order to make it to training on time. At first it was quite challenging but later got used to the routine.
6. Effective communication . When working in teams communication is crucial hence i improved my communication skills in the process. We also had to present our work as a group and this needed good communication skills as well
7. Adaptability. Skaehub environment itself was very conducive and easy to adapt to . Meeting new people who were nice made it easy for me not forgetting the humble secretary who welcomed us with a smile each morning and served us tea for breakfast. Basically it was not a challenge to adapt since everyone was nice and friendly.

Some of the technical skills learnt:

1. Python programming language. I had never been a fun of python but the bootcamp really changed my mindset and made me love it . I developed quite a number of projects using python and this really made me feel so proud of my self.
2. Version control . I was not so new to version control but i really learnt a lot of concepts i was not aware of e.g forking, pulling requests, handling conflicts,ssh keys and writing readme. I can now confidently use version control.
3. Test Driven Development. This is a concept i was totally new to but thanks to the bootcamp i got to learn about unit testing and using pytest. Testing is an important concept while programming since you test the functionality
4. Web scrapping. This is a concept i was new to but thanks to the bootcamp i got to work to python modules like beautiful soup and selenium.
5. Databases. During the first day we worked with sqlite3 which is a module for database in python.
6. Handling requests. We had to use apis in most of our projects and i also had to integrate apis in my final bootcamp project.
7. Tkinter. My final bootcamp project was on a currency converter app and this is where i got to learn about tkinter which is a python module for implementing GUI in a system .Below is a demo of the app i built using tkinter,API and other python modules.

These are among the many concepts i learnt during the two weeks bootcamp period. The experience is thrilling and incredible and i can definitely advice anyone who wants to expand on their software development career to apply for such an experience. You get to learn so much within a short period of time.

Conclusion

The bootcamp was not a walk in the park but very intense . You have to learn a lot within a short period of time. It was the best decision i ever made and am thrilled to be part of the experience . Am also looking forward to continue growing my career at skaehub and motivate other ambitious women in technology to becoming great developers.

Thank you for reading

After finishing a project and all the tests passes.