Success story after 1.5 years from the start of training.

Carefully! Many letters!

First, let me tell you a little about myself. I am 25 years old. Before starting to learn Java, I studied at the Faculty of Mathematics, in applied mathematics. It would seem that with programming I should be, if not excellent, then at least good. But this was not my case, because. all the subjects where programming flashed - I sabotaged and handed over somehow on luck, I didn’t write anything myself. So it turned out that I was far from programming. It is clear that with the education of a mathematician in our country you will not earn much except as a programmer. Therefore, the choice fell on this. And it just so happened that I decided to learn Java. It was not connected with any market analysis or search by the number of jobs, demand in the labor market. It just happened. And when I decided to learn how to do it, I came across CodeGym. Somehow I did not want to learn only from books, but I looked reluctantly at full-time courses, because. They cost a lot of money, but there is little real profit. Therefore, CodeGym was the best solution for me. After passing the first 3 levels, I realized that I like the course and that I can buy a subscription. Especially since I got on the action and bought for half the price. This was at the end of August/beginning of September 2015. Plan of the education. After reading what to do, I decided to make a plan of how I should study in order to achieve my goal and complete the courses, because I no longer had time for slow learning. The task was to get knowledge quickly, and so as not to discourage desire and so that the brains had time to rest. Because such a load that I wanted could interfere with me. For this I decided:

• What you need to study five days a week (Mon-Fri).
• On weekends, I'll do anything but this.
• Each class will run for a total of 4 hours, with a 15-minute break between each hour to walk, relax and make tea.

A total of 20 hours per week. Not bad, right? In addition, sometimes I had to go to the university, because. I was still in graduate school. By December, I was already at level 20 and thought that I knew a lot, a lot. But I also had crises when nothing worked out and it seemed that I couldn’t go further (see my article, help, I need motivation ) . Moving to a new level. Three months after the start of training, I talked with a friend about what else I need to know in order to get a job .. And then it started: some unfamiliar words, databases (oh horror!) And much more gave me understand that you need to accelerate and do even more. It is clear that with the java grammar I can not get a job, I began to accelerate in different directions:

• I bought myself a Head First book "Learning Java". It is recommended at level 4 in the course. But somehow I did not read carefully and missed this fact. The same things are told there, but from a different angle, which helps to understand them better and more thoroughly. I advise.
• I started looking for all the themed parties in my city and going to them, even if I didn’t understand much, but with some measure I realized that it was not in vain and they helped me a lot. like this
• There is another resource that you need to go through from beginning to end - this is dou - a site for programmers. There you can see what events are there, what salaries are currently in Ukrainian IT, you can read a lot of very useful articles, I especially recommend Materials on the topic “A guide for the future Java developer” and Java Enterprise: what and how to teach . These articles will help you and will not let you relax.
• I found short and informative video tutorials on youtube on MySQL , I advise.
• Golovach's video lessons also did not go unnoticed. There are a lot of them, a lot of water, but explains many things quite well.
• You also need to understand what HTML and CSS are. There is no way without this, here HtmlAcademy helped me with this . There you can complete tasks for free.
• I registered on the linkedIn social network , where I began to show my skills and that I was looking for a job (maybe I'm lucky and they will find me). Added everyone in a row as friends, expanding the circle of his friends. So that you understand how much, now I have more than 10,000 friends on Linkedin. For a start it is necessary. And it helped, a team of android freelancers was looking for a newbie for themselves and they wrote to me. I understand that the case is out of the ordinary, but it happened.

First failures Of course, in parallel with my studies, I began to look for internships in companies so that over time I could work. I was invited for an internship interview. After talking with HR, an English teacher was called to me, with whom I "talked". At this point, I was not at all ready and it turned out that I listened more than I spoke. And on the topic, tell me about yourself, I mumbled something, but nothing special. But when communicating with the tech lead, I answered some questions, I didn’t know the answer to many, and to the answer that I was studying at CodeGym, he said that there was another student from there in front of me. I was at level 27, and he was already at level 34. After talking, he said that they would send me a test task, according to which they would decide whether I was fit. I somehow made it, and not all the functionality. After a while, they wrote to me that I did not suit them ... It's a shame,
First job. As I said, after creating a page in linkedin, after 1.5-2 months, a certain android developer wrote to me with a proposal to work with them. Of course, it was about the minimum salary. We talked at the meeting and I was offered a job. It is clear that she was poorly paid, but I had no other and I was happy with what I had. Starting from the end of January, I started working in the apartment of one of them on an android. Everything was new, everything was different. But somehow and somehow I worked, did something. It was scary and everything was not clear, these were not puzzles in CodeGym. Everything had to be done, read, learned what and how. I had a test project that I was doing that could become something big over time. And so it went until May. Then somehow our team began to fall apart, everyone understood this and began to look for work. Search for a new job. Not knowing how to do this, I decided that I would send out to all the companies that are in my city. How do you know what companies are? The fact that I ran the dou back and forth helped me in this. There is a section of the company and you can select the city to which the search is being made. In the description there is a mail (almost always there) that you can write to. To make everything look good, I wrote my resume in English, that's the only way it should be. Of course there was a lot of water, water, water, because. there was nothing special to write, he wrote everything in a row. I also wrote a cover letter for each letter (recruiters love this), where I indicated exactly who I want to be, otherwise it often turns out that they send a resume and it is not clear what position they are applying for. The cover letter was also in English. I completely forgot, English is needed VERY strongly. Realistically, if you can't read the stackoverflow response, then you are not a tenant and you have nothing to do in programming. I made myself a speech for an English interview on the topic: Tell me about yourself. A very useful thing, I'll tell you. After some time, I received 4 invitations for an interview. The practice of mailing to all companies was justified, and those who did not have such positions - they usually did not answer at all. It was difficult at the interviews, it was embarrassing, it was not comfortable, but I passed them, in some they just talked, in others I had to do a couple of tasks, for example, I had to write a Java interpreter in the BrainFuck language. The task turned out to be interesting and I am glad that I completed it, even though they did not take me to that company. I was looking for a job either in Java or Android. Although I wanted more Java, I'm not particularly interested in mobile development. Salary expectations were minimal, it was necessary to find a job, everything else was no longer important. They asked me about understanding Databases, about how to create tables in certain situations. This is all about SQL databases, no one asked about NoSQL. First offer. In one place they wrote to me and refused, in another too. There are two companies left, in one for the position of android developer, in the other - for Java. They called from the company about the android and said that I fit them and they make me an offer. It was a victory. I was very glad. But I also got a call from the company for a java position and I was rushing about and did not know what to do, so I asked to wait a day with my answer so that I could call to find out for the position of a java developer. Calling the company for a Java position, I said that they made me an offer, but I want to know more from you. I was invited to the office to talk to them and they said that I would like the result of the conversation. And they turned out to be right, after talking with them, they made me an offer in the second company, which I actually chose. This is my first job in the company, in another article I will write what happened next, but for now I will say that it was only more fun. To this day I work in this company, I am satisfied with everything and I am not going to leave. PS you need to strive, strive, strive and never give up! PSS I did not complete the entire course, I stopped at level 30. And when I got a job, I was at 27. And I can really say that starting from the 20th level, you need to look for a job and develop in addition to Java. Master at least from afar a framework for project automation (Ant, Maven, Gradle). The thing is not complicated and very necessary. that starting from the 20th level, you need to look for a job and develop in addition to Java. Master at least from afar a framework for project automation (Ant, Maven, Gradle). The thing is not complicated and very necessary. that starting from the 20th level, you need to look for a job and develop in addition to Java. Master at least from afar a framework for project automation (Ant, Maven, Gradle). The thing is not complicated and very necessary.
To everyone who liked the article - put "+" so that I know :) This is important for me :)


See also my other articles:
Test task: "Write an Interpreter in the BrainFuck language"
Test task "Image Comparison" Java - faster, stronger and higher! Salaries of Ukrainian programmers. Success story after 1.5 years from the start of training
Technical questions at the interview.
How to find a job? Sending resumes
Professional burnout. How to resist?
English for IT and for interviews
Pattern Command in your own words.
Singleton pattern in your own words.
How to create an executable jar in Intellij IDEA / how to create jar in IDEA
Help, I need some motivation!
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