How to become a “non-humanitarian” in 10 months

Dossier

• Who: Stanislav Vasilievsky
• Place of residence: St. Petersburg, Russia
• Age at the start of training: 26
• Education: linguistic
• Original success story

I have long wanted to close the gestalt and write about my modestsuccess stories. But my hands never got around to it... And suddenly I realized that if I don’t write today (now!), then “I’m on guard and everything is lost”! By and large, all the necessary components of success have long been known: motivation, work, etc., etc. You can read about this in many books now. But this does not explain the main thing: how is it possible...? Well, how about using these all, of course, useful skills? I don’t think my recipe will be universally useful for everyone. But I will be pleased if at least someone finds it interesting. Facts in brief:

• I am a philologist ( linguist ) by training ;
• I have never done programming ( in computer science we learned to type with 5 fingers, but I never learned );
• In July 2014 (at 4 am) I suddenly realized that I urgently needed to learn Java!
• Soon I started studying JavaRush - the most successful of my finds;
• In December 2014 (almost) I entered the JavaSchool of one large IT company in St. Petersburg (by this time I was at level 18 in Java Rush ) ;
• In February 2015, I finally entered and successfully graduated in April, having defended a small web project;
• In May 2015, I got a job at the same company as a junior - hurray!
• In September 2015, as part of the International Programmer's Day, I successfully passed a comic “test for non-humanists” - yes!
• And today ( 11/12/2015 ) I passed the Oracle Java SE Certificate (7.1) test with 83% (pass from 63%)
• So it goes!

Does violence beget violence?

The fact is that I am an aggressive opponent of all violence. And including above yourself. As you know, if you force yourself to do something through force, then the effectiveness of this is much less than when you do the same thing, but with enthusiasm.

Alas, what gives pleasure rarely turns out to be a source of total benefit - ask any professional athlete! So, willy-nilly, we have to look for compromises between “wants” and “needs.” And in our case, if you “want” to become a Java programmer, then you “need” to learn Java. There's no escape.

My studies: JavaRush, Golovach and others

At first I liked to read one of the tutorials for beginners ( in Russian ) and copy tiny programs with drop-down windows in Swing from the book. At first it looks very impressive. From the very first day you begin to feel like a “ Java King ” ( this term is common among some of my colleagues ). But by the middle of the book, much became unclear to me, and interest gradually faded away. I remember it like now... August. Hot. I am lying on the shore of Ladoga. I'm reading about arrays. And arrays don’t suit my head - even crack them! - Knock Knock! - Closed!

...So I started giving lectures and solving problems in JavaRush. Wow, cool! I love learning while playing! And also pump up levels and track your rating according to statistics!

But that was not the case: some problems took a long time to solve. Sometimes there is not enough information in lectures, and in other sources it is not so easy to understand. Each next level was more and more difficult: a week and a half, two, two and a half... Then I added videos to them on YouTube . I found a good channel - “ Tell all about PC ”. Especially for the humanities: short videos ( 5-10 minutes each ), tell from the very beginning (from the binary code and computer device), simply and with pictures! I watched about 150 videos... Then the path got lost in the jungle of graphical interfaces. One day I found Golovach’s channel . The man is fire! He tells the story clearly, to the point, in an incredibly interesting way, with memorable examples and a characteristic accent (I studied Ukrainian for a year at the philology department)! Moreover, since I am an auditory learner, and educational audio on programming practically does not exist in nature... I downloaded Golovach’s video, converted it to MP3 and went and listened and listened. Of course, in some places, looking at the board was not enough. But Golovach is simply a teacher from God - honestly! — voices everything, explains and repeats it several times (for particularly non-technical comrades). What's most amazing: in addition to improving my understanding of how Java works from the inside, I also began to get a feel for the structure of IT as a whole. Golovach told us how the career of a developer differs from a tester, what types of companies there are, what their specifics are, how it is here and how it is in the USA , and many other useful little things. I think that it was during these long walks through the cloudy autumn-winter St. Petersburg weather “under the whisper of chatty old times,” to the sounds of Golovach’s lectures, that it was then that the first neural connections of a “non-humanitarian” kind began to form in my brain. And, of course, I read. Although neither Eckel, nor Horstmann, nor even Joshua Bloch gave me such undisguised pleasure as the later “Head First Servlets & JSP” that came in handy. I also solved tests on Quizful. At the moment, I have already solved 23 tests there (not requiring rating). Among them there is even administration of Windows Vista! :)).

Java School

All this was very useful for me to enroll in a Java school . By the way, my result then was the worst of the passing ones (50%). Nowadays I prefer to be overprepared than underprepared. And what to hide, I love solving tests (and even making my own)! You immediately see your level and can evaluate the result (feedback). Here you look for errors, analyze them, and correct them. Of course, this is not the same as practice, but, in my opinion, it is also a good way to learn.

To summarize, I want to say that the most important thing is the total number of hours of deliberate practice (“vigil”) devoted to the subject being studied (in my case, Java). You can write programs, read books, solve tests, watch videos, listen to audio, communicate with specialists - and even smoke beans (provided they are coffee beans, the use of which expands consciousnessJava knowledge).

In conclusion, I would like to wish success to everyone who has started or is about to begin the path to becoming a (super) Senior Java Guru . After all, all our wishes come true! Sooner or later. Anyway.

One year later

A year has passed since I wrote my story. I work there too. I'm happy with the company. I'm also happy with the work. In March of this year, when my project ended, I “sat on the bench” for some time. During this period ( a month and a half ) I learned JavaScript , Angular and some other technologies. At first, I was unable to pass an internal interview for another project. Despite the Oracle Java Associate & Oracle Java Professional certifications I received in Java 7 , I could not boast of sufficient knowledge of some other necessary technologies and frameworks. But finally, I was hired into one of the company’s key projects as an ARS programmer. After which I spent a month and a half studying this technology ( Action Request System - A framework from the American company BMC, using Java , JavaScript , Oracle DB and graphical programming principles). Soon, in addition to APC programming functions, he began to write in JavaScript and support Web GUI . I appreciated all the advantages of web programming compared to the back end, which I had to do in the last project, and in August I received a promotion and became a “middle”! Based on my experience (not very much yet) I can say the following.

Firstly, programming is very diverse and interesting. And scripts, and algorithms, and databases, and the web. Secondly, even if things don’t work out at first, the IT field is so vast that you can always find a place to your liking.

I would also like to sincerely wish good luck to those who have just started learning programming or have at least thought about it! And remember, friends, the world is not boarded up anywhere! PS : If you are interested in my company and are considering it as a place of work, then you can safely write to me on VK: auratarda. I can tell you more and also recommend you to enroll in a Java school.