Good day everyone, it’s time for me to tell you a story about how I “spread my wings”... My name is Oleg, I’m 21 years old.
Since childhood, I wanted to become a programmer, and my dad also told me to learn programming. I took the book from him, looked at it and thought - well, that’s bullshit, then I’ll learn it.
Then I was sent to a school with in-depth study of Hebrew (!) and computer science, not to say that I received a super foundation there, but there was Pascal and HTML and the basics of algorithms. Of course, I didn’t take this seriously, I copied from everyone, and I actually studied with grades of three or four. Then the question arose about my admission, I googled it, found out about STEP Academy, and wanted to go there. Everything seemed to be going well, I even found out that there is no need for a national exam (Unified State Exam), apparently that’s why I decided not to register for it. Then my mother found out how much it cost to study there, and since money was very tight at that time, my mother decided that I would go to a regular university... But it was too late :). Registration for ZNO has ended. School ended, there were no friends left, everyone was busy at the universities, and I went to work at the cinema (cleaning, ticket control, etc.) Probably, this is where changes began in my head, I suffered every day, doing routine work, getting a penny, and it was a shame to say that you don’t study anywhere and your job is crappy. Mentally, it was the most difficult period in my life, I even stopped communicating with girls, because it was simply embarrassing. I worked there for six months, registered for ZNO and then for the same amount of time, preparing for mathematics and Ukrainian in the evenings. language. I remember the day when I quit, I was the happiest, I immediately felt a surge of strength, then in the summer I passed the exams, passed well, and entered a budget-funded university to study Computer Science. Of course, then I relaxed again :) I thought that somehow the knowledge would come on its own, throughout the first course I couldn’t even initialize an array, I copied all the labs, in short, everything was smooth. The first year ended, I promised myself to study in the summer, read books, but of course I gave up on that too, then the second year began, we started a new subject: “Theory of Programming and Software Creation.”
Starting point
On this subject there was a teacher I. S. Mazurok, who did not teach according to the university program, but was able to choose the very words that changed everything. “Why did you come here,” “They won’t teach you anything here,” “the university won’t make you programmers, it’s just a deferment from the army,” The teacher himself worked as a programmer and told a lot about IT companies, how everything works there, what positions there are, what types of companies (grocery, outsourcing, etc.). And he did it so interestingly that I wanted more and more to start doing something, but I needed a starting point. And then JavaRush accidentally caught my eye (advertising on a public page in VK), of course I was skeptical, as with all advertisements in VK, but still decided to try, I passed the first level quite easily, then the second, then the third, then The first “fuss” began, but to my surprise, I really enjoyed sitting for 2-3 hours on tasks, and how damn nice it is to receive messages from the plugin that you did well and the task was completed. Only at the 6th level did I notice that JuvaRush is paid , of course, I was very upset, because I was a student and didn’t have much money at that time, I decided to put this issue aside for now and save up, then my mother came from Italy (to earn money), just at JavaRush there was a 50% discount promotion. Well, of course, I had to beg my mother and prove that this was not a scam, and it finally worked out for me, I bought an unlimited subscription and away we go... I sat for days and nights, forgetting about university\festivals\friends, level 10,15,20, big things started tasks that I sat on for several days, I was delighted, it was as if I had finally found something that I could do for days on end without noticing the time, before that I couldn’t do anything, and when I sat down to tasks I felt involved in it (although then nothing I didn’t really know what could be written on a resume).
First failure
The 30th level was already approaching, and oddly enough, at the university, I received an increased scholarship, thanks to me the whole group began to write in Java (more precisely, I wrote for everyone in Java). On this wave of inspiration, I started sending my resume to all companies and all job search services (naive :)), of course I didn’t receive any calls, because there was only JavaCore. Then in my city they opened enrollment for Android developer courses, I went for an interview and oops - the first failure, I was rejected, at the interview there were too many questions about databases, too many nuances that I did not know, and so here was the first failure. Well, hello depression, fear that there is still so much to learn that I won’t be able to do anything, well, after a month I calmed down and continued my studies, went to all sorts of Olympiad conferences, read documents, etc...
Six months have passed
There was already level 35-36 ahead, I had already written to the moderators to ask them to add fuel to my account (at that time there were still not enough tasks). Six months passed, and then that company again opened courses, only now in JavaScript developer, at that time I had already written my online library in JavaEE, with adaptive layout, database, Hibirnate, Tomcat. Your own messenger on sockets and Swing. I already used Git, knew how to set up my server on glassfish and tomcat (in general, something at least reminded me of a programmer). I knew JavaScript at the time at a 3* level - some level in JavaRush when there was JSON, but I decided to get ready, in a month I learned the basics of js, and very quickly, especially having good knowledge of Java. The time has come for the test, it covered the basics of css, html, and the very basics of JS, at the level: “write all the ways to declare an array in JS.” Then, based on the test results, people were selected for an interview, about 300 people wrote the test, about 50 people were interviewed, among whom was me (for Android courses, I didn’t even pass the test).
Luck
At the interview, they asked why I became a proger and I told them this sob story that I wrote above, well, they asked if I had coded before, and so I showed my Git repository (which was very, very important), told them that I know JavaEE, Hibernate, Well, they asked me why I chose Frontend, to which I honestly answered that I just wanted to find a job :) And so I made it into the top 10 lucky ones who got into the courses. It was cool, it was not at all like what happened at the university at that time (the end of the second year), all tasks were posted in the Git repository, where we made pool requests for solutions (the best solutions were merged with the main branch). A month later, one of the course teachers offered me a job in his company, and without thinking, I agreed. From the first day, I was blown away by how difficult and at the same time interesting it was; I was immediately given tools that I had never used (Less, React, Gulp, Node.js). I delved into all this for a long time, especially in the reaction, which seemed not as obvious as everyone writes, or at least it didn’t work out very well for me. But still, I didn’t feel like a programmer, the customers were all Russian, there were only 3 people in the company (2 juniors and a middle), so something inside was eating me up every day, maybe it was just cockroaches in my head, but I didn’t feel that I achieved the goal, otherwise I would have written here a long time ago :)) But despite this, my growth was simply colossal, I myself did not notice how I was already building the application architecture myself, writing in React as well as in Java, at that time (beginning of the third course) we were given a coursework, I chose the topic of the online card game 21 or BlackJack (the ability to select the number of cards should have been provided), and in parallel with the work I wrote this “mini project” (for those interested, here is the link: BlackJack) And that’s it - there was something wrong, I don’t know how to explain it, I received money, and not bad for a student (500 dollars), but I felt that this was not what I wanted, and plus big problems began in the family. And my project was hell, I had to broadcast my screen on Skype for 14 hours a day (the whims of the CIS customers...) Well, in general, I finished the project that was hanging on me and left work back to the university :) At the university it was already so easy that at the beginning of the 2nd semester of the 3rd year, I simply took all the labs and courses from the teachers, and in a month I did absolutely everything, and not in some Pascal, but Angular, React + ES6 and other goodies of the modern world, for the server I took either Java or Node.js, which I already knew very well at that time, the base for all the students was Mongo, I really liked the devil.
Got bored
This is how I slowly gained experience, filled my git with new projects, made money from my classmates, drank on weekends, in general everything was calm). After some time it became boring, again there was nothing to do, at the university I already gave conferences on web development and JavaScript. I decided that it was time to try my luck again, I found 2 vacancies on dou.ua, everything seemed to be kosher, as I like, the vacancy is in English, from a year of work experience, SPD registration and everything is like people, what I really wanted, I sent my resume to 2 companies (by the way, special thanks to JavaRush for the summary, compiled according to your recommendations). Well, I was invited to an interview, which I passed brilliantly without failing a single question, they asked Angular, React, Node.js, the HTTP protocol in general, the database, build tools, in general they stupidly went through my resume and asked on all points - vacancy JavaScript Developer (FullStack). After 3 days I already went to work, I was immediately assigned to a Canadian project, React+es6+node.js. It was very interesting, I got acquainted with the Scrum and Agile methodology, learned what Slack is, we had our own Worksaction, with tasks and estimates, in general this is WHAT I WANTED, every day was different from the previous one, although at first it was unusual that everything is in English, tasks, meetings and communication with the customer, but we have a teacher who helps with this, and my English is not so bad). Colleagues and the team are just super, every Friday we go to the bar, there is always some kind of life inside the office, everyone jokes with each other, the work process is reminiscent of the series "silicon valley". On Friday my probationary period ended and I officially joined the company, and now I am immensely happy and have achieved what I wanted, I am proud of the path I have taken and who I am now and I am very grateful to JavaRush for this, which not only taught me how to program, but made me I love it as a favorite thing, and even though I’m not a Java dev now, JavaScript is also very good now, so once again, thank you very much for everything you have done and are doing for all of us. The entire journey took almost 2 years (from the beginning of the second year to the middle of the third). I wish you all good luck, guys, if I’m as lazy as I was, then others are even more so, here’s a couple of tips
Do not give up
Don't stop at JavaRush alone, look for other learning sources
Try to consolidate each learned technology with a mini-project
And of course, relax from time to time, enjoy what you do, and you will find the job you deserve and want
PS I apologize for so much text, I just wanted to tell everything from beginning to end, as it really was, I hope at least someone will read everything :)
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