To begin with, it’s worth talking about how my schooling was coming to an end. I really liked physics and was going to enroll in the appropriate place - Belarusian State University, Faculty of Radiophysics and Computer Technologies (specialty Computer Security). There were no problems with admission (by the way, I knew mathematics and physics well) and so, an 18-year-old guy moves from a small town to the capital.
At the moment, all my programming knowledge ended with the fact that in the 7th grade I wrote something in Pascal. I had to start getting acquainted with, in my opinion, a very complex programming language - C++. At first, for me it was something else: a bunch of new words (namespace, headers, libraries, primitive types, etc., etc.), a lack of understanding of how it all works, and the ensuing problems — the labs gave up slowly, I had to look for the code instead of writing it myself. After the 1st semester, during the holidays, I decided that I had enough time and that I needed to improve this terrible language. 2 weeks of watching various videos and reading articles on various sites yielded results. Of course, I didn’t start programming in C++ cool, but I had a desire to write labs myself, and not just hand over someone else’s code. And this was the turning point, after which I began to like programming. I could already sit for several hours trying to understand some part, program at night for a week in order to submit the lab on time. At this rate, by the end of the 1st year I passed absolutely all the labs and received my well-deserved 10 in my record book. 2017, summer came, I returned to my hometown and wanted to continue to improve as a programmer and was wondering what to study next. And then my choice fell on Java. I watched various video tutorials, but they got boring very quickly and only lasted me an hour, maximum 2 a day. And then somehow by chance I wandered into javarush. At first I was suspicious of this resource (very interesting and high-quality lessons, but free). It is worth noting that back then the first 10 levels were free. But having cast aside all doubts, I began to take the first course. And then I got carried away: in probably 3 days I completed 5 levels, at the same time I solved absolutely all the problems and could not stop. Learning was very easy, after C++ Java seemed to me something very cool and understandable. In a week I completed almost the entire first course, I sat for 5-6 hours a day and did not get tired, because I really liked it. At the same time, I came across an advertisement from one of the coolest companies in Belarus - Epam. The point was that they invited 1st-2nd year technical students to attend summer training. I immediately applied and a couple of days later I was invited. I returned to Minsk and waited for the first lesson. The training was designed to get acquainted with the company. During the entire training, we were told the history of the company, what they do, how to get to them and all that. We didn’t receive any technical information, but we were told what books we could read, what questions there might be for a Java interview (and it was nice that I could already answer a couple of them). But for me, this was the first time I was able to visit a real IT company and I absolutely loved everything there. Therefore, when I came home in the evening, even more motivated, I immediately went to javarush and continued learning. The courses lasted 2 weeks, after which I returned home again. By the end of July I had completed 10 free levels and without a doubt bought myself a subscription. I have a new goal - to complete 20 levels by the end of summer. The tasks there were already more difficult, the topics more difficult. I had to spend even more time. For myself, I developed a system according to which I studied: one day I reach the final tasks of the lesson, the next day I solve these problems. Using this system, by the end of August I was able to complete 20 levels and gave up javarush a little. At this point, I decided that it was worth trying to take some courses from the companies. The courses from the company Itransition caught my eye. And after 2 weeks I sat with them and was tested. I had no problems with this and on the same day I was told when the first lesson of the course was. In my head I had already planned how I would take the courses, how they would teach me everything, how I would become a cool programmer and get a job with them, but in reality everything turned out differently. When I took my first lesson, roughly speaking, I knew how to sort arrays and run different threads. And they immediately demanded a web application from me, with authorization/registration/withdrawal of all users, etc. and they gave it 3 days. To say that I was shocked is to say nothing. I tried to do something, but nothing worked. I never completed these courses, because after 3 weeks I received a full-fledged project (a website with considerable functionality, a technology stack and only 3 weeks to do it), but I think it brought me benefits. I now have an understanding of which technologies are worth learning (Spring, Hibernate, Maven, Bootstrap, Ajax, etc.). Afterwards, I decided to continue studying Javarush again, paid myself a subscription, but never continued my training. All I did was scroll down to level 27, just read the lectures, saved the interview questions for myself and abandoned them. Then I went through maybe a dozen different interviews. I failed a few, passed a couple successfully, but they didn’t want to take me because I was only a 2nd year student. On average, 2 times a month I had some kind of interview and each time I felt more confident. So, in February 2018, I came across invitations to interview at Netcracker. Of course, I applied, passed the interview without any problems and waited for the start of the 3-month Java Developer course. The courses were held according to the following system: lectures once a week, practice once a week. During the lecture they give up-to-date information and help you understand. In practice, I received a team project (there were 5 of us) and every week we received a specific task, which we completed for the next lesson. This is how I learned to work in a team, fully use Git, and learned about all the stages of creating web applications. After 3 months, we created a full-fledged bookmaker’s office, passed the project’s defense, and I was already waiting for a decision on my employment. And just a couple of days ago I received my first offer. It so happened that almost a year passed from the start of my acquaintance with Java to receiving the offer. Everyone, I would like to wish you success to those who are just starting out, don’t lose motivation and always understand why you are doing this. Everything is real, everything depends on you.
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