After reading what I needed to do, I decided to make a plan on how I should study in order to achieve my goal and complete the courses, because I no longer had time to study slowly. The task was to gain knowledge quickly, and in such a way as not to discourage the desire and so that the brain had time to rest. Because the kind of workload I wanted could hinder me.
![History of success. 20 hours of programming per week, master's degree and personal life - 1]()
First, I'll tell you a little about myself.
I am 27 years old. Before starting to study 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... I sabotaged all the subjects where programming was mentioned and somehow passed by luck - I didn’t write anything myself. So it turned out that I was far from programming. It’s clear that with a mathematician’s education in our country you won’t earn much except as a programmer. Therefore, the choice fell on this. And it so happened that I decided to learn Java. This was not connected with any kind of market analysis or search by the number of jobs or demand in the labor market. It just happened that way. And when I decided to find out how to do this, I came across JavaRush. Somehow I didn’t want to study only from books, but I was also reluctant to take part-time courses, because... They cost a lot of money, but in reality there is little profit. Therefore, JavaRush was the best solution for me. After completing the first 3 levels, I realized that I liked the course and that I could buy a subscription. Moreover, I came across a promotion and purchased it for half the price. This was at the end of August/beginning of September 2015.
Plan of the education
After reading what I needed to do, I decided to make a plan on how I should study in order to achieve my goal and complete the courses, because I no longer had time to study slowly. The task was to gain knowledge quickly, and in such a way as not to discourage the desire and so that the brain had time to rest. Because the load that I wanted could hinder me. For this I decided:
- That you need to study five days a week (Mon-Fri).
- On weekends I will do anything but this.
- Each lesson will last a total of 4 hours, and between each hour there will be a break of 15 minutes in order to walk, relax and make tea.
Total 20 hours per week. Not bad, right? In addition, sometimes I had to go to the university, because... I was still studying for a master's degree. In December, I was already at level 20 and thought that I knew a lot, a lot, but I also had crises when nothing worked and it seemed that I couldn’t go on. So much so that at a certain point, I refused to accept information about collections, and only after a weekend when I was not programming did understanding come.
Taking it to the next level
Three months after the start of training, I talked with a friend about what else I needed to know in order to get a job. And then it started: some unfamiliar words, databases (oh horror!) and much more made me understand that I needed to speed up and do even more. It's clear that I can't get the job done with Java grammar, so I started speeding up in different directions:
- I bought the Head First book "Learning Java". It is recommended at level 4 in the course. But somehow I didn’t 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 recommend it.
- I started looking for all the themed parties in my city and going to them, even if I didn’t understand much, but over time I realized that it was not in vain and they helped me a lot. for example like this .
- There is one more resource that you need to go through from start to finish - this is dou (a site for programmers). There you can see what events there are, what the current salaries are in Ukrainian IT, you can read many very useful articles, I especially recommend Materials on the topic “A Guide for the Future Java Developer” and Java Enterprise: what and how to learn . These articles will help you and will not let you relax.
- I found short and informative video tutorials on YouTube on MySQL , I recommend them.
- Golovach’s video tutorials also did not go unnoticed. There are a lot of them, a lot of water, but it explains many things quite well.
- You also need to understand what HTML and CSS are. There is no way without this, HtmlAcademy helped me with this. There you can complete tasks for free.
- I registered on the social network linkedIn, where I began to show off my skills and that I was looking for a job (what if I was lucky and they found me). I added everyone in a row as friends, expanding my circle of friends. So that you understand how much, now I have more than 10,000 friends on LinkedIn. First you need this. And it helped, a team of android freelancers was looking for a newcomer and they wrote to me. I understand that this is an extraordinary case, 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 to an interview for an internship. After talking with HR, they called my English teacher, with whom I “talked.” I was not at all prepared for this moment 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 technical lead, I answered some questions, I didn’t know the answer to many, and when I answered that I was studying at JavaRush, he said that in front of me there was another student from there. I was at level 27, and he was already at 34. After talking, he said that they would send me a test task, according to which they would decide whether I was suitable. I somehow made it, and not all the functionality. After some time, they wrote to me that I was not suitable for them... It’s a shame, but I decided to learn from this and moved on.
First job
As I already said, having created a page on LinkedIn, after 1.5-2 months a certain Android developer wrote to me with an offer to work with them. It is clear that we were talking about the minimum salary. We talked when we met and I was offered a job. It is clear that it was poorly paid, but I had no other choice and I was happy with what I had. Starting at the end of January, I started working in the apartment of one of them on 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 problems in JavaRush. Everything had to be done, read, find out what and how. I had a test project that I was doing that could become something bigger over time. And so it went until May. Then somehow our team began to fall apart, everyone realized this and began to look for work.
Looking for a new job
Not knowing how to do this, I decided that I would send it to all companies that are in my city. How can you find out what companies there are? What helped me with this was the fact that I combed through the dou up and down. There is a company section and you can select the city you are searching for. There is an email in the description (almost always there is) 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, I wrote everything in a row. I also wrote a cover letter for each letter (recruiters love this), where I indicated who exactly I wanted 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 badly. In reality, if you can’t read the answer to the stackoverflow, then you’re dead, and you have nothing to do in programming. I composed a speech for an English interview on the topic: “Tell me about yourself.” A very useful thing, I tell you. After some time, I received 4 invitations for an interview. The practice of sending mail to all companies was justified, and those who did not have such positions usually did not respond at all. The interviews were difficult, it was embarrassing, it was uncomfortable, 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 an interpreter in Java for the BrainFuck language. The task turned out to be interesting and I am glad that I completed it, even though I was not accepted into that company. I was looking for a job either in Java or Android. Although I wanted to learn more about Java, mobile development is not particularly interesting to me. Salary expectations were minimal, you had to find a job, everything else was no longer important. They asked me about understanding Databases, about how to create tables for certain situations. This all concerns SQL databases; no one asked about NoSQL.
First offer
In one place they wrote to me and refused, in another too. There were two companies left, one for the position of Android developer, the other for Java. The company called about Android and said that I was suitable for them and they were making an offer to me. It was a victory. I was very glad. But the company never called me for the Java position, and I was rushing around and didn’t know what to do, so I asked to wait a day with my answer so that I could call to find out about the Java developer position. Having called the company for a Java position, I said that they had made me an offer, but I wanted to know the result from you. I was invited to their 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. PS you need to strive, strive, strive and never give up! PSS I didn’t complete the whole course, I stopped at level 30. And when I got the job, I was at 27. And I’ll really say that starting from level 20 you need to look for a job and develop beyond Java. Master, at least from afar, a framework for project automation (Ant, Maven, Gradle). The thing is not complicated and very necessary.
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