As you know, there is no single recipe for success. Neither in life, nor in programming :) However, over the many years of JavaRush's existence, we noticed that students who graduated and found jobs in IT have common “traits”. What is this? Interest in the technical field, a clear training schedule, soft skills such as perseverance and stress resistance. But this does not mean at all that if you have a liberal arts education, you will not be able to learn Java. You just have to put in more effort and devote more time. In this text, we have compiled a portrait of a successful JavaRush student based on our own observations, success stories and recommendations from our graduates.
Level of training
According to a survey that we conducted among JavaRush students (those who reached the 30th level of training), almost 40% of users who started studying in our course studied programming at a university. However, a third of students learned Java from scratch. Technical education is a good help and a base that helps you learn faster, but it is not a mandatory point on the path to success. System administrators, engineers, teachers, sales specialists, economists, doctors, marketers and others come to study at JavaRush. Let's see what kind of background JavaRush graduates had.
In the seventh grade, I moved to the physics and mathematics lyceum, and in the eighth grade we began to study computer science. As life later showed, computer science gave me the basis for understanding the basics of programming, common to all languages: what are data structures, functions, procedures, conditions. I did not enter the Faculty of Informatics and Computer Science: I had a craving for computers. I literally lacked 2 points to get admitted. I entered the Faculty of Electronics. At the university, programming was taught for only one semester, we learned Pascal. I passed it by inertia, I had enough knowledge of the school curriculum.
Since childhood I wanted to work with computers and in general the topic of game development was interesting to me. I wrote some text quests in C++ and C#, but I didn’t excel in my studies (I was lazy), although I wasn’t stupid - rather uncollected. In this regard, I went where there was an opportunity. I thought about working in law enforcement, so I graduated from the Criminal Law Faculty of SGUPS ( Siberian State University of Railways - ed. ), and in the end I ended up exactly where I wanted. In my second year I went for an internship at the Investigative Committee, and stayed there. In my fourth year I was hired - I don’t know how it is now, but before, after my third year I could get a job. Six months after graduating from university, he received the rank of lieutenant. I worked for another year and realized that I was tired: all these long nights, shifts, lack of social life as such, and therefore decided to quit.
At school I was interested in programming and the Pascal language, and went to a tutor. I entered the university to major in Business Analytics. There we also took programming courses, including learning C# and Java.
I have a higher education in the humanities with a degree in Management in the Restaurant and Hotel Business. So after graduating from university, I worked in customer service for a hospitality company. It was then that I realized that I was not interested in this for several reasons: working with people is not as easy and pleasant as it seemed, the salary level is also not very high.
Before programming, I was a rehabilitation therapist for people with musculoskeletal disorders. My parents are doctors. Dad is a surgeon, mom is a rehabilitation specialist. They advised me to go into a specialty related to medicine and people. How could I have my own opinion in 11th grade? I figured that as a rehabilitator I could always earn my bread and butter.
My first education was in the military, with a degree in technical information security. After the first 1.5 years of service, in 2014, I realized that I would quit. There were two options why I could stay in the army: work for an idea or a salary. I could not get either one or the other in the Armed Forces.
Training mode
While it may seem like you can skip your routine while studying online, this is not the case. To achieve results, you need to be disciplined: create a plan and stick to it. Here, as in many places, the main thing is regularity. According to our research , JavaRush graduates studied on average 1-3 hours a day, often combining training with their main job. At the same time, almost a third of graduates studied without interruptions, while the rest took one or more breaks for a significant period of time. Let's see how JavaRush graduates organized their training.
After reading what I needed to do, I decided to make a plan 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 to give the brain time to rest. Because the kind of workload 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 class will last a total of 4 hours, with a 15-minute break between each hour to walk, rest and make tea.
Total 20 hours per week. Not bad, right? In addition, sometimes I had to go to the university, since I was still studying for a master's degree.
I had a training plan: I got up every day at 5-6 in the morning and studied for 2 hours before work. If there was free time at work (for example, while the developer was making new features, and we testers were waiting), I also worked: I solved problems during the day. I completed 20 levels in 1-2 months. According to my schedule, I spent from 1 to 4 days on level 1.
I woke up at 7-8 in the morning, had breakfast, took my laptop and went to another apartment so that no one would disturb me. I studied from 13 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. At first I watched tutorials on Youtube and read books, but after two weeks of my training, a friend dropped the link to JavaRush. I clicked and realized it was cool. Back then, the first 10 levels were free, I went up to the 10th, I liked it, bought a subscription and began to study further.
When I continued to work, I studied at night, and when I left work, I studied all day: from 11:00 to the evening, and from 23:00 to 02:00. It turned out to be more working hours. I have little faith in the fact that you can spend 15 minutes a day and learn programming.
Learning Resources
The best training is comprehensive. For example, you can take the JavaRush course as a basis , read several books on Java and find a mentor. For example, a list of learning resources might look like this:
JavaRush course.
Books:
"Head First Java, Learning Java", Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates;
"Java. A Beginner's Guide", Herbert Schildt;
"Java. The Complete Guide", Herbert Schildt;
"Java. The Professional's Library", Kay S. Horstmann, Gary Cornell.
Tutorials on YouTube;
Consultations with a mentor/familiar developer. This point is needed for those for whom it is important to receive a “live explanation”, and not to figure everything out on their own.
Among the best books for beginners, JavaRush students and graduates named:
I recommend reading the book “Java Programming for Children, Parents, and Grandparents” by Jacob Fine. At one time, this helped me a lot, since I am not from the IT field and I had to learn many concepts from scratch. This book explains the basics of programming in a very simple format. Reading it before starting your studies greatly simplifies the process.
I found myself a mentor at JavaRush. I once read a success story where a guy told how he studied, got a job at EPAM, and left his contact information. I wrote to him on Skype, we called each other, and I asked him to be my mentor: so that I would sometimes write to him about some questions that I couldn’t find answers to. I also asked him to help me come up with a trial project, because at that time I only knew Java Core and had no knowledge of frameworks at all. He suggested that I do a project on student registration with a database. I also advise you to find a good school. JavaRush hooked me with its approach to learning, and the quest hooked me with its interesting story. I believe that JavaRush is the best school for Java Core.
Soft skills
Soft skills are skills that are not related to a profession, but relate more to personal qualities, such as communication, creativity, empathy. In the learning process itself, they do not have the same importance as during the job search and at work itself. The main benefit of soft skills is that they help build a network of personal connections within organizations and communities. Having good interpersonal skills means being approachable, likable, reliable and trustworthy—someone who other people enjoy working with and want to know more about. Google conducted a study on this topic in 2017. They decided to identify the best teams within the company. According to the results, it turned out that the employees of the most productive teams are people who have a high level of soft skills.
Here are the conclusions JavaRush graduates made about soft skills.
In the new place, it wasn’t even technical skills that were important, but the ability to communicate with people. There are people who are completely immersed in completing tasks, and I need to find an approach to them, because the completion of my tasks depends on the developers.
Be yourself. Don't hesitate to ask questions. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. If at first you don’t understand much, this is not a reason for stress. It’s unclear to everyone at first. You will begin to bring real profit to the company in about 6-12 months. All this time, immerse yourself in the process, study the product, continue your education. What skills and personal qualities do you think help you become a good programmer?
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