As you know, there is no single recipe for success. Neither in life, nor in programming :) Nevertheless, over the many years of CodeGym's existence, we noticed that students who graduated and found jobs in IT have common “features”. What is this? Interest in the technical field, a clear learning schedule, soft skills such as perseverance and stress resistance. But this does not mean at all that if you have a liberal 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 CodeGym student based on our own observations, success stories, and recommendations from our alumni.
Level of training
According to a survey we conducted among CodeGym students (those who reached level 30), almost 40% of the users who started our course studied programming at a university. However, a third of the students learned Java from scratch. Technical education is a good help and a base that helps you learn faster, but not a mandatory step on the path to success. System administrators, engineers, teachers, sales specialists, economists, doctors, marketers and others come to learn at CodeGym. Let's see what background CodeGym graduates had.
In the seventh grade, I moved to the Physics and Mathematics Lyceum, and in the eighth grade we started studying computer science. As life later showed, computer science gave me a basis in understanding the basics of programming, common to all languages: what are data structures, functions, procedures, conditions. I did not enter the Faculty of Computer Science and Computer Engineering: I had a craving for computers. I literally lacked 2 points to enter. I entered the Faculty of Electronics. At the university, programming was taught for only one semester, we studied Pascal. I passed it by inertia, I had enough knowledge of the school curriculum.
Since childhood, I wanted to deal 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 unassembled. In this regard, he went where there was an opportunity. I thought about working in law enforcement agencies, so I graduated from the Criminal Law Faculty of SGUP ( Siberian State University of Communications - ed.), and ended up exactly where I wanted. In my second year, I went on an internship at the Investigative Committee, and so I stayed there. In the fourth year I was hired - I don’t know how it is now, but before, after the third year, it was possible to get a job. Six months after graduating from the 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 I decided to quit.
At school, I was fond of programming and the Pascal language, I went to a tutor. I entered the university with a degree in business analytics. We also took programming courses there, including C# and Java.
I have a higher humanitarian education in the specialty "Management in the field of restaurant and hotel business." So after graduating from university, I worked with clients in a hospitality-related 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 level of salaries 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. It was they who advised me to go to a specialty related to medicine and people. How could I have an opinion in the 11th grade? I figured that as a rehabilitator I could always earn my bread and butter.
My first education was in the military, majoring in Technical Information Security. After the first 1.5 years of service, in 2014, I realized that I would be leaving. There were two options why I could stay in the army: it was work for an idea or a salary. Neither one nor the other, I could not get in the Armed Forces.
Learning Mode
Although it seems that it is possible to break the regime during online learning, this is not the case. To achieve results, you must be disciplined: create a plan and stick to it. Here, as in many places, the main thing is regularity. According to our research , CodeGym graduates averaged 1-3 hours per day, often combining their studies with their day job. At the same time, almost a third of the graduates studied without interruptions, while the rest took one or more pauses for a significant time. Let's see how CodeGym graduates organized their training.
After reading what to do, I decided to make a plan to achieve my goal and complete the courses, because I no longer had time for slow learning. The task was to get knowledge quickly, and in such a way as not to ward off desire and so that the brain had time to rest. Because the load that I wanted could interfere with 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 run for a total of 4 hours, with a 15 minute break between each hour to walk, rest and make tea.
A total of 20 hours per week. Not bad, right? In addition, sometimes I had to go to the university, since I was still studying at the magistracy.
I had a training plan: I got up every day at 5-6 in the morning and practiced for 2 hours before work. If there was free time at work (for example, while the developer was making new features, and we, the testers, were waiting), I also did it: 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 1 level.
I woke up at 7-8 in the morning, had breakfast, took a laptop and went to another apartment so that no one bothered me. I worked out 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 CodeGym. I poklatsal and realized that cool. 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 worked all day: from 11:00 to the evening, and from 23:00 to 02:00. It was more than a day's work. I have little faith in the fact that you can spend 15 minutes a day and learn how to program.
Learning Resources
The best education is comprehensive. For example, you can take the CodeGym course as a basis , read several books on Java and find a mentor. For example, a list of learning resources might look like this:
CodeGym course.
Books:
"Head First Java, Learning Java", Cathy Sierra, Burt Bates;
"Java. 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 item is needed for those who need to get a “live explanation”, and not figure it out on their own.
Among the best books for beginners, students and graduates of CodeGym named:
I advise you to read the book "Java Programming for Children, Parents, Grandparents" by Yakov 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 CodeGym. Once I read a success story where a guy told how he studied, that he got a job at EPAM, and left his contact details. I wrote to him on Skype, we got on the phone, and I asked him to be my mentor: so that I sometimes write to him on some questions that I can’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 I didn’t own frameworks at all. He offered me to make a project on student registration with a database. I also recommend finding a good school. CodeGym hooked me with the approach to learning, the quest hooked me with an interesting story. I think CodeGym is the best school for Java Core.
soft skills
Soft skills are skills that are not related to the profession, but are more related to personal qualities, such as communication skills, creativity, empathy. In the learning process itself, they are not as important as during the job search and at the job 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, likeable, reliable, and trustworthy—that is, someone other people like to work with and want to know more about. Google in 2017 heldresearch on this topic. 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 that CodeGym graduates made about soft skills.
At the new place, not even technical skills were important, but the ability to communicate with people. There are people who are immersed in the execution of tasks, and I need to find an approach to them, because the execution of my tasks depends on the developers.
Be yourself. Feel free 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. At first, it's not clear to everyone. You will start bringing real profit to the company somewhere in 6-12 months. All this time, immerse yourself in the process, study the product, continue your education. In your opinion, what skills and personal qualities help to become a good programmer?
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