Cool, thanks guys. It wouldn't be just CS50 on the resume. I won't be applying anywhere until I've at least completed a bootcamp, and I thought some more CS-specific courses might make me look a bit more rounded than bootcamp alone. I still have a long, long way to go

Day 2 Theme: who put this thing together, anyway?

Confusion was king today. They sent out a seating chart to the two groups, then just as its about to start, they realize they did something wrong and no one was assigned to the right spots.

Lotta folks weren't sure what we were supposed to be doing, as there were mixed messages on how progress should go. ("Do all the readings, then do the problem sets", "Do at least this much reading before doing problem sets.") Some people thought we turned things in, some people hadn't been saving their work (because they maybe have said to use IRB for exercises), hell, just having the two groups switch sides of the building was a small clusterfluck.

TAs were a lot more active today, which was nice. They were out milling around and not waiting for people to ask questions, which of course everyone is hesitant to do for some reason. Good decision on their part.

And not to say all bad things, they are requesting feedback on how they can improve the program and the day to day, so that's a big plus that they're open to improvement (or appear to be).

We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Good to know it's getting better. Can you give more details about what you actually did?

Back when I took it, they were giving the certificates for free if you passed since they were still ironing out everything.

Number of times I mentioned the certificate: 0
Location of certificate: Sitting in a folder in my closet

The course is awesome and totally worth taking but I'm not sure about the certificate. Then again, I'm not out interviewing. I think I would bring it up in an interview because it adds some credibility.

"Yeah, I've completed the online version of Harvard's most popular introduction to computer science course".

A line like that is way better than not mentioning IMO.

To me it makes this hypothetical person just sound even more beginner. Better off listing it as one of many online and offline resources you utilized to learn, not saying it exactly as in your quote and then sitting back smugly.

I guess it could sound okay to somebody unfamiliar with MOOCs who would be impressed by "Harvard".

This^

Work on the material in their github I linked to earlier itt, ten minute lecture with short q&a, worked on material from their github

He's not a hypothetical person. In his post he mentioned he's new to applying for developer jobs and is looking to build his resume.

The person interviewing him expects him to be a beginner. A beginner with some structured learning experience is probably better than a beginner with none (assuming all other things like github profiles are equal).

3rd day, same as the 2nd

Short lecture dividing two open work periods. Fair amount already done with the curriculum and are just kinda trying to figure out what to do with the time. They suggested codeeval until it was pointed out that codeeval is **** all awful.

Starting to feel a lot like you're in charge of figuring out what to do. Less direction than I was hoping for. Will know more next week as Thursdays are assessment days.

Wish me luck! First one doesn't count.

You should see if the mods will allow you to have your own 'read-only' thread. I think a lot of people would be interested to see your progression from start-finish in this specific boot camp. I would definitely read/subscribe to it.

Me too

So far this thread does a good job of it. Not entirely sure I'd accept if I was offered entry at this point. Night four is turning into yet another unorganized clusterfluck.

I could always do the blog forum tho

We can't make "read only" threads, but there are no rules against blog-type threads in this forum for appropriate subjects (which going through a bootcamp is, obv).

I mean, we could enforce "read only" by deleting replies, or copy/pasting posts out of this thread in to a locked thread or other such work around, but I am not sure the benefit anyway. A lot of value in blog threads comes from q&a, usually. I suppose if it was desired posts could be deleted if Noodle always quoted the questions when answering, or something.

I am certainly enjoying reading the posts on the bootcamp process, as I'm sure are many others.

I know you can't do read only threads. That's why I put it in quotes. I think a thread like that would be valuable enough that it would justify a little extra effort from the mods.

Or you could just promote me so I can do that extra work

No way would I want to be the only poster. Conversations are way more interesting with more involved. Gives me fresh perspectives to consider and things to bring up.

first assessment was tonight. they claim it was harder than what the final assessment will be. We shall see.

I haven't talked to anyone else, really, so I have no idea how others did. For the sake of anonymity, I won't say exactly how I did, but without knowing their grading rubric I can safely say I passed, unless their rubric is passing == failing, which would be an odd rubric.

They emailed out the assessment, and if anyone is interested in seeing it feel free to PM me. I think that should likely be okay. (Please let me know if it's not or delete this portion of this post)

(Actually, I think this is probably a bridge too far, see next paragraph and please do not PM me asking for it, I won't send it. Leaving this up for context, unless it gets deleted.)

Would be good to understand the approximate skill level they're eventually expecting. (Or check out their github page's problem sets / solutions sections) I don't think I signed any NDA that says I can't link to their public github (which wouldn't make any sense, open-source and all), but I also don't remember what I did sign. So, y'know, don't sue me anyone.

I think set 7 and pre-assessment are the best representatives of the actual assessment. The rest should be pretty trivial if you're considering applying and want a good shot of entrance. A good portion of sets 1-3 or 4 can be solved in a couple LoC iirc, 5 gets tricky, pre-assessment took some doing. Haven't really eye-balled 7, but the brief look I gave it made me think it was on par with the pre-assessment.

Still don't feel like I've learned much exactly. It's been good to code every day, and I think that's one of the biggest benefits to a depressive like me. Too easy to get stuck in your own head and consider doing any actual work a trivial thing to be avoided. Still, the resources they have aren't really any different than what's on, say, Odin/Codecademy/various learning platforms or coding challenge sites.

If I was offered a place in the program tomorrow, I honestly don't know if I'd accept. Maybe I'm being crazy and this is an opportunity i'd be nuts to pass up. If so, someone give me a nice, firm slap please.

So is everyone coding on their own macbook or do they have 100 cubicles set up?

The AA practice stuff always seems very algorithm heavy. I haven't put that much effort into trying to learn that yet because I am more interested in creating my own projects and trying to fizzbuzz or whatever seems to not produce very much, but I would be interested in knowing why they seem to care a lot about that.

maybe you should just put out a ton of applications everywhere in SF and tell them you have been selected into AA but feel like dont need it and see if something sticks. right now the US economy is basically crushing so who knows.

or?

if you ever want to do more than present data, you're going to have to learn to algorithm a little. I think it was tech crunch that had an article about what they did with their recent bootcamp grads (that they hired). Most of it was some form of writing algorithms for string manipulation.

Maybe it's a situation where they need to know you have the foundations down cold before letting you onto the big stuff.

the glorious part of ruby is that, even if you don't remember the exact pre-made method that already exists and you swear is on the tip of your tongue, you can still cobble together a passable function with little effort.

what have you used to practice algorithms with besides the AA prep work?

Tried to read some algorithm books one of my professor recommended, but it was over my head. Same for most of the suggestions people make here. My math is a bit weak and I'm pretty sure that's the area it's going to hurt me the most. Not 100% sure of the best way of remedying that situation.

They had an intro to (first language) with agorithms class at my college, but it was a bit of a wank. Maybe learned nested loops at best.

That said, even tho some of my algorithms surely sucked, they also got the job done, so given time I should hopefully be able to refactor, and given some experience or education I should be able to optimize. Cracking the Coding Interview tries to help with that. It's a bit above where I'm at for the reasons listed above, but maybe some day.

Noodle, I'm bad with "advanced" math as well, but if you basically get what O(log n) is that's good enough. I honestly don't know what log or logarithmic means outside of the context of time complexity.

Some of the more complex algorithms may require a better understanding, but the array of basic algorithms and data structures don't.

Do you have access to the full AA curriculum or still just the public repos?

Only public

Have you read CtCI? Like, I hope to be able to refactor the way she does some day. Very methodical, very math.

The disorganization is likely a result of this 2 week program being a new thing. The main course is a set 7 week curriculum that has been refined and changed over the course of several years. You pair with somebody new every day, and there would almost never be a situation where you're sitting around wondering what to do. My pairs rarely finished up all the potential tasks for the day, whereas blackize (who I guess is a genius) said he usually did finish.

See if you can get access to the first week's curriculum maybe? If you can't and you're still looking for things to do, go through Odin's Ruby stuff and build some game.

Because they care about job placement and those are the types of questions that often get asked during technical interviews.