After my interview with Hack Reactor, I was so anxious while waiting to hear back. I added HR to my VIP email list, so I could get a notification as soon I receive an email from them. I turned my phone on as soon as my flight landed in Dallas, TX this Tuesday September 15th . The email notification popped up and it was the acceptance email from Hack Reactor. OMFG, I got in!! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not going to lie, I shed a few tears because I wanted this so bad.
I quit my accounting job at State Street back in July and moved to California with my husband one week later. My job at State Street wasn’t fulfilling at all. Not only I was working 80-hour weeks, but also what killed me was I totally found the job to be meaningless. I was preparing financial statements and auditing papers for mutual funds. Who actually reads these papers? No one. The job just felt so not rewarding. I am not talking about just financially and recognition; I felt like my work was so meaningless, I wasn’t contributing anything to the world. I’d rather be building real applications that people actually use. I was depressed and miserable whenever I think about working as an accountant for the rest of my life. I was dying for a career change.
Decision to become a programmer was definitely one of the hardest decisions I’ve made in my life. Not only I have already invested so much money and time in my accounting career, but also I was scared of the uncertainties that I might have to face in the brand new tech field. My parents still have doubts about my decision; they don’t want me to work so hard and my dad thinks I am going to lose all my hair if I become a programmer. Some of my friends think I wasn’t serious about the decision and I also had a guy telling me I simply won’t be able to code because I am a female. Girls are just not logical according to him.
I have had so many doubts about myself too because of all of these negativities. I doubted myself the most when Coding Dojo rejected me. I did not have any intentions of attending Coding Dojo, I just did it out of curiosity. I did not prepare for the interview at all because I just assumed they would just take anyone. There was no technical programming questions asked, only personal question such as my background and my purposes of attending. I was mad when I got rejected because I think they shouldn’t judge my ability to attend the course based on 4 personal questions they asked me.
Although I had no intention of attending, the rejection still bothered me a lot. Looking back, I am kind of glad that I got rejected because it only made me work harder to prepare for Hack Reactor interview. After I moved to LA, instead of going out and exploring LA, I dived immediately into studying JavaScript. I told my husband I had no interest of doing anything else until I get into Hack Reactor. For the past two months, I did nothing but eat, sleep and study. Studying became an obsession; I couldn’t sleep whenever I couldn’t figure out how to solve a problem. Hack Reactor interview wasn’t just another job interview. If I didn’t get an offer from a normal job interview, there’s always going to be more jobs out there. Out of all of the bootcamps, I only wanted Hack Reactor because I still think all other bootcamps are not legit enough. I was so stressed out because I couldn’t afford to fail. If I were going to invest a lot of time and money, I only wanted to do it once and definitely with the best.
Codecademy Fundamentals tracks
TeamTreeHouse – JavaScript basics
JavaScript Road Trip Part 1 - Code School https://www.codeschool.com/courses/javascript-road-trip-part-1
JavaScript Koans - helpful to check if you understand JS concepts, but doesn’t really give you much practice on how to write them yourself.
Eloquent Javascript (Second Edition) – it was very confusing and hard to understand for a beginner, but once I learned more about JS, I found it very well written. I suggest you don’t start with this book if you are just a beginner.
Codesmith meetups where they teach you JavaScript-The Hard Parts : Callbacks & Higher Order Functions Closure, Scope and Execution Context Object Oriented JavaScript - Prototype chain, ‘new’ and ‘this’ keywords http://www.meetup.com/Codesmith/
watch JavaScript tutorials by 李炎恢 (Chinese) http://www.ycku.com/javascript/ you can also find a lot of other useful tutorials on his cloud: http://pan.baidu.com/share/home?uk=4278436023#category/type=0
精通JavaScript开发 tutorials － very easy to understand (Chinese) http://study.163.com/course/courseMain.htm?courseId=224014
youtube videos by mpjme on callbacks, other higher order functions and other difficult concepts. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q
http://coderbyte.com/ - good practice, but don’t sweat it if you can’t solve a problem. I still can’t do all of it.
http://www.codewars.com/ - more coding problems.
Remote Prep hosted by Hack Reactor: Front End Web Dev Basics This is a four-week program that designed by Hack Reactor to help you prepare for the interview. I think this was the most helpful one out of all the things I studied. I think you should attend this course if you are serious about attending HR. They really help to narrow down what you need to know for the interview. Without it, I’d be studying all over the place. the instructor was super helpful; he was always available for help. The support from the classmates was priceless; four of us already got accepted before the program even ended. The tuition of this prep course will also go towards to your HR tuition once you get in, so there is really no reason not to attend.
this post on quora and the 1st answer by Anthony Phillips, CEO at Hack Reactor https://www.quora.com/Has-the-interview-process-changed-for-Hack-Reactor-as-of-01-24-2015
Support from my husband, my friend Amelie, and my grandma- only these three people in my life weren’t naysayers. they constantly reassure me that I can totally do this whenever I feel frustrated and discouraged by myself or other people.
Ted talks - I watch ted talks whenever I feel unmotivated. I have to constantly remind myself what my goal is and why I decided to do this.
This one is worth watching: http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit?language=en
Although I got in HR, this is really just the 1st step of the long road ahead of me. The journey definitely hasn’t been easy, but I have no regrets so far. Now that I am almost done with my prework, I am heading to India for a quick vacation tomorrow before this intensive 3-month starts.