matt nguyen

In lieu of Robert Mee’s guest lecture yesterday, who is the CEO/Founder of Pivotal Labs, we are going to be practicing ‘wax on, wax off.’ In other words, we will be repetitiously working on a single problem with multiple pairing partners. We’ll pair with someone working on the problem for 25 minutes or so, followed by a five minute break, and then we will switch pairs and work on the problem again. 

I think this will be a fairly interesting day, as this will be the first time DBC will be holding this type of activity. Actually  I hope ‘wax on, wax off’ will continue every friday. This was basically my method of preparation prior to starting DBC, and I think it tremendously helped my learning process. Couple repetition with pair programming and this will be a key feature of the DBC learning experience.  

While most of the day was spent doing independent study, the class received a guest lecture from Roy Bahat, the CEO of IGN. For most of the lecture, Roy expressed his view on the current status of education and the conventional wisdom regarding recruiting. Skeptical of the “traditional ways of doing things,” Roy appeared to be quite adamant about being proactive with changing the way companies hire and compete for talent. It became quite clear why he chose to speak at DBC, considering his company has its own “no resume” strategy for hiring new employees involving an apprenticeship-like model. 

Roy was a very compelling speaker, and it is unfortunate that they are not hiring out of DBC. Regardless, IGN seems like a pretty company to work for. 

Preface: This post is a little short and unusually simplistic. Shereef asked us to write some blog posts about our experiences thus far. We have until 2:00pm to finish or we risk our group doing pushups on our behalf. 

Yesterday, we spent most of the day working on our ruby intro module in Socrates. From 4:00pm-6:00pm we were working on our javascript exercises that Marcus assigned to us. From 6:30pm until 8:00pm, Marcus stopped by and gave some lectures about javascript. Overall, a very productive day. 

While working on the ruby module during the day, I was paired with someone who was not as familiar with ruby as me. I actually had a great time teaching and bringing him up to speed. Practicing the skill of mentoring and teaching is definitely another plus for DBC. It’s one thing to teach yourself and listen to your inner monologue whilst you absorb the knowledge haphazardly; it’s another thing to slow down, take a deep breath, and articulate your knowledge to someone else. Very handy stuff. 

After spending a week in Las Vegas following my departure from Global Electronic Technology, I walked into 717 California St. for my first day at Dev Bootcamp. My excitement was masked by a mild cold, but I was ecstatic to begin this new learning experience. Everyone else seemed to share this genuine sentiment as I walked into the newly renovated office and was greeted by name tags, coffee, and the chatter of 40 budding rubyists and 10 eager instructors. Introductions were made, coffee was poured, and smiles were had. 

The morning was filled with group activities, ice breakers, and Shereef’s eloquent introduction speech about the program and the philosophical framework driving the program’s existence. Shereef made a point that resonated with me, especially as someone who has defended DBC and the decision to enroll:

You’re basically paying me to hang out with each other. -Shereef Bishay

Boom. $10,000 (-$5,000 if you are hired through DBC) to hang out with 40 other people in an awesome office for 10 weeks. Worth it? Most definitely. 

The DBC website indicates that the program would turn an individual into a “world class beginner.” What that precisely means to me is an opportunity to share a learning experience with 40 other beginners. What that means is an opportunity to share common goals, find new ways of building and breaking things, and explore a nascent educational process that has been misunderstood by traditional academia. What that means is an experience that is very difficult to replicate with the same intensity and same velocity of accelerated learning as with other learning models. 

What Shereef said, to me, translated to, “You’re here because you want and are going to succeed.”

Afterwards, we broke up into our groups (my group was awesomely named “Notorious D.B.C”) to discuss optimal learning environments. While everyone has a unique way of learning something, there were some commonalities between our experiences as students or teachers. The consensus seemed to be that having a common experience and being part of a community were conducive to learning, traits that the DBC environment actively attempted to produce. 

For the rest of the afternoon, we got around to doing some actual coding. We paired up and started coding through the exercises in DBC’s in-house ruby training software, Socrates. I was paired with Damien, who is a pretty intelligent dude, and we got pretty far through the program before 6:00pm rolled around and we headed home.

For my inaugural Tumblr post, I feel obligated to update those who are close to me on what I have been doing, what I will be doing, and why I created this Tumblr account.

(TL;DR - I’ve been living in Austin as a project manager for the last year; I’m moving back to the Bay to do Dev Bootcamp and will forgo law school; I’m documenting my journey to inspire those who are considering the same path)

What I’ve been doing

After graduating from Cal in winter 2010, I moved to Southern California to work for Global Electronic Technology Inc., a merchant services company specializing in payment processing solutions, with my degree in rhetoric in one hand and a suitcase full of clothes in the other. The plan was simple: I would take the next year and a half to develop my professional skills while preparing for law school. The job would be a stepping stone on my journey towards lawyerhood and served two purposes: one, since the company was moving to Austin, TX, relocating would strategically position me in the middle of the country where I could easily mobilize myself in the event I were accepted to a prominent law school on either coasts; and two, I would delay the inevitable soul crushing proffered by three years of intense legal studies.

Almost a year has passed since moving to Austin, and I am fairly certain that attending law school now will be a bad choice for a plethora of reasons, many of which were derived from reading through this law school forum ( an amazing resource for prospective law students). Although GET has been a great company to work for, I yearned to step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself with computer science and web development. I began reading free online resources and participated in online courses, such as Coursera, Codeacademy, and Udacity. After reading several blogs about learning strategies for computer science, I came across Dev Bootcamp, a 10-week intensive Ruby on Rails program dedicated to turning individuals with no programming experience into “world class beginners.” I applied, interviewed with Shereef Bishay, received my acceptance, and submitted my deposit not too long after discovering this wonderful program (future post on the DBC application process forthcoming).

What I’m going to do

I am pretty damn excited about this, and it’s hard not to be considering recent praise over DBC’s first cohort’s employment results. With 88% of the class receiving offers of $79k on average, becoming a web developer makes more economic and financial sense than attending law school, where recent graduates are struggling to find jobs, are completely overwhelmed with six figures of non-dischargeable debt, and are seeking legal recourse against schools who misrepresent employment statistics. From June 11 to  August 17, I will be sharing an office space with approximately 40 other motivated students who are just as eager to learn RoR and launch their new careers as web developers. Already, the level of collaboration is high with students attending meet-ups and hack nights together, and the program hasn’t even started! It will be interesting to see what we’ll be able to accomplish at the end of the 10 weeks. 

Why I created this blog

From being a prospective law student to becoming a web developer, I am compelled to document my story so that future generations of Booters can benefit from my experiences, and hopefully I can inspire people with non-technical backgrounds who are passionate about technology and motivated to switch careers to take the plunge and do something about it. I have not completely given up my aspiration for attending law school, but I have not found compelling reasons to do so right now. Perhaps when a future opportunity presents itself, I’ll attend law school for intellectual property law *cough*Stanford*cough*Boalt* since I’ll be in a much better position to do so as a web developer. In any case, I’m thrilled for this opportunity, and I absolutely cannot wait to see my friends, family, and meet my fellow Booters in the Bay.