Get Comfortable Learning On Your Own With Khalal Walker

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10/11/19 • 29 min

Khalal's first language was Java, he learned his it in school. He didn't like coding in school because all they did was learn algorithms and data structures. How many people have completely turned away from this amazing career where you get to build cool things like dad jokes in text messages simply because classes get structured around data structures, algorithms, and Java?

New coders should take a step back before jumping straight to a Bootcamp. Take time to learn on your own to make sure this is what you want to do or what you want to invest in. You'll still be doing a lot of self-lead learning anyway when attending a Bootcamp.

Try to find people who went to the Bootcamp. Don't look on websites like Course Report where almost every Bootcamp is five stars. Get on LinkedIn and find developers who graduated the Bootcamp and talk to them, you'll get honest insights.

ISAs are the only option for most people to attend Bootcamps. You have to be coming from a place of privilege to pay the 18-20 thousand dollars upfront. So instead they'll take 20% of your income for two years. You get a job for $100,000, and now, you have an $18,000 Bootcamp that just went up to $50,000. You got $50,000 worth of debt in 13 weeks. That's what people may get after a year or two of college, or three or four depending on where you go.

Transcript

"Get Comfortable Learning On Your Own With Khalal Walker" Transcript

Quotes

Joel:

"what sort of habits have you developed or you think are important if you want to break into this field, and do it and kind of in a sustainable way?"

Khalal:

"You literally just can't give up or quit. And that sounds like the most cliche thing ever. But it's literally so important, because you're going to hit walls. You're going to struggle. I think, the biggest thing with being a developer is just banging your head against your keyboard for eight hours of the day. And the last hour, you just see the light and you just keep finding different ways until something works."

Khalal:

"So, I take that with learning how to code. In the beginning, you're going to mess up on syntax. You're going to forget a semi-colon. You're going to miss a quote. And some of these things may really, really bother you. But if you keep at it, these things will become second nature. And then, you'll have new struggles. Because when you have new successes, you move on to new problems."

Khalal:

"And so, as long as you know that in this industry, it's always... Things are going to get easier, but you're always going to be learning something new. You're always going to be learning. You're always going to be growing and you just have to have the willingness to take on that challenge every single day."

Khalal Walker

Joel Hooks

Transcript

"Get Comfortable Learning On Your Own With Khalal Walker" Transcript

Quotes

Joel:

"what sort of habits have you developed or you think are important if you want to break into this field, and do it and kind of in a sustainable way?"

Khalal:

Khalal Walker

Joel Hooks

Previous Episode

Out With The 10x Developer And In With The 10x Mentor With Tracy Lee

Making technical decisions for your business when you don't have experience as a developer is difficult. It's scary to make decisions that you don't know the consequences of.

Tracy got into development when at one point she had the freetime to take an HTML, CSS, JavaScript course online. Becoming a developer taught Tracy the importance of grouping her meetings so she could have uninterrupted blocks of time to get work done. Before, she didn't realize the impact that breaking people's flow had.

A lot of people are trying to become developers. One of the more common routes now is attending a bootcamp. But be careful, not all bootcamps are equal. Graduates from some bootcamps struggle a lot harder in the hiring process than others. Make sure that you do your research and talk to people who graduated from the program.

Transcript

"Out With The 10x Developer And In With The 10x Mentor With Tracy Lee" Transcript

Quotes

"I feel like if you're not technical, it's almost like you're scared to make the decision"

". . . I group together all my meetings, because I used to be like, 'Oh, co-founder, you're not in a meeting. Oh, he's probably bored. Oh, he's not involved.' Like, my god, I was just killing his productivity the entire time."

"You should be really promoting the idea of a 10x mentor. So, helping everybody within an organization, within a development organization, should be helping facilitate each other to be successful."

"But unless you keep doing the same thing, the thing over and over and over again, and getting really good at it, then you're never going to actually grow"

". . . do your research and find people that have gone to the bootcamp, and ask them directly what their experience was"

Resources

Tracy Lee

Joel Hooks

Next Episode

Making A Fulfilling Career Out Of Multiple Interests With Hiro Nishimura

Hiro started coding HTML and CSS back in middle school so she could make internet friends and talk about anime. She never thought of coding as anything more than a hobby, and she stopped when she began college. She got her master's in special education, but due to a traumatic injury, she had to make a career pivot.

She got a job as a helpdesk engineer and eventually worked her to a sysadmin position at a startup. Hiro quit the comfortable sysadmin job. She asked herself if ten years from now, if she'd be proud that she stuck with the company for another six months. The answer was no. Hiro quit her job to focus full-time on teaching technology.

It was a huge leap, and yet again, she was in unfamiliar territory, but she's been able to find success. Hiro has released four intro-level AWS courses for non-engineers on LinkedIn, writes independent articles, and gets paid to write blog posts for small business owners.

You don't have to be a specialist to find success. Yes, the world needs people who can go all-in on something and produce fantastic work, but it also needs people who can bridge the gaps and solve problems with the breadth of their experiences.