BOOTCAMP: THE 20 DAYS OF TECHNICAL ARETE
<Beep Beep>
Telegram messages…I swept into my phone to find some forwarded messages about some internships from the random groups I recently joined with the ultimate goal of boosting the activity points my university demand. Among the many huge “promises” of internships, something really stroked the corner of my eye.
Summer Bootcamp For KTU students (Show your middle finger to internships that asks you to pay up money)
Ever since the Introduction of KTU in to the engineering ecosystem of kerala.
There has been an abundant of frauds for institutions who claims to provide quality internships and plunder students.
Most of the time students has to pay really high fee of approx 10,000 INR to 15,000 INR to partake in such internships.
There has been instances where all that students do at such internships are filling up some excel sheets. We at exetera demands a change. We will be providing a 3 week intensive training for students on web development with
latest cutting edge tech like VueJs/Node etc. At the end of the bootcamp students will interact with one of our clients
Build a Project for them and deliver it with at most care.If you are tired of bulls**t for Internships and demands a change. Register your interest below and we will contact you shortly.
IMPRESSED!
Swiped into the google forms, filled them out and sat back with the relief of unknown impulsive action which is quite my characteristic. I had with me, Bindya, my partner in crime to get into this wonderful venture, “BOOTCAMP 2018”.
Well, well, time just flew, Nipah virus was in air and exams got postponed, and above all, made me reschedule my wonderful itinerary of 2 months sem break! 😩. And all the 4 times my exams got postponed, the routine of rescheduling my “sem break” too followed. And alas, things went in “place”, supplies got over by 6th, BOOTCAMP started on 7th to extend till 27th, and the college reopens on Aug 1st, leaving me no more confusion of scheduling sem break, for the remaining 4 days will be obviously spent under my blanket, sleeping 😴.
Whatever, sticking to my gut feelings(rather, let’s call it existential pressure), we decided to kick off for the BOOTCAMP without knowing how much change it is gonna make in each of our lives 😍.
In order to keep our track record of being tacky and truant, we just bunked the first day straight away! Well, I must say Exetera was very well concerned in our studies and growth and took the pain of calling us back.
Inspired again, we took the “courage” to step inside for the 2nd day.
SO, LET’S START WITH HTML!
Geon, as he introduced himself told us that we were gonna kick off with the basics of HTML.
I looked Bindya and she looked me back with the geeky look of thinking if this was what we really wanted. Thanks to FOSSMEC who just had started the fever of FREECODECAMP to brush our basics in HTML and CSS.
#LIFE-LESSON-ALERT
Do not judge a book by its cover
But, what Geon taught us was quite different from what we expected. He really took us to the new extends of front-end web development. And we have now really got into the spirit of widening our horizon of knowledge. Apart from inculcating the design and logic for web development, he made us fall into the eternal love of developing and making. New tools, new methods, new projects all came pushing in with the right balance….
In contrast to the normal classes or so-called “internships”, here at BOOTCAMP, I was able to work in my own space. I was able to create my own end-product at the work. Literally, I was able to start doing what I thought was something really hard.
SO, KUDOS TEAM, WE HAVE MADE OUR FIRST BABY STEP!
BOOTCAMP progressed and we transformed into a team from a group. Life stories were shared and we literally began to be great friends who helped each other in tech and non-tech queries. Some realising facts wonderstruck us! We very lately found our tutor Geon was someone just like us- a 2nd-year B.Tech student who has been into his own startup well versed with doing his business!
#LIFE-LESSON-ALERT
Age is just a number and the real education begins when you gotta slack off your ego while gaining knowledge from anyone
We learned to effectively use HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, jQuery, Vue Js, not just the basics, but to really use them in live projects that EXETERA allowed to work upon. Our GitHub repositories increased and the green live streak was rising! Wooho! I congratulated myself, cuz for a beginner like me who has been staying at a beginner stage for a while just due to the lack of an external push, this was something great!( Yea, I accept I need a bit of inspiration to work in a field that I hardly had an interest once. Not everyone is a geek though! 🙇 )
HANDS ON GUYS! THE CLIENT NEEDS US!
Yes, we worked on a project. A website that had to be completed in time with all the required specifications of the client. I must say it was not easy! It was hard. The site was supposed to have calm transitions and everything in a flow, where we lost our calmness and chill to keep it in shape! Once we get it right here, it goes wrong there.
The experience of working on the project not just helped us in our technical skills, but also taught the skills of teamwork, time management, patience and above all to gather everyone together to work for a common need!
NOW LETS PEEP TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS BEHIND
Geon was off and here came the new hurricane-JITHIN
The calmness with the slight chap of sarcasm. That was him. Passionate, and a kind soul who treated us then and now to make us happy!
Node Js- This boy was a little mischevious and hard to handle. The untamed child-that is how I would like to describe Node Js. But the child has got a lot of potentials in him, making it more flexible for our use.
Well, it was a really nice start with node and I could learn to use 3rd party APIs to build apps. A simple weather casting app, which took the city name as the input to return the current weather of the place was the first attempt of its kind. And hurray! it was done…Also, a bitcoin converter app too was made using the 3rd party API.
I also got the chance to use MongoDB, the object-oriented database. Using all the stuff learned so far, a basic try was made to create my blog space into action. It was hard at first. It was hard at first to build from scratch, to keep track of my database, to know the real “game” being played behind! 🙆 Really, it is cool to see the product of the work as a success on your laptop screen at the end of your long day. I thought it would be more interesting to see my blog app on my friend’s laptop too, which is why we decided to host it using HEROKU.
TADA!
My work! My blog! Thus, I was successful in creating my own blog app using node, express and mongo. Maybe the first step I took to identify the dangling interests in me. (yeah, I am still working on it to make it more pleasing) Adding to my #100daysofcode, I could finally understand the joy others felt. No, I do really know this is just a single step, a baby step. But, maybe the first baby step towards the hindrances I am gonna face in future.
27th JULY 2018-BOOTCAMP DONE!
So, it was the last day and there came the day of slight sadness too. Because friendship had grown between us and we all felt it was kinda cool 20 days that had passed by. The day ended with an overwhelmed talk from Jithin, where he could bring into the limelight, the conflicting ideas conveyed by the local community meetups and the essentiality of building up your own work portfolio so as to make your step firm in the present industry. Jithin, keeping up with his by-nature of loud opinions, gave away the wishes and advices for each and every one of. In return we 17 too gave away our feedback regarding the Summer Bootcamp.
For me, who had been once sad about the “lost sem break” now worry no more, for this has been the best experience I could get so far. For the group of 17 young, aspiring minds, BOOTCAMP was a channel to reroute the way we thought, to open many windows of chances. We all knew something was ignited to start, the spirit, the laughter and the happiness!
Thank you Exetera!
I write this with the complete knowledge that I am not the very first person to attempt these or to write about it. But still, I thought of writing this today just to help those “beginners” who are still scared to put out their first step,which was much of my situation before the BOOTCAMP!
Every big leap started off with the smallest step.
Actions speak louder than words. So, https://github.com/diya-liza
