Makers PreCourse Ramblings — working, studying & parenting

Let me begin by saying “Hello World!” to the blogging community. This is the second community I have ventured into for the first time over the last 4 weeks — the other was the mesmerising world of software development.

I first noticed Makers sometime in 2015, I had become a teacher the year before and occasionally I would stop and think to myself, is this it then? Having always been interested in technology — building computers, gaming, beginner coding challenges, music tech and connectivity — the idea of being able to study something for 16 weeks and land a job just seemed too good to be true. I mean, I had only recently finished a degree that put me into tens of thousands worth of debt, and took up 3 years of my life, having spent most of my education thinking this was the only way to do things! So I knuckled down and focused on developing myself and my progression. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret my music degree, I had an incredible time, met loads of amazing people and made many memories in the City. But there I was in 2015, a year into teaching music but dreaming of something bigger…….well it has only taken me a further 7 years, (4 of which as a senior manager), getting married, buying a house, a pandemic, the birth of my son and a whole lot of soul searching to embark upon my Makers journey.

For a while I always rationalised why I shouldn’t do the course, and for good reason actually. Questions like:

• Can I afford it?
• Am I shirking my responsibilities to my wife and child?
• Am I throwing away an established career?
• Will the grass be greener?
• What if I fail?
• What if I am not good enough?

….and other such conundrums seemed impossible to answer.

In the end my decision came down to two things:

1. Do I need to make a change to my career and ultimately my life? Answer: Yes
2. What is accessible, directly rewards hard work, involves problem solving, working with others, encourages creativity, and is also on the frontline of modern working practices? Answer: Lego Sculpter

Makers didn’t offer a Lego Sculpter course (something to do with not having national skills gaps in the UK based around Lego), so I went with the most logical choice, Software Development. The summary of my internal dialogue following the above decisions was something like this:

Decision made, time to leap into things full of beans and vivaciously, resignation handed in, wife on board, son oblivious, time to go to sleep. Wake up in the morning, was it a dream? No I really will be unemployed for potentially six months……maybe I should work during the precourse? Oh hello cost of living crisis! Yes I will 100% be working during the precourse. Google “can you work full time during makers precourse?”, summarised response “not recommended mate”, “don’t tell me what I can’t do!”. Google “makers precourse content”, get summary of content, spend 6 weeks studying leading up to precourse to get ahead of things, precourse starts, “how many of you are working while doing this”? Nada. Yikes, ok well I’m going to make this happen, one way or another. Tell wife that evenings and weekends are out the picture for next 4 weeks, brace myself for day one, wake up with a ‘can do attitude’. Day one starts……skip 4 weeks and I’m about to start the main course.

I could not find any reassuring blog or text from someone else in my position, presumably because there wasn’t enough time in the day! So I wanted to share my experience for all you parents, fully employed beauts and nervous night before starting legends. Because if I can get through the precourse, working 5/6 days a week in a challenging education management position, then you can smash this too. Ultimately, I think you just need to want it enough and then you will make it happen.

Disclaimer: Makers really do recommend that you dedicate all of your weekday time to the precourse to get the most out of it. I think they are probably right and I by no means wish to undermine this. Sometimes though, it just isn’t possible, and I would hate for that to be a barrier for someone super talented who needs a change. Hopefully my ramblings on can provide some reassurance.

Week 1 — Slack, Meet new People, Command Line Interface & Murder Mystery

Took my macbook into work like a coding ninja. Slack installed and ready to meet new people. Excited, nervous, start of a new beginning.
Command Line is something I had only done a short course on previously as part of Hard Way to Learn Ruby. It was a good introduction to Makers Academy, and the Murder Mystery was a great hark back to old school text based adventures. No worries this week…but I had heard weeks 2 and 3 were intense.

Week 2 — Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruuuuuby…..Challenges

Here we go, access to the learning platform Teachable. Lots of content, chapter 1, easy, maybe I could breeze through this. You are warned that chapter 7 to 10 will be harder. This week I’m not sure I saw my son or wife in the evenings. I would get home around 7 and before I knew it was 11.30pm but I went to bed feeling a sense of accomplishment I wasn’t getting in my day job. Maybe I can actually do this?!

Week 3 — Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruuuuuby…..Harder Challenges

Chapter 7 to 10 = Yikes. I’m grateful that I’m ahead of time and actually completed chapter 7 at the weekend, this took some of the pressure off, but I would imagine that without having to work I would take the weekend off and allow things to sink in a bit. Everything has felt a bit of a rush, and very pressured, not the best way to learn but my goal was to complete the pre course sufficiently to start the main course. So far I was on track. Chapter 7 actually came with a real feel good factor for questions 1 and 2, and then question 3 came along. I look back on this code while on the way to my first day at Makers main course, and make a mental note to refactor/rewrite the entire thing. I take some solace in the fact that it passed the rspec tests but if you want to see an example of how not to iterate, my question 3 was the epitome of such nonsense. Thankfully I reached out to some of the other students in my cohort for some comfort, I then had a very strong word with myself, spent some time with my son and began to attack chapter 8. Hashes and classes were the main focuses from here on in, tested by writing some fun code such as a blackjack like game. For whatever reason, hashes came to me easier than arrays, but dealing wiht nested hashes in hashes of arrays felt like I was starring in the follow up to Inception. A few of us on the course often mused that we would look back on these two weeks in a months time and see it as trivial, but at the time it feels like a mountain to climb.

I pause at the end of week 3 for a break. Time to let my subconcious take over, learn from my mistakes, give my synapses a rest and take some family time. I’m tired, I feel I’m not doing particularly well at work or the precourse. I regret not taking time off work to do this. This is a bit of a low point.

Week 4 — Pair Programming, CV, CodeWars

I get paid! I don’t regret not taking time off work to do this. I’m providing for my family while also making a big life change. I should be proud and continue to dig deep. Only one week left of both the precourse and my job.
I had already met the CodeWars requirement before starting pre course so didn’t need to worry about that. I started my GitHub CV but decided to give it more attention once I had made some real progress on the main course. By far the most informative and challenging aspect of this week was the pair programming. Due to my work commitments I had to plead with some of the rest of the cohort to give up some of their weekend so I could complete this aspect of it. Thankfully I found a very understanding pair partner and we very methodically spent around 3 hours going through the content.

Full disclosure: I’m finishing off this blog post during my first week on the main course, and well, time is very precious. I’m writing a diary blog concurrently with the main course and I need to say goodbye to the precourse and this post……

I’m happy to report that despite having a full time job, I seem to be holding my own against the rest of the cohort. The precourse was tough with my circumstances, but actually I believe that this spurred me on to really get the content completed in good time and to invest plenty of time pre-precourse to get as ahead of the game as possible.

Do I recommend it?! Well the short answer is: no, not if you have the luxury of focusing entirely on the precourse or perhaps just having a low hour part time job alongside it.

Not everyone however has that luxury, kids are expensive, houses are expensive, heating is expensive, and now even food is expensive! If you need to work alongside the pre-course then you can get to the end with dedication, perseverance and commitment.

If you want this enough, you will make it happen……good luck!