This is a guest post by one of our current students, Uraeus Millet. Ray is 19 years old, born and raised in New Orleans, and on a path to a successful career as a programmer!
Hello, I am Uraeus Millet, and I can confidently claim that my experience working with Operation Spark has shaped me from a person with no programming experience into a person who I believe is capable of taking the software development career field by storm. The mentality of self-immersion consistently drilled by the teachers and other students of Operation Spark enables other students to learn all things programming at a faster and higher level.
When I first began the Bootcamp at Operation Spark, I will be the first to admit that I wasn’t taking the self-immersion aspect of the course seriously enough. I was not consistently practicing and exposing myself to more real world problems involving programing to fully comprehend the tools necessary to succeed in software development. Whenever I felt frustrated or got stuck on a problem, I was hesitant to ask for help. I didn’t really expose myself to the support system I already was surrounded by due to my shyness. I faltered throughout the four week Bootcamp. Luckily, John Fabroni and Max Goudin were gracious enough to give me a second chance. I am proud to say I’ve taken advantage of that second chance.
Ray before he realized software engineering pays better than the nightly news
I am currently enrolled in a second boot camp at Operation Spark where I have not only taken advantage of the tools around me, but I have a better understanding of how different concepts of programming function. I’ve built great relationships with not only my fellow students, but with my teachers as well. My comprehension of programming terms (functions, Booleans, arrays, strings, etc.) has drastically improved due to me continuing to practice and hone my programming skills on a more consistent basis. Instead of coding solely in class, I code whenever I have free time. THAT’S where I have improved the most. I have a clear understanding of what it means to self-immerse yourself into a topic to get a better understanding of it at a faster pace. Before, I was very slow with completing the programming projects assigned by my teachers, whereas, now, I can breeze through programming projects with some relative ease. I still ask for help from time to time whenever I get stuck on a problem.
My two favorite experiences with Operation Spark thus far is building relationships with my fellow classmates and students and realizing how far I’ve come by successfully completing programming projects to my sufficient pace. My confidence level has been properly built to where I believe that I will be capable of passing my Hack Reactor interview in the coming weeks. I’ve embraced Operation Spark as a second home, and because of that, I’ve fully equipped myself to succeed as a professional software developer. I plan to be enrolled in the Hack Reactor Program and continue to make John and Max proud.
Check out some of Ray's work on the Matchy project, a student favorite: http://rayman504.github.io/projects/matchy/
