From Bootcamp to Community Advocate and Mentor

Ruby for All

On this episode of Ruby for All, Julie recently decided to go back to the gym, and Andrew has been chilling and focusing on things in his life that he hasn’t taken care of. But today, we’re going to have fun, like we do every episode, and Andrew is going to interview Julie and ask her questions about being a Junior Developer and get her honest insight into things Juniors are going through. We’ll find out what Julie’s job was before she became a coder, her Bootcamp experience, challenges she had at her first job, struggles with programming and how she overcame them, and the importance of networking and asking questions. Hit download to hear more!

[00:02:13] How long has Julie been writing Ruby on Rails?

[00:03:04] Julie shares her journey from being a Pharmacist to becoming a coder.

[00:04:03] What did Bootcamp do well at teaching Julie and what could have been better?

[00:06:31] When did Julie start to fall in love with programming? Also, she tells us about Code in Place, and her final project she built, which was Tetris.

[00:08:48] Julie tells us she wouldn’t change anything about bootcamp, and she explains how her experience with interviewing was like.

[00:11:31] We hear some of the challenges Julie had at her first job right out of bootcamp, and one of the high ones was imposter syndrome.

[00:13:45] Find out when Julie first started getting into the Ruby community and when she joined WNB.rb.

[00:14:34] Andrew explains he had no community when he first started in Ruby, so he got into podcasting and conferences.

[00:15:36] Julie and Andrew met ten months ago at RailsComp 2022, and Julie shares how the past year has been, as well as her favorite moments.

[00:18:11] We hear some of Julie’s struggles with programming over the past year and how she overcame them, and how Andrew became aware of Julie through her Tweets.

[00:20:55] Julie has something to say about sharing learnings, and she shares advice to the person out there who’s in the same place she was, either right before or right after going to bootcamp, and the first thing out of the box is network.

[00:23:24] We end with Julie telling us how people have told her they appreciate her asking questions and why that’s so important, and Andrew praises her for her work in the community, mentoring people, and starting a book club.

Panelists:

Andrew Mason

Julie J.

Sponsors:

GoRails

Honeybadger

Links:

Andrew Mason Twitter

Andrew Mason Website

Julie J. Twitter

Julie J. Website
Code in Place 2023

WNB.rb

WNB.rb GitHub

WNB.rb Twitter

RailsConf 2023

100 Days Of Code