Data Structures (a Bloc Coursework Update)

It has been a few weeks since I made any updates to my software development portfolio. As you can tell by that link, I have completed seven projects in total, six from my coursework at Bloc and one from my freelance work at Upscale Academy, but the frequency of my completion of the projects has slowed down. This is not because I am learning less or am any less focused on becoming a software developer, but instead because I am now working on the third of the four units in my Bloc Software Engineering Track, which is the part with the actual software engineering in it.

Signing up for a coding bootcamp is a bit of a leap of faith. It requires some faith in an untested industry, because coding bootcamps didn’t actually exist until 2012. It requires some trust that you will be learning about programming languages, tools, and concepts that are valuable in the job market today, meaning the course has to be up to date. And, last but not least, it requires a good chunk of cash to sign up (in paid-outright, scholarship, or loan form), just like all higher education does in the United States.

The reason I went with Bloc and its Software Engineering Track, as I’ve stated in previous posts, is because I figured that if I was going to learn to write code, I was not going to half-ass it or pick the cheapest course I could. I wanted to really, truly learn the ins and outs of software development (writing apps and websites) and engineering (generally, the layer beneath, where you make the tools that other developers use to write apps and websites). At the same time, I had to pick a bootcamp that could work with my schedule and appreciate the fact that I am not in a financial position to just quit my day job and code from 9–5.

The Software Engineering Track, as long as it is by bootcamp standards (72 weeks part time), is still much shorter and less expensive than a full-fledged Computer Science Degree from a university. It was the right balance for me: I could learn a lot and get a huge leg up into a new career field, but not devote another two or three years of my life to college.

Plus, as a guy with way more student loan debt than is reasonable, the appeal of a slightly-more-lucrative career as a software engineer was more appealing to me than hurrying out the door of the bootcamp and into a web developer position. It meant a better ROI, and even if my first job isn’t as an engineer, I’ll at least be more prepared for an engineering role in the future.

Bloc told me in my orientation that they spoke to lots of different folks in the industry who are likely to hire their graduates about what they wanted from an ideal candidate for a software engineer position, and they tailored their course to what they learned. Generally, they heard that bootcamp students often come out of their courses with the ability to build websites but without really understanding what they’re doing, while college grads with Computer Science degrees understand the theory but don’t have as much actual practice building software. Bloc wanted the middle path: students with lots of hands-on experience and a knowledge of what’s going on behind the scenes.

As I said before, I had to make a leap of faith in signing up. I did not know anyone personally who had signed up for Bloc. I had to trust that Bloc’s chosen way of teaching (for me, Back End Development, Front End Development, Software Engineering Principles, and finally an Open Source Apprenticeship) was appealing to hiring managers, and that I would get my money’s worth. I could not help but be skeptical, sometimes because I was struggling and felt like I needed more support (especially at first), sometimes because I was blazing through the coursework and it seemed almost too easy (mostly in the Front End section, which was not much of a difficulty bump from the Back End section).

Now, I appreciate how the course is designed and understand why it is the way it is. If it had started with the software engineering concepts I’m working on now, like learning how to build tree, heap, hash, and linked list data structures, I would have quickly become frustrated and likely quit with the feeling that I was too stupid to do this stuff. Data structures are more cerebral and conceptual, with less of the visual reward one gets building front end software. I have heard since I signed up that Bloc’s current course offerings put Front End Development (with JavaScript) before Back End Development (with Ruby on Rails), and I see why. The more visual content helps students feel they’re actually doing something; they can see it firsthand and feel that they’re making progress, being productive, and growing. The harder back end concepts can build off that foundation once students gain some confidence.

The first two sections of the course also encourage students to focus most of their time on building projects and testing out what they’ve learned, while the software engineering section is a bit more traditional in how it’s taught. I think this is by necessity; I’d need an extra couple of months to build purely creative projects that utilize what I’m learning now and really do anything meaningful with them. Nevertheless, this unit will have me building databases and frameworks soon, which will become part of my portfolio.

Really, this post is just a status report. I have come a long way- it blows my mind looking back on the first two sections and remembering how much I struggled with them, when in retrospect they don’t seem that difficult conceptually- but being in week 45 of 72, I still have a long ways to go. I hope to have much more to share about my experience in the software engineering section soon!

Post number 17.

How to Manage Distractions Without Sacrificing Anything Important

It sounds ridiculous, at first, to think of the economy as governed by time rather than money. “The economy is powered by paper bills of no real value and a bunch of numbers in a bunch of computers!” they cry, as if this is somehow of greater value than time.

And sure, money is still important. Companies would much rather you give them money and then spend your time consuming their product or service than use the free Spotify tier. But as we become more connected than ever before, as companies can reach wider and wider audiences online with little (or even no) starting capital, it follows that there is a greater number of products being marketed to us every day. Many industries (those with low barriers to entry, anyway, which do not include healthcare, education, or internet service providers) face increased competition, which is how we as consumers can now demand free or nearly-free software and entertainment from most vendors.

Thus, companies begin to value our time almost as much as they value our money. Our time results in their money anyway because Google AdSense, and most people (maybe not you, Dear Reader, but most people, I think we can safely say) are too lazy to download ad blockers and too morally opposed to piracy to try Popcorn Time.

The upshot of this is that lots of products and platforms are vying for our attention and we are more distracted than ever because Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are very, very good at keeping hold of our attention once they have it, since that’s what they’re paid to do. This is probably not news to you, and since you’re reading this, there is a good chance that it is making you feel as though you have no time in your day when in fact you have plenty to work with.

But this is very important!

I’m only twenty-four as of this writing, so I am hardly qualified to make any “back in my day” statements yet, but back in my day, I remember spending a couple hours at a time reading the latest Harry Potter book without social media interruptions to distract me. I remember working on my homework from beginning to end and accomplishing it much faster because YouTube was not a thing.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many advantages to having so much access to the wonders of modern technology, and I think it a silly notion to remove it from our lives entirely. We can schedule, communicate, and plan more efficiently than ever. We can pay a bill instantly. We can access an unfathomable collection of information and entertainment in seconds, wherever we are. Even physical goods are just one overnight shipment from Amazon away, and with such constant access to a video camera on our phones, we’re guaranteed to catch more important memories and significant events on video than ever before.

But the analogy between technology and Promethean fire only gets more apt as technology itself becomes more powerful (Windows 10 is roughly 50 million lines of code, all executed in seconds by modern computers- impressive, yes?). You can burn yourself if you don’t watch what you’re doing with it. So here are a few tips to avoid that happening:

1. Delete mass social media apps off of your phone, and don’t use the mobile browser to go find the sites. The problem with smartphones is the same feature that’s so great about them: we can use them absolutely anywhere. That means that if an app is on your phone’s home screen (where you’ll be seeing it every time you unlock your phone), it holds much more power over you and your time than if you only allows yourself to access it when you can sit down at a computer. The first step in getting that social media platform out of your schedule, therefore, is to delete the app and resist the urge to go to the mobile site on your phone. I’ve found that the apps that are most subconsciously addictive are the ones where you can simply scroll through a long feed of information. These are what I think of as “mass” social media apps, like the Facebook app, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Snapchat (if you can stomach that last one for more than ten seconds). Mass social media apps are mindless, designed to show you a bunch of things you agree with, and generally used to kill time more than to accomplish anything of value (when really you should just let yourself be bored). Personally I have found that I dramatically cut down on social media time by doing this alone. I left the apps I use for one-on-one and small group direct communication on- that is, iMessage and Facebook Messenger for friends, Slack for my Bloc mentors and fellow students, and GroupMe and Skype for communicating with coworkers at T-Mobile and Upscale Academy- and find that my social media usage is much more reasonable when I’m directly talking to people, which is after all more natural and less needlessly-abundant communication.

2. Use your tech with intention. Rather than whipping out your phone, tablet, or computer because your brain is bored (which is acceptable and completely normal), only look at a screen when you have an intent for what you’re going to do on it. If you’re responding to a text, that’s a justifiable reason to use your phone (in my opinion), assuming you’re not at work or school. Don’t sit down at your computer with no idea of what you’re going to do- that tends to lead to the rabbit hole of YouTube or the dread social media apps mentioned above. This applies to times you need to get work done- I primarily use my computer to write either code or words- but it also applies to when you’re kicking back and relaxing at the end of the day. Unless there’s something specific I’m looking for on YouTube, I generally try to avoid it because it’s easy to fall into the clickbait trap, and anyway I often feel less than entertained after the fact. Go directly to the book, music, movie, TV show, or game you planned to be entertained by, and the fact you made the choice and didn’t allow your brain to be perpetually distracted by butterflies- er, sorry, “links you might be interested in”- will still prevent you from feeling that distracted, frazzled feeling you often get from social media after the fact if you’re anything like me. If I focus on anything, even entertainment, it’s better that perpetual distraction.

3. Meditate, enjoy nature, eat healthy, talk to people in person, exercise, and be a homo sapien. Your body is not designed to be in the dark, sedentary, alone, and hunched over all day long. Take a walk. Meditate and enjoy the notification-free calmness. Go running or lift some weights. Eat some fruits and vegetables. Talk to people in person- which is still the best social media app going. You are a human being, not a robot. By that same token…

4. Schedule - both work time and play time. Some folks have a hard time getting work done. I tend to have a hard time taking a break from work. Between my full-time job at T-Mobile, my freelance jobs as a web developer, and my software engineering coursework at Bloc, it’s easy to convince myself I need to work all day long. But if I do, I get burnt out and wind up completely out of it for days. Whether you’re normal or you’re like me, the solution is balance. I find that as the day wears on, my brain slowly loses steam no matter how much coffee I drink, so the best time to try and tackle software engineering problems or do any creative writing for me is in the morning. Midday is when I still want to be productive, but have less brain power to work with, so I can usually blog (rant), pay bills, or run errands. Evenings are when I’m pretty much spent, so a book, a movie, whatever TV show binge I’m in the middle of wiht my fiancee, or a video game- not social media hopping- keeps my brain doing one thing at a time, but without too much stress. Similarly, if my commute to work is in the morning, I try to use that time to listen to an Audible audiobook or a podcast on Marco Arment’s wonderful Overcast app. In the evening, I’m more likely to be relaxing to some music.

This has all been immensely helpful for me. I feel more productive, more present, and more satisfied with how I spend my time. I hope this article has been worth yours!

Post number 16.

Patience: The Most Overrated Skill There Is

We are all (and by "all" I mean "lower and middle class folks in the United States") taught to be patient from a young age. "You have to be patient and wait to get dessert after dinner" is ingrained in us from the day we can speak. That's all well and good- you shouldn't just eat sugar all the time, after all.

This doesn't just apply to kids, either; the desire for instant gratification is popular for everyone in our society these days. I've encountered plenty of grown adults at T-Mobile who throw a temper tantrum when they find out they can't get the fancy new phone they want right now, often acting more childishly than, well, their child standing right next to them.

Patience is often a good thing. But there's a problem with the constant "patience is a virtue" mantra we receive throughout our lives, and that problem is that not all patience is created equal.

Somehow I feel as though we have it in our heads that "be patient and eat dessert after dinner" is somehow equal to "be patient and wait for that company to respond to your job application" or "be patient and wait for a promotion." Yes, you should be able to be patient when it benefits you; but there's also a time and place when being patient because a company doesn't want to promote you can cost you a great deal, and I don't just mean monetarily.

When it comes to your career-which is directly tied to your quality of life in terms of how many hours you work, how much you're paid for that work, and what benefits you may or may not receive from that work-being patient is often the worst thing to do. The first reason for this is that statistically, companies have no loyalty to you anymore. A business is a business, after all, not your friend. For many businesses (most, even), profits and pleasing shareholders are the bottom line to the exclusion of all else, employee and customer satisfaction be damned. I suspect that this attitude winds up hurting these business's profits in the long run more than helping them, but that's a discussion for another time.

People my age (I'm 24) have seen this firsthand, not because we've been laid off much, but because so many of our parents were laid off at some point in the recession. We all know the story-the company had to downsize, the company wanted to hire on someone younger than our parents who would do the same work for less money, whatever excuse they came up with to not care about their employees (yes, I know sometimes laying people off is unavoidable, but the lack of effort on the part of many corporations to avoid that option is depressing).

Anyway, it boils down to the same thing: our parents lost their jobs in the recession, which gave us exactly zero faith that major corporations are going to take care of us when we're the employees. This has since produced a vicious cycle in which corporations don't care about their people and their people don't care about the corporation. When corporations lay people off, those people switch jobs faster; when people switch jobs faster, corporations offer better salaries and other incentives to entice those employees to work for them; when corporations offer those competitive new salaries and incentives, the people who have stuck around for a few years realize they're getting screwed and wisely jump ship.

As that link above points out, your pay will go up faster if you switch jobs every year or two than if you stay loyal to any one company. And why would you? Our Baby Boomer grandparents will tell us all about how employees and businesses used to be much better at maintaining long-term relationships (often career-long), but it's not something us millennials are ever going to see for ourselves or for our parents.

The average employee gets a 3% raise annually, but at least a 10% raise when switching jobs. Assuming you have a ten-year career and you already have a six-figure income, here's what happens to your income if you switch jobs zero to four times over a decade. In short, you're missing out on $40,000/year sticking with the same job.

Don't get me wrong- this isn't necessarily a negative thing. A 10% raise every two years, on top of your standard raises work gives you, and that's a conservative projection? That's a sweet deal! What's important is that you know that you are likely of greater value to the market place than you are to your current employer, and that's absolutely true if you have continued to learn new skills and grow your network while working wherever you are now.

Patiently waiting for a promotion, for the company you work for to take care of you, is a thing of the past. That's not a bad thing-it's simply a fact that you should absolutely exploit in the game we call the workforce.

Be patient for dessert after dinner or a smartphone you can't get today. But when it comes to your career, your time is limited-don't let misplaced loyalty limit you, too.

Post number 15.

Fear, Doubt, and Disbelief

If you've ever seen The Matrix, one of the first films by the Wachowski siblings', you know the scene I'm talking about.

But in case you haven't seen it, I'll catch you up a bit. The premise of The Matrix is that a war will break out between mankind and the AI machines we create in the not-too-distant future. Mankind has nearly lost the battle when we decide, in a last effort to survive, to scorch the Earth's sky, permanently blotting out the sun, which we believed the solar-powered machines needed for energy. But before they run out of energy, the machines defeat the humans, wire their brains into a computer simulation of reality called the Matrix to make us believe everything is normal, and feed off the energy our bodies produce. They find a way to artifically grow humans so they can keep our actual bodies in tubes all our lives and liquify the dead bodies to feed them to the next generation.

Or, alternately, since the Matrix simulation appears to exist right around the turn of the 21st century, this has already happened and we're living inside the Matrix right now- whichever sounds more dystopian to you.

Still with me?

Morpheus (the guy with the glasses) is part of the final resistance of mankind against the machines, because he is one of the few whose mind has been freed from the Matrix. He frees Neo (the hero, visible in Morpheus's glasses in the picture), because he believes Neo is The One- a Messiah-like figure who is supposed to defeat the machines and free humanity.

In one scene, Morpheus is teaching Neo that when he is in the Matrix, laws like gravity and physics don't apply because they're inside a computer program. He tells Neo, "You need to let it all go... Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind." And then he jumps about 1000 feet from the top of one skyscraper to another.

Neo tries to follow suit and fails miserably- he makes it about halfway and then lands flat on his face on the asphalt 80 stories below (not dying because, well, he's in a computer program). The reason is that Neo has not yet freed his own mind from fear, doubt, and disbelief. He does not yet believe that he is the One.

I went on this extensive Matrix anecdote for a reason: I've observed that most people around me are a lot like Neo on his first jump. They're perfectly capable of improving their lifestyles, relationships, and careers- in other words, perfectly capable of being immensely successful- but they don't believe in themselves, so they don't do it. They don't have the confidence to learn something new, meet new people, and build the life they want, so they get stuck in place, hanging out with people that don't really help them grow and doing the same job they don't like for years on end.

What are you trying to tell me, that I can dodge bullets?

It's perfectly fine for people to screw up and be nervous sometimes. But I feel as though there's a strange fear of success (even moderate success that requires little risk) in our culture. I think part of the reason is that we struggle to differentiate between confidence and cockiness. If someone is devoted to achieving their goals and is working towards them, whether those goals relate to their lifestyle, relationships, career, or health, that is nothing more than confidence, which is 100% okay. Cockiness is bragging and rubbing success in others' faces, which is not okay.

Put another way, I think we're afraid that if we act confident, we will come across as arrogant. This is likely because confident people are often ridiculed by unhappy people, because it's easy to be a critic of anothers' work.

But I think it is of the utmost importance to ignore the critics unless they have something of genuine value to say. It is too easy to allow others' criticism and negativity to hold you back from achieving your goals. Negative, unhappy, toxic people will tell you that you cannot accomplish what you want to accomplish or list all the reasons why your ideas won't work. This is no different from what happens when you come up with an excuse not to try on your own- it paralyzes you with doubt.

Don't allow others to stop you, and certainly don't allow your own worries to stop you. Let go of the fear, the doubt, and the disbelief.

Free your mind.

No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you are ready, you won't have to.

Post number 14.

On Being a Thermostat

I thought about writing the obligatory “New Year, New You” blog post to kick off 2017. I didn’t, which is why I’m not posting this on January 1st. I thought I’d try and phrase it in such a way that would encourage you, Dear Reader, to take any New Year’s Resolutions you may have made more seriously than most people take their resolutions.

For as we all know, 2016 left many folks feeling broken and disheartened. A lot of famous people died. Brexit happened. The United States elected Donald Trump to succeed Barack Obama as the President of the United States, and no matter how you feel about that, there’s no denying that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s election campaigns were vicious, divisive, and cruel to the opposing side. The idea that we can all turn over a new leaf in 2017- that perhaps we can all be better versions of ourselves by year’s end- is a positive one, and I’m all for positivity to balance out the constant stream of cynicism that seems to pour from every orifice of our environment these days.

But here’s something we all need to recognize about how the media (social and otherwise) framed 2016: just because some bad things happened around you in 2016, doesn’t mean you were required to have a bad 2016, too. The media, your friends, and even your environment should not dictate how your year went (I recognize that there are external forces beyond some folks’ control, and it’s okay to be upset sometimes, but bear with me). As Senator Cory Booker said regarding Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks on The Daily Show: “Going through life, you can either be a thermometer or a thermostat. A thermometer changes with the temperature around it. As a thermostat, you set the temperature.”

We all need to take that lesson to heart, no matter what political party you endorse or what your background is. Ultimately, when you add up your accomplishments, your money, your relationships, your health, your life as a whole, you need to set the temperature, not let the world around you dictate it.

I’m not a perfect person, or even close to it. I didn’t have a perfect year- I’m sad that Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher died, and I fell for the election's hatefulness and the media’s overblown stories like everyone else. I, like most Americans, forgot all about the idea of voting for a candidate based on policy proposals and fell into the lazy way of thinking that results in our broken two-party system. I got into arguments about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's personalities, and I hated myself for it. But it was easy to not think. It was easy to get outraged at whatever nonsense the news was spewing. It was easy to be a thermometer- which is why most people are.

The problem with wasting your energy and outrage on these things is that you cannot control them. Elections, how other people act, or the death of a celebrity you liked are all things beyond your control. Yes you should vote, and yes you should encourage others to be good, wise, and loving people. But what you should be focused on first and foremost, Dear Reader, is you.

This way of thinking will change your life, guaranteed. It did for me. It's why I had a great 2016- it was the best year of my life, in fact- while so many thermometers around me had a horrible 2016. Sure, a few unfortunate things happened in the wider world, as they often do, and I relapsed more than once. But for the most part, 2016 was fantastic for me, and it's because I've learned to be a thermostat.

In 2016, I became a full-time employee at T-Mobile, meaning my income last year was the highest it's ever been. I had a fascinating, eye-opening experience as a Legislative Intern at the Colorado State Senate. I went to Universal Studios. I got into running- not as consistently as I’d like, but more than in the past. I read several books- not as many as I’d like to have read, but a few good ones. I saw a bunch of great movies about superheroes and wizards and space rebels. I permanently broke my addiction to soda and energy drinks. I beat bipolar disorder- I got off my medication last summer for the first time in 9 years, and I feel incredible.

I picked up a new hobby- listening to podcasts- which I enjoy immensely. I paid down over $8,000 in personal debt from credit cards, a financed smartphone, a car loan, and student loans. I’ve made a ton of progress in just 7 months learning to code in Ruby, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS at Bloc, and I've really enjoyed meshing my love of writing together with my newfound passion for coding on this website. I’ve learned a great deal from my Bloc mentors, both about programming and about life.

And best of all, I spent the whole year with the love of my life, who I proposed to in December. She said yes- and no matter what nonsense is being reported on the news right now, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

Much of this- I won't say all, but certainly most- stemmed from being a thermostat, not a thermometer. If I had let cynicism bring me down, I never would have insisted on being full time at T-Mobile, I never would have believed I could change my habits, my diet, and my own mind, I never would have signed up for Bloc, and I never would have taken a chance on another relationship after the disasters that came before this one (some of them were doozies, let me tell ya). 2016 helped me recognize that allowing the media to turn you into a thermometer is a recipe for failure, while listening, learning, growing, and focusing can help you become a thermostat. I watched others on social media complain their way through 2016 and do nothing but tread water while my life, if you add it up, is better in just about every measurable way than it was a year ago.

I don't say this to brag- I say this because I used to feel like I had no control over my life, too. I used to be cynical, negative, broke, and surrounded by broken relationships. I was normal.

So my advice for you going into 2017, Dear Reader, is to stop being normal and start being a thermostat.

Here's to 2016, and an even better new year.

Post number 13.