21.04.2022 – Last week Monday, some 60 students started what is called “Week 0” and provides student with the opportunity, to brush up on their Python coding skills before the official bootcamp starts. Five days later, on Friday at 10 pm, only 2 students were left on the Zoom call. I am unsure whether all of them have solved all the challenges already by then or we were so few as it was a Friday night… However, the week was packed with challenges so anyone had the chance to learn new concepts and really delve into Python. The TAs (teaching assistants) were fantastic and always ready and happy to help.
On Saturday, 16. April, the first official day in the bootcamp began at 10 am sharp. The topic of the day was to setup all the students’ computers so we could begin work on the challenges from the following Tuesday. There was a special “drop-in” session on the previous day for Windows users from 10 am to 5 pm to pre-setup the machine (this was not necessary for Mac users). So on Saturday, we downloaded a bunch of stuff, created a Python virtual coding environment, linked our github page to the so called “Kitt” learning platform of Le Wagon and test-pushed some code to github to make sure everything is working alright. We also were introduced to the teachers and TAs who will stay with us for the following 24 weeks and our classmates. Also, we were encouraged to upload photos on the Kitt platform and provide some information about our plans in the future and what we expect and would like to extract from the bootcamp. We were told that this would be one of the “easy” days and we should enjoy it. Reason was that after the setup was finished, we were allowed to call it a day and use the time to rest up.
On the following Monday, we were quickly guided through the Kitt learning platform and then instructed to watch the video lecture as preparation for the coding challenges on Tuesday. The lecture was about the Python programming language and lasted for about 1 hour 40 minutes. The slides were also provided and are accessible throughout the bootcamp and beyond. The lecture was a reiteration for me as I took part in “Week 0”. However, as I haven’t seen some of my classmates during that week, I think it is a good way to get everyone to the same state of knowledge.
On Tuesday, everyone is assigned to a “coding buddy” with whom the coding challenges should be solved. We were told not to spend too much time on thinking through the problem once we are stuck. The time frame for “stuck” means more than 20 minutes. The process should be as follows: Work on the problem on your own first. Once you run into problems, ask your coding buddy. If s/he isn’t able to help you either, open a ticket and ask a TA for help. The reason is that there are a couple of challenges to be solved and spending too much time on a single one will prevent you from finishing at least 60% of them. Challenges covered topics such as string, debugging, system parameters and a sudoku checker/solver (both optional). Bring on the new challenges!
“Sometimes overcoming a challenge is as simple as changing the way you think about it.” – Unknown
