Andrew Rodriguez Betancourt has felt the rising pains of beginning over—a number of instances over.
Initially from Venezuela, Andrew was pursuing a level in Engineering there when civil unrest within the nation compelled him to affix his mother in Florida. He quickly found his credit wouldn’t switch within the U.S., so he needed to restart his faculty training from scratch, taking primary requirement lessons at an Orlando group faculty whereas working as a server and bartender. His eventual objective was to switch to the College of Central Florida (UCF) and rekindle his authentic main. However then COVID hit, he was let go from his job, and Andrew discovered himself set again as soon as once more.
“I used to be positively annoyed, as a result of it was going to take me that for much longer to be financially prepared for a bachelor’s at UCF,” he says. “At that time, I needed a quicker solution to get began on that STEM profession I had been chasing for years.”
In exploring his subsequent steps, Andrew found the UCF Coding Boot Camp. This system’s intensive full-time, four-month cohort possibility appealed to him, as did the notion of attending a boot camp from a college he trusted and deliberate to enroll in for his undergraduate diploma. Again in Venezuela, he had taught himself primary web site design for varied freelance initiatives. However he knew the boot camp may give him deeper publicity to each front-end and back-end programming abilities, retaining his profession prospects as versatile as attainable.
“The boot camp felt like my finest subsequent transfer, as a result of it promised to show me a ton of various applied sciences,” he says. “Plus, it was nice cost-wise, it might assist me construct up my abilities faster, and it was on-line so I may hopefully hold working someplace.”
Although the pandemic stored Andrew from discovering new employment instantly, the additional time at house enabled him to focus all of his energies on the boot camp and in the end obtain the outcomes he hoped for.
Instructing Himself The way to Be taught One thing New
“Almost each single factor I discovered within the boot camp has transferred to the roles I acquired after finishing it,” says Andrew, reflecting on his cohort expertise. “The curriculum helps you see how one programming language connects to others so to decide them up quicker every time. With different lessons I’ve taken, the applied sciences they train are barely getting used anymore. However the boot camp provides you the day-to-day fundamentals you’ll use in an actual job right this moment. And it opens your thoughts to have the ability to train your self the right way to be taught one thing new.”
Past praising the curriculum that focuses on related, real-world abilities, Andrew additionally compliments his teacher. “He had a lot of vitality and his persona was nice,” Andrew says. “He knew we had been studying some fairly heavy ideas, so he at all times made positive we had been having enjoyable alongside the best way. For one group task, he allow us to create no matter form of app we needed. My staff developed a meals and wine pairing device. The initiatives acquired us excited to work collectively and apply what we discovered.”
For Andrew, one of many boot camp’s most impactful facets was its expansive Profession Engagement Community. He appreciated how a lot time his profession advisor spent serving to him grow to be “not simply employer prepared however employer aggressive.”
“He gave me steering on my resume and canopy letter, directed me to a bunch of free profession webinars, and gave me a lot of ideas for making use of to jobs,” Andrew remembers. “After interviews, we’d speak by means of what I did proper and what I may’ve performed higher. He additionally inspired me to start out a brand new undertaking proper after the boot camp, so I may hold my abilities recent. That was invaluable recommendation.”
Upon graduating, Andrew really useful the boot camp to certainly one of his mates, who wound up as keen about this system as he was. He was additionally invited to a webinar of his personal to supply inspiration to different boot camp learners.
“I flat-out informed different college students that should you’re not using the profession providers, you’re not doing the complete boot camp,” he says.
Regular Employment and a Bachelor’s Program at Final
Quickly after the boot camp, Andrew landed a distant part-time contract as a web site coordinator for a nonprofit in St. Louis. “They had been constructing farmers’ markets to assist small companies within the space,” he says. “They preferred my boot camp portfolio, so that they employed me to design a brand new web site for his or her undertaking. Then they fully rebranded, so I constructed one other 4 websites. It was nice expertise and I used to be serving to folks, which actually fueled my ardour. I nonetheless do work for them sometimes.”
With the steadiness of a brand new job, Andrew was lastly in a position to switch to UCF and start taking lessons towards a Pc Science diploma. He discovered that the boot camp supplied advantages for his new studying journey, too.
“Having that prior information has helped me tremendously with my bachelor’s,” he explains. “Like, I’m taking an object-oriented class proper now, which is principally Java with Bootstrap. I see different college students struggling, however I can deal with it. The boot camp provides you confidence in your skills, which spills into different areas of your life. Final yr, my spouse and I purchased a faculty bus and turned it into an RV (see pictures under). Neither of us had prior expertise in constructing something however I used to be like, ‘We will completely do that!’”
And the success stored coming. A yr into his work with the nonprofit, Andrew landed one other distant job—this time as a full-time software program engineer for a payroll providers firm in Winter Park, Florida.
“They employed me for my full-stack abilities but in addition needed to coach me on particular software program they’ve, which is a database program that makes use of SQL closely and in addition some Java,” he explains. “The work I do now includes taxes and deductions and strikes quicker on daily basis—however I’m maintaining, making good cash, and persevering with to make use of the abilities I discovered within the boot camp.”
The Confidence—and Abilities—to Dream Even Greater
Down the street short-term, Andrew likes the thought of working for a advertising and marketing company, the place he may focus extra on interactive web site design and join with quite a lot of shoppers. “I’d like to design for, like, a soccer staff in the future and a cool clothes model the following,” he muses. “However severely, I believe difficult myself with completely different initiatives makes me an much more succesful and marketable particular person.”
Extra long-term, Andrew envisions a profession in tech undertaking administration or consulting. “I need to be a key a part of these strategic discussions,” he says. “The academic {and professional} expertise I’ve gained from the boot camp has opened up plenty of alternatives that may flip into management positions sometime. Within the meantime, I simply hold telling people who if you wish to make a optimistic change in your life, a boot camp is without doubt one of the finest methods to do it.”