Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you didn’t lose power after the ice storm (as I did), and if you did, I hope you had family or friends nearby who would take you in (as I did – thanks, Mom & Dad!).

So I’ve completed the program at Bitmaker Labs. Sort of. On Friday, Dec 20th, I presented my final project with my two teammates. The lectures are over. The assignments are over. I’ve survived all 9 weeks of the 9 week boot camp. This might seem like a natural point to do a final write up of my experience, and my self proclaimed “fans” have suggested as much.

https://twitter.com/AgentEmily/status/417461776712617984

However, I don’t feel I’m really *finished* just yet because I’m now preparing for Hiring Week, which I consider to be an important part of the Bitmaker program. The week of January 13th, my classmates and I will have the opportunity to interview with a whole bunch of companies looking to hire junior developers. In previous cohorts, Hiring Week was the week immediately following the last week of classes, so I feel fortunate to have a few weeks to fine tune my resume, tidy up my projects on Github, and have a quick refresher of the things I learned in the early weeks of the program (so I’ll feel confident when talking about them in an interview).

I will write a more detailed post when I have a job (hopefully in a few weeks), but in the meantime I will say that I believe I’ve learned much more at Bitmaker than I ever could have through 9 weeks of a traditional university program or self paced learning. Being surrounded all day, every day by the instructors and students kept me motivated and focused, and I’ve certainly never enjoyed myself so much while learning.

If you’re curious, you can check out what I’ve posted on the Bitmaker Labs blog, including this interview: