Week 2 of Immersive Full Stack MERN Bootcamp Learning
I am studying with @UCBerkeleyExt, in this article I cover my second week of projects and process of learning full stack MERN
Currently I am enrolled in the Full Stack bootcamp with UC Berkeley. It is an intensive full time program that lasts for three months. At the time of writing this, I am nearing the end of the program.
🤓 Greetings travelers! I wanted to give a break down of all of the projects I created and everything I learned in the second week of my bootcamp. In this article I will break down the learning process through each project.
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Learning Full Stack MERN with UC Berkeley
Each week in this program we were required to turn in two graded homework challenges. At the end of the first month we had a graded group project.
Outside of that we had several in-class coding activities each day and every 3-4 days we would have an in-class mini project that was often just as challenging as any graded work we had to turn in.
Details of what technologies were used and further break down of the challenges and projects displayed can be found by visiting the repository associated with it.
Week 2: JavaScript & Web APIs
Module 3 HW Challenge - Password Generator
→ View Repository ← | → View Live Site ←
This was our introduction into JavaScript. The key components for this project were to use alerts, prompts, confirms, and to generate all the aspects to make a password truly random. This required making arrays with all the potential character inputs (lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters) and to concatenate them together if they were selected.
In Class Mini Challenge - 🪨 Rock | 📄 Paper | ✂️ Scissors ➜ SHOOT!
→ View Repository ← | → View Live Site ←
OK… 👀 I admit it. I expanded on this one a few weeks ago. Originally this application simply used prompts, alerts, and confirms to execute the game. It was functional and everything, BUT I thought it’d be so much better to be interactive through the UI instead of pop-up boxes.
Module 4 HW Challenge - Code Quiz
→ View Repository ← | → View Live Site ←
This challenge was all about connecting the functionality of JavaScript to the visual aspects of the UI via the DOM. This is a code quiz app that gives the user a certain amount of time that they must finish the quiz by. The score is a reflection of how quickly they finished the score and how many questions were answered correctly. Time, and therefore points, are deducted each time a question is answers incorrectly.
In Class Mini Challenge - Word Guess Game
→ View Repository ← | → View Live Site ←
I was not able to finish this mini challenge during class time, so I circled back around this week to do it. This also allowed for me to use Bootstrap to quickly throw in some CSS, like I did with Rock Paper Scissors. The main need with this project was getting the letters to replace the underscore spaces as the “keydown” event listener was occurring.
How does a project manager taking a coding bootcamp?
So my background is in project management. In my last role I was a Senior Project Manager for a SaaS company where we would deliver software implementation to customers.
This experience and background really helps me in my learning process to become a software engineer. It means that I am not only very solutions oriented, but I also understand that user interface is very important with anything that is created. If something is functional, but not intuitive for the customer to use, then it will fail testing.
Of course sometimes a failed test does mean that the customer can just be provided with clearer test scripts and documentation, but I would argue that it’s best to try to make the application as user friendly as possible from the beginning.
I just wanted to take a moment to give you a bit of insight as to where I am coming from. I’m sure I will have many more moments like this connecting my work experience to my new awesome skillset.
What did you think? Leave me a comment and share!
I wanted to begin cataloging this learning process, to hopefully give folks insight into not only my learning journey, but also what it’s like to take a full time bootcamp like this. I’d love to hear from you if you enjoyed this article!