My road into a coding bootcamp

Hi my name is William (Will for short), here is my story of how I did a complete 180 on my career path.

All my life I have been around the construction industry. My dad is a general contractor, and I had been going to work with him since I could remember. As a kid my weekends and summers consisted of going to work with him on whatever projects he had going on. For me it wasn’t so bad because I had a lot of fun running around playing with the workers dogs that would be at the job-sites. Some projects even had a pool that wasn’t getting demolished so I would hop in and spent most of the day swimming. A particular job-site that I remember the most is one that had a bobcat tractor that my dad, and all the guys, had taught me how to drive. They would fill it with diesel in the mornings for me and I would bring dirt from one side of the house to the other, and then take it all back.

I continued to go to work with my dad for years to come. I eventually started to pay attention and learn the trade little by little. You could say I learned the trade backwards, unlike everyone else I didn’t start as a labor, my dad started having me learn electrical. This was in my teen years before I graduated High School. From there I learned carpentry, and eventually plumbing. My first job out of high school was in a cabinet shop, where I polished up my finish carpentry skills. I worked there for a few years, and moved on to going to work with my dad as an actual employee of his.

Things were good at first. Working with my dad had its ups and downs, but we both knew that we could count on one another and that together we could accomplish any job that was thrown our way. We worked together until we had a slow down of projects. Having a family I knew I couldn’t just sit around and wait for work to start rolling in, so i decided to go work for a bigger company, that had constant work.

At this new company I was just a carpenter, and had no worries about any other trade. Work had been constant, and it had kept me pretty busy. Until the pandemic happened. We were having a hard time being able to work in certain cities because of the restrictions, and starting new projects was near impossible due to city hall being closed and not being able to get permits for those new projects. This is when I began to search online for a part time job where I could possibly work from home. With my skill set I couldn’t find much work that I could do from home. I came across a youtube video of a data scientist that was looking into doing software engineering, and I remembered that as a kid I had always said when I grow up I was going to be a “computer engineer”.

I continued my online search for software engineering and came across the Flatiron school “bootcamp” program. For a few days I could not stop thinking about this bootcamp, it had caught my attention. I continued to look at other schools and programs, but I always ended up looking up Flatiron. The way it was set up and all the information it had, really intrigued me. I decided let’s give it a try, and I signed up for the program. Not thinking too much about it because I had all the time in the world since we were on lock down, I started their free course. Going thru the course just intrigued me even more to continue to learn the coding world. When I got accepted into the school is when it became the most difficult. My job called me back to work full time, things were starting to reopen, and now I was stuck in between my job and doing something I had always wanted.

Thinking of what was best for my family I decided to continue with the coding after work. I would go to work and after work I came home ate dinner and worked on the free course Flatiron had to offer. It was very tiring but I knew I wanted this. Eventually I knew I was going to have to quit my job as carpenter, the trade I had done for most of my life, because school was going to start. I had no idea how I was going to approach my boss and tell him my decision. I set up a meeting with him and he was very understanding. He didn’t want to lose one of his carpenters but he said that he was proud that I was taking this step for my family.

I am now in my 3rd week going into the 4th week of schooling. We are learning a ton and I can honestly say I am happy with my decision. It is hard going from being the bread winner of your family to surviving on your savings, but I know it is for the best in the long run. I also hope that with this experience I can show my kids that it is never too late to follow your dreams.