24: A Need to Nerd Basis

Model View Conversation

The guys sit down with Lee Warrick, a junior front end web developer who recently attended a local bootcamp after years of being a firefighter and nurse. They talk about his transition from healthcare to programming, how the college experience differed from his development training, how he keeps his skills sharp on the job, and how you can run a bunch of extracurricular activities for developers, but maybe just attending some is at least as effective a use of your time.

We really enjoyed having Lee on the show and hope that his story can inspire our listeners who might be on the fence about learning programming.

Follow us on Twitter @mvcpodcast.

Chapters

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:28 - Lee's developer story
• 09:31 - Biggest surprise of developer life
• 13:56 - Advice to your younger self
• 23:08 - How do you keep learning after school?
• 38:14 - Can your job actually be fun?
• 40:36 - How to keep from burning out?
• 46:44 - Choosing the right extracurriculars
• 56:53 - Outro

Links

• Lee's website
• Lee on Twitter
• Tech Jr. Podcast

• Tech Jr. on Twitter

• You Don't Know JS - Kyle Simpson

• React Newsletter featuring Lee's article

• Stefan Mischook on YouTube

• Paul Hudson's cautionary comments about using too many learning systems at once

• Ray Wenderlich's tutorials

• Free Code Camp

• Tyler McGinnis

• Wes Bos

• Carol Dweck's research into the Growth Mindset

• Dr. Dweck's fantastic TED Talk about the Growth Mindset