Day 2 Intro to Java

Came to Tech Elevator today ready to learn. Started with a quiz from yesterday’s material which went well for the entire class. Started talking about java and a brief history of java. Transitioned to a classic Hello World example and then to learning Eclipse. Much of what we covered in the examples today is review from the pre-work. We learned to do things like variable declaration and assignment in javascript and now we are learning it in java. If Tech Elevator is a plane ride, it feels like we just boarded and are still building speed on the runway.

Pathway:

Ben conducted a pathway program meeting right after lunch where he detailed everything that he, Vinny, and Katie will be doing to assist us in our search for a job. It became exceptionally clear that the Tech Elevator team is flooding us with resources and opportunities to make sure that we succeed in our quest to build a new career. Workshopping resumes and LinkedIn Pages, connecting us with great companies, helping us create our own personal stories to pitch, urging us to go to tech meetups in Columbus. Though Tech Elevator is setting us up for success, Ben made it clear that these opportunities are ours for the taking, but none of them will just hand us a job. Everyone on the pathway team re-iterated the importance of going to meetups and having face-to-face conversations with real people in the industry as a key tool to getting a job. Going to events where I don’t know anyone can be hard for me, but this is something I strongly seek to overcome. I’ve already found a few meetup events in the area I am planning to attend.

The exercises today mainly focused on variable naming conventions. The work was monotonous to say the least, but the result is that I understand how important clear variable names are when writing code. Other people have to be able to read and know what’s going on!

I’m leaving Tech Elevator now, about half past 5. I’m exhausted but, I know we haven’t started sprinting yet. Bring it on.