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When I review code written by people who are relatively new to programming, I find myself often repeating the same advice. There are many patterns we adopt as we learn to code that we have to unlearn or modify once we become more comfortable with the fundamentals. In this post, I'd like to highlight three common patterns I see, and how you can refactor them to write code that is more readable, and often more concise.
In order to get your first position as a software engineer, you have to have a certain level of technical ability. However, sometimes it is the non-technical things that can get in the way of breaking into the industry.
The next version of Python, 3.10, is in late alpha and is expected to be released in the middle of 2021. It has a number of small changes to the language, but also one later new piece of syntax, the `match` keyword.
Here at Rithm School, we have seen value in providing scholarships to highly motivated web development students. The practice of offering scholarships is not only a way to support learners working with tight budgets, but also a method of engaging and motivating nontraditional students of all backgrounds and experience levels who are interested in breaking into tech. We currently have 3 separate partial scholarships we are offering for our 2021 full-time courses.
There comes a point in the job search, when the initial optimism and enthusiasm has worn off and the job search starts to feel like an eternal grind. You have put a lot of work in, but haven’t experienced any of the benefits. You are very aware of how much effort and discomfort you have gone through, and it can feel like you have nothing to show for it. It’s tempting to stop pushing yourself and return to comfort. Here are six ways to keep pushing through the discomfort until you land a new job:
At Rithm, our goal is to make our admissions process fair, personalized, and informative, and over the past couple of years, we've seen that candidates have highly enjoyed our admissions process and interviews. At the same time, we've seen that our application process is longer than most, as it requires students to complete a large set of practice problems before interviewing. While this has been a helpful way for candidates to practice problem-solving, it has not always led to the most seamless interview process. In order to make it easier to interview at Rithm School, we're making a slight modification to our interview process.
The JavaScript ternary operator is a useful tool that you'll encounter in code quite often. Ternary operators can make statements more concise and easy to reason about. If the syntax is new to you, the operator may seem a little confusing. Let's talk about the ternary operator and discuss some rules of thumb for how to use it.
Imposter syndrome is a phenomenon where people doubt their skills, talents, and/or accomplishments. They have a constant fear of being exposed as a fraud, and think things like, “eventually everyone will find out that I really have no idea what I’m doing.” Even after one gets a job this can still occur, they would attribute getting a job to pure luck.
I am currently located in San Francisco, CA originally from New Jersey. I love being active, I was previously a professional modern dancer and yoga instructor. I still love to do yoga and plan to eventually teach again once possible.
Getting into a selective bootcamp can be difficult. This is a good thing, you want to avoid schools that admit anyone who is willing to pay. There are too many schools that are more focused on building a big business rather than the outcomes of their students. Even after going through a leading bootcamp, getting the first job can still be difficult. Stay away from places that make it seem easy. It is much better to be surrounded by others who have put in a lot of effort into being there.
Imagine this: you are working on a project, but you keep checking your email, slack, and social media. You stare out the window trying to regain focus. Maybe you are half listening to a podcast in the background. You mindlessly wander from one task to another based on whatever you are feeling in the moment. You are not truly working, and definitely not taking a break. We’ve all been there. Maintaining focus was hard in normal times, let alone during a pandemic.
Marco: I was born and raised in the Netherlands. During a vacation in California in 1996, I went on a job interview at the Netherlands Consulate General in Los Angeles. I got the job, married my Dutch girlfriend of 5 years, and with our two cats we moved to Redondo Beach. It was a dream come true! In 2010 the consulate relocated to San Francisco, and that is how we ended up in the East Bay.
Three years ago, our co-founder and lead instructor Tim, wrote a wonderful post on 5 Topics to Master Before Learning React. Since then, React has evolved tremendously and has only continued to become more and more popular. In this post, we’ll revisit some of the essential JavaScript features you should be comfortable with before learning new frameworks, especially the most recent major change in React, React Hooks.
Most programmers with more than a year or two of experience will know more than one programming language. This happens often because they joined a new work team or company that was using a different tech stack. Separately from work project requirements, learning a new language can be one of the most helpful things in your development career. New languages can introduce you to different ways to express problems, different tooling, and even different ways to think in code. You'll often hear advice on what others think is a hot new *must learn* language, but before jumping immediately to that, it can be helpful to think about what you want to get from a new language.
If you’re currently learning how to code, or have recently graduated from a bootcamp and are job searching, it’s natural to have anxiety surrounding hiring and retention in the software engineering industry. The spread of Covid-19 has undoubtedly turned everyone’s life upside down (here at Rithm, we had to quickly adjust our class to a live-over-Zoom delivery). Whether or not your employer is a software company, it depends on software.The nature of that software is always evolving, which is good news for the software engineering community.
Choosing your first coding language is an important decision, the more time you spend with a language the more comfortable you will feel writing it. It’s a good idea to focus your learning on a language that is not only in demand for today’s job market, but also expected to be in demand in the future.
George came to Rithm School by way of Baltimore after dabbling in a handful of personal projects and finding himself wanting to join a more structured learning environment. George took some time to share more about their experience with us at Rithm, and to give some advice for anyone looking to transition into web development!
In the wake of massive protests around the country in response to continued acts of racial violence and murder against individuals like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade (among so many others), there's been a noticeable uptick in book sales about racism in America. At the time of this writing, the top four books on Amazon's bestseller list are White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, and the books How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, both by Ibram X. Kendi.
JavaScript is constantly evolving! Since 2015, the language has added new features every year including some of our favorites like the rest and spread operator, destructuring and async/await.
Networking is the single most effective way to land a job, yet it is often a major source of struggle for many students. As a way to jump-start the networking process, we provide every student with a mentor. At Rithm, our mentors are mostly alumni who are now employed as software engineers at a wide range of companies from small startups to big well-known tech companies such as Dropbox, Pinterest, Twitter, and more. Mentors offer help and advice throughout the program and into the job search. Due to our small class sizes, we know our mentors and students quite well and are able to match students with alumni who compliment their personality and/or career goals.