Q: Tell us about yourself!

I am American and South African. I traveled around the world, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do after my degree. I currently live in Vietnam. I am teaching physical education and English in Vietnam. I love computers and have a gaming setup. Last year, I bought a Udemy course during Black Friday, and I discovered that I really enjoy building things with software. I was initially planning to move back to the USA to do a physical bootcamp there. But, after I did some research, I discovered Altcademy, and I liked that Altcademy is online and self-paced. By taking Altcademy, I can keep working and keep making money while learning web development.

Q: How are your experiences learning at Altcademy?

When I started Altcademy, I have already known a bit of HTML/CSS, Node, and React. I really enjoy the format of Altcademy because it’s project-based. I learned the most when I apply the knowledge to building something.

It’s great to have a community of students and mentors from Altcademy. Since not many of my friends code, it can be hard to see if I am on the right track. By seeing what people are saying on Altcademy’s Slack channel and having mentors, it gives me reassurances that I am on the right track.

During my self-teaching last year, it takes a long time to learn something because you might get stuck and not know how to fix the problems. You also need to find out what you need to learn, so you are essentially building a curriculum for yourself while not having the skills. A bootcamp helps you keep moving forward!

Altcademy gives the right amount of hand-holding, but not too much. This is good because when you work on a big problem, it feels good if you can complete it mostly by yourself. I am really enjoying it a lot!

Q: What are your short-term goals?

My current plan is to move back to the USA in August 2022, and find a job as a software developer! For now, I am doing some freelancing on the side by making WordPress websites. Through referrals, I have a few clients now. While WordPress is fun, I want to build more complex web applications!