My name is Jeanine Tran and I was in the March 2017 SoftStack Factory cohort. When I first joined, I was a liberal arts student at UCSD with zero background and knowledge of software development. I had been curious about the field and did a bit of research and tried to explore Computer Science on my own. I enrolled in various online courses free to the public through Coursera, MIT OpenCourseware and similar websites. I found them quite helpful, but there were so many courses and I didn’t know the best way to tackle them and how to set up my own curriculum.
As I was researching, I accidentally stumbled across programming bootcamps in San Diego. They offer organized schedules, teach technology stacks that are in demand, and were fully immersive. The idea of full immersion sounded like a great way to learn lots of material quickly. However, I was in school at the time and also had a waitressing job on the weekends. I had no time to drop everything I was doing to pivot into a new field. I continued researching different bootcamps in San Diego and LA, and I found SoftStack Factory. The evening schedule was accommodating and perfect for full time students or anyone working nine to five. They teach full stack development from front-end technologies like Angular and HTML/CSS, server-side Node.js/Express, to back-end languages such as as MongoDB. It’s also the only non-profit and on-site programming bootcamp in Southern California.
I am glad to have been a student at SoftStack Factory and I think it’s amazing that such a business model exists. Also, the team members and facilitators are one of the most dedicated and talented individuals I’ve learned from. The actual class portion was fun and engaging, and my cohort members and I learned how to build an Ionic mobile app after only a few weeks. After our learning phase, we worked together on a team, practicing agile methodologies and industry practices.
Currently, I am working as a full-stack software developer on contract at a multinational Aerospace company in Seal Beach, CA. I have learned so much over this past year, and I would not have gotten to this point without SoftStack Factory. It’s a great point to start your journey into software programming and I recommend it to anyone who is new to the field and looking for a change, or for anyone who is just curious. SoftStack Factory provides the perfect environment for aspiring software developers not only because of the tools they teach, but because you’ll be learning from and growing alongside a motivated and talented team.