How I chose Perpetual Education
Welcome to John’s Newsletter by me, John Miyao. Ride shotgun and read along to help keep me focused and feed me snacks as I stumble through this path to my final destination; Professional Website Developer!
Warning! This is really my first time blogging so it will be fairly unstructured right now. More of a stream of conscious to start as I build up my writing habits. With practice, I hope it will improve, but bare with me for now.
I’ve been trying to learn web development for probably close to 7 years now. Back in 2015 I paid $300 for a course called Skillcrush which I’ve completed 2.5 of 4 modules; HTML/CSS, Github and half of Javascript. Learning on your own is tough. When you hit a wall it’s easy to give up. At least that’s been my experience. I’d run into a problem I couldn’t solve and Google was no help. I know the solution is out there, probably somewhere on Stackoverflow, but the answers were too advanced for me to even understand. So I’d stop doing the course and I wouldn’t pick it back up for another couple years when I felt motivated again. Yes, I could’ve phoned a friend, but I guess I wasn’t very serious about it.
So how did I get here and how did I end up choosing Perpetual Education out of the dozens and dozens of dev bootcamps? Good question. I thought you’d never ask!
When I first moved from Seattle to Oakland, CA in 2012 I started out as a tech recruiter at a boutique (now defunct) firm. Through hours of bolean searches trying to find the next Vitalik Buterin, I came across a cohort of students graduating from a Web Dev bootcamp. I remember interviewing a recent grad at Pete’s Coffee (or was it The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf?) in the Embarcadero Center and they showed me their project that found cafe’s suitable for working. I never placed the guy, but I thought I found a gold mine of fresh engineers ready to get hired. Unfortunately, bootcamps were so new that it wasn’t very easy. This was my first introduction into bootcamps.
Since then, I’ve unsuccessfully dabbled in self-teaching courses, but nothing ever stuck. Sometime around 2016 (maybe?) I attended a General Assembly meetup to learn more about their immersive program. It sounded promising, but man it was way to expensive for me at the time. I couldn’t afford to drop 10K+ and they didn’t offer income sharing at the time. I probably could’ve asked my dad, but even I wasn’t 100% sure about it enrolling.
Fast forward to November/December 2021. Work is extremely slow for me. I log back into Skillcrush and redo the Github module and begin the Javascript one. I feel pretty good about what I retained of HTML/CSS and using my computer’s Terminal to branch, make edits and commit my code. Then comes Javascript and everything makes sense until it doesn’t. I run into that wall again. There was a concept around arrays I wasn’t grasping. I wanted someone to explain it to me rather than read it about it and come up with more questions. Like I’ve done in the past, I took a “break” from learning. Sadly, it’s mighty difficult for me to fight the powers of inertia. Once I’ve put my learning to rest, it stays at rest.
While I was banging my head against the wall, my energy shifted toward researching dev bootcamps again. I wanted to be able to talk to an expert and ask them questions. I also know I need structure and accountability. To me, part of the allure of bootcamps are these two things. So I started reading into bootcamps. Okay, not all since there’s hundreds of them now, but a lot. I started with the University of Washington (my alma mater), Hack Reactor, General Assembly, Coding Dojo, Flatiron to name a few. I read reviews in Course Report and Career Karma and they’re all 4/4 stars! Amazing! Not one of them has any negative reviews on these “review” sites. Then I go into Reddit and it’s the opposite. They’re not worth the money, students burnout, you’re better off learning on your own. Now, I know if you join one, you have to be willing to put in the effort and stick with it. You also have to do more than what the course requires to really build up your skills, which I think I was willing to do. However when it comes down to it, would I get lazy and put things off as normal? I don’t know.
Anyway, as I flip flopped between the positive and negative reviews, I stumbled upon (I mean YouTube algorithmically fed me) this video.
I thought this guy is speaking what I was thinking as I dug deeper into these bootcamps. They’re businesses now. They have a sales funnel that spits out a cohort that may or may not succeed, but success is not necessarily the bootcamp’s goal. In the early days, when I was recruiting out of these bootcamps it was different, but as they started seeing growth more bootcamps popped up and then they started conglomerating. It’s hard to not feel like you’re just giving them a ton of money for access to their instructions (hmm…sounds familiar).
After watching the video I filled out their application as I had already been applying to a few different bootcamps. It ultimately came down to Derek at Perpetual Education and Hack Reactor’s 19 week beginner course.
Now I didn’t create a pro’s a con’s list, but in my head I weighed them out and talked through with my girlfriend on my decisioning. Now here’s me writing out what went on in my head.
Hack Reactor
What I liked: I liked their application process. It required a Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT), which I did many practice tests before applying.A typing test and a final interview. It felt very professional and kind of set the tone that this was a serious bootcamp. I also liked how they structured the camp and if you fell behind there was opportunity to catch up. I think they broke it up into 4 week sprints? Last, I also spoke with a friend who graduated from General Assembly and they highly recommended Hack Reactor so it had a personal endorsement.
What I disliked: It’s $17,000! During the 19 weeks the class sessions are from 9am - 7pm, which means I can’t work for 5+ months and add at least another month looking for work. Also, learning for 10 hours a day sounds draining. How do students NOT get burnt out? While it had a structured application process, I also know that it can’t be too difficult otherwise they wouldn’t have any students. So me passing the interview process wasn’t much of an accomplishment, although it did feel good.
Perpetual Education
What I liked: It’s not really a bootcamp. Derek calls it a mentorship which I didn’t have any doubts about after speaking with him. I would have a personal, dedicated instructor who seemed to actually care about their students learning and understanding the material. During our interview he explains how he’s available just about whenever you need him (so far I haven’t had any issues).
I also really liked that there was a focus on the design aspect too. While all the other bootcamps are Full Stack (front and back end), this one seemed more holistic. I’d learn how to build a website before I actually start coding it, which all the other bootcamps don’t seem to offer. I think I like design so I want to at least learn it and Derek has a background in design so I trust he can teach it.
As I learn to code, I may find that there’s other aspects I enjoy more and Derek will allow you to lean into those interests. I may find I like QA Testing or Product Design and want to pursue those careers instead. While still completing the bootcamp, PE will help you in whichever web developer related career you choose (at least I assume they would).
This is also a part time course. I don’t have to quit my job and I can learn as I work. I liked the model of learning one new concept each day that progressively builds on the previous days’ learnings. Derek doesn’t want you to burn out and cram 10,000 hours of material into 12, 16 or 19 weeks. The slow drip of knowledge keeps it manageable and gives you the time to do additional reading/learning/practicing if needed (and recommended).
When interviewing, I got to see current students work. Derek did a screenshare and showed me some example work and even sent me the link so I could see it on mobile and desktop. The work looked professional and it actually had a fairly big impact on my decision. I could see and “feel” the work that I would/will eventually be doing. Derek also talked about having their students even do some client work. This was another selling point for me as it showed 1) his students are capable of doing real world work 2) his students will have some real world experience before graduating.
What I was unsure about? This is a completely new program and didn’t have a graduating cohort yet. Ultimately I want to get a job as a web developer and there’s no proof of that with PE as of this writing.
All of the course material are pre-recorded videos and written out out versus a live instructor. I was afraid that I would essentially be self-teaching myself with the help of Derek when needed. However, because of the daily cadence of new material (you can’t skip ahead) and the activity in Slack, it actually feels like I’m in class. Students submit their work daily and publicly on slack so there’s the external motivation of “keeping up with the class”. Derek does a good job of fostering communication amongst the students and keeping us active. We have a daily standup that really helps me stay engaged everyday along with posting our visual inspos and cool websites that we hope to build before this all ends.
In conclusion
While we’re only in our fourth week, I’m confident I made the right decision. I’m enjoying learning something new everyday, literally! We have a strong class with different backgrounds, styles and tastes which I really appreciate! I’m looking forward for what’s next!
Thanks for reading. For those that made it this far you should definitely subscribe.
In the meantime, tell your friends!