Meet Morgan

MORGAN: [You should be] engaging, asking questions, not being afraid to ask questions when you're not understanding. Because a lot of the times, if you are not understanding other people are not understanding too.

I did go to college, but I got a degree in environmental science. When 2020 rolled around, I was not able to work in the lab anymore. I had a friend from high school who signed up for Sabio and I tried out the, you know, the original courses and I found it interesting. So I had no experience at all coming into this. And then I got a job offer before I graduated. So, yeah, it definitely works.

Q: What was challenging for you at Sabio?

MORGAN: I kind of felt like I was always behind the curve and I just in general have a hard time asking for help when I don't understand something. I have a hard time articulating what it is I'm not understanding because I don't really know what it is I'm not understanding. Just something's not clicking. I kind of struggled with that until we got onto the project portion where you kind of are forced to talk to other people about it because it's a project. It was like night and day, just being able to talk to other people about what we were doing helped make it make so much more sense. Getting on the queue, all of that sort of interaction about it. Because it is remote, but that interaction I found once I participated in it, it was very helpful.

Q: How was the job search process and how many applications did you submit?

MORGAN: I think I submitted probably around 670 applications. Anything that had, you know, just at least a couple of the skills that I had, I would apply for it. A lot of the easy apply jobs that were just quick. The application goals that the instructors give us – I think the first weekend they were like, you know, get out 85. I did 165. You know, it's the effort you put in is where you are going to see results.

Q: What was your technical interview like?

MORGAN: I was really nervous. I thought I needed to do all these, you know, algorithms and stuff. It ended up just being a really relaxed conversation – like, explain to me what you've done in .NET and C#. And it was like, okay, well, this is what I did for my project. We did API controllers and services. And he was like, Can you tell me what an API controller does? And I just said it does this, this, and this and he was like, Okay. It required five years experience and I applied for it anyways because it wanted JavaScript. It wanted .NET, SQL, all of that. Why not? Worst case scenario, I just don't get it. But I did.

Q: Did you ever mention in interviews that you went to a coding bootcamp?

MORGAN: I didn't ever outright say I went to bootcamp. I just sort of would describe the experience. I learned some on my own. I took a technical assessment and then we got selected to be on a project, which was an actual project. And there was one interview that I did do and they outright asked me, That sounds like a bootcamp. Did you do a bootcamp? I said, Yes, I did a bootcamp. And he was like, Well, you know, bootcamps usually do like a desktop application, like a game. And I said, No, no, no, no. This bootcamp was different. We did an actual project with an actual client. You can go look them up on LinkedIn, like it's an actual client. And he was actually really surprised by that. So I guess my tip would be is if you do have to tell them it was a bootcamp, maybe explain that part that it was a bootcamp. However, you were working for an actual client, an actual company, not just a personal project on your own computer.