Have any campers quit full time jobs to focus on FCC?

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Hey guys! Looking to get some advice/hear of your experiences.

I’d like to hear from campers who have started FCC part time and moved to doing it full time … or even those who did FCC full time from the beginning. I am considering leaving my full time job in the springtime to focus more time on completing the curriculum. I am making decent progress as is but I feel there is so much more to learn, and doing so with a full time job is difficult. I would like to work on some side projects in parallel with FCC also.

My questions to those who have done it, were there able to keep a consistent schedule? Were you able to keep motivated? How is the learning experience going?

Of course there is the obvious financial concerns, however I am debt free and have some savings to tide me over. I intend to do part time/casual work to tide me over.

Cheers
Tom

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I didn’t quit my job as I didn’t have a job in the first place, but I have a free year now in which I can spend every day on coding, all day. I do about 8-10 hours a day and in 3 months have made great progress (in my opinion at least)!

I have been able to keep a consistent schedule because:
a) I love doing this so it isn’t like work for me.
b) If I get frustrated with an exercise or challenge on FCC I work on my own side projects to keep my motivated instead of just giving up.
c) I know if I don’t finish this I will end up jobless and, well, homeless :smiley:

I used to do FCC part time, only an hour or so a day, but once I started full-timing it my progress just shot up.

If you have enough savings to do this, and fully believe that this is what you want to do, then go ahead. You’ll be enthralled at how much progress you can make when you dedicate so much time to it!

Best wishes!

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I started doing Treehouse tutorials in HTML, CSS, and beginner Javascript in late January. I wanted to get into the programming part first before making a decision to bail out of a job I hated. I had originally gotten confused and bored with a Javascript book when I was 15, and now seeing I could understand arrays and loops fine, and I could build a simple website, I decided I could really try to learn this as a career. In hindsight, that small taste of programming on which I was basing this decision is a little laughable, but a better indicator I think was that I was coming home every day after a hard full day of work and putting a couple of hours into Treehouse. Regardless, I made the leap, but with reservation…

I started FCC in earnest in late February, and signed off at my full-time job in mid-March. I did however line up a 3-day/week part-time job that helps me eat and pay rent without losing savings. My experience has been similar to l-emi above. For the last 6 months, I’ve maintained really good momentum, studying/coding almost every day I have off, including weekends. My social life has suffered because of focus and penny-pinching, but it’s been to the boon of my studies.

Thankfully, the work really sucks me in, but some days are a little harder. You get stuck or your brain gets tired, that’s why I’ve really enjoyed having other resources besides FCC. FCC has been the practical backbone where I put my knowledge to test, but I’ve sought out learning first with Treehouse, then Code School, and most recently Udemy courses. When I was in the middle of FCC front-end curriculum, it was great taking a break when I was stuck on algorithms to “relax” and watch some video courses on Treehouse or Code School instead. Other times, I decided to have a nice “academic” weekend, where I sat down and just read a back-log of blog posts and intro articles about the parts of javascript that were more heady: OOP, functional programming, closures, currying, etc.

It’s been great for me and great for my focus… Also like l-emi said… There’s definitely an added pressure to keep studying and focused or else that developer job will never come! It’s been 6 months so far. After 3+ months I finished my FCC front-end cert. Then I studied a very basic foundation in Node/Express on Udemy as well as the FCC back-end curriculum node/express courses. I felt myself losing momentum there, however, so I jumped to focus on React since when I shared my FCC front-end cert on social media I had some potential job leads come my way from friends/ex-coworkers in tech working on web apps. For the last 3-4 weeks, I’ve been doing a React/Redux deep-dive on Udemy (including unit testing and much more). I also started building my own app to put the learning to practice. Once I finish it up, I’m going to start talking to people about internships/junior positions. I could keep going for another 6 months probably, but I’m ready for something more stable with a mentorship environment if I can swing it.

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Hi Thomas,

I always find amazing how people so driven are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals.

I have no relevant experience to talk about here. However, I know people that where in the same situation as yours.

Did you know @QuincyLarson went to the San Francisco area without knowing anyone there ? If I recall, he slept for weeks in his car and attended code events. He went to a coding event and built a team right on place. They wont the first prize.

He wrote a lost of useful answers on Quora (sorry for the ad). Quora is a questions and answers platform. You may find clues on how to approach your problem with this Quincy’s answer : Should I quit my Job to focus on learning how to code for free on free code camp ?

Quincy wrote that you should have at least 2 years of savings to safely quit your full time job. That allows you to focus on programming and attend programming events.

There is one thing for sure as others campers have mentioned. No matter how tie your schedule is, always be coding.

Good luck.

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@l-emi That’s awesome. I really enjoy it too. I have such an appetite to learn, I just can’t fulfil it entirely until I can spend more time on it!

@blackmorrow I’m thinking of going down the same route where I work 2/3 days a week to pay the rent and then devote the rest of my time to learning. I think other learning resources are key to understanding the more complex topics and fundamentals of Javascript. I’d like to have more time to study these!

Anybody else out there?

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Yes. We were planning on me quitting anyways, and I wanted to put all of my focus into web development and coding. I have eliminated most of my debt, had a small bit of money saved and I’m focusing all of my time/energy into this for the time being. Mind you, I didn’t give up some glorious job. I was breaking my back, had to drive an hour away, driving a truck in very high local traffic, and it paid absolute crap for what I was doing. We saw this as a better use of my time with the potential of a better return.

To answer your questions, I have been able to keep a consistent schedule. I’m actually putting in more time than I had anticipated. I initially planned on committing 4-6 hours a day during the week. However, I’m putting in more hours, and not just during the week. When I’m not coding, I’m watching youtube videos, discussing webdev on reddit, reading articles, etc. I’m all in.

What keeps me motivated: My thirst for knowledge, desire to be better at anything I do, and my sights set on the future and what it may bring if I end up getting good at this.

Learning experience on FCC: I’d honestly say it’s mixed so far. I am about to start javascript, and just finished the portfolio project. I wish that along the way, we could have been assigned this throughout the beginning parts of the curriculum, applying what is taught bit by bit and having a practical way to apply what we were learning, and once we’ve put the new skills to use a couple times, THEN have us start a project from scratch so it isn’t so daunting. I put off the portfolio project a few days, and spent that time reviewing the html&css lessons again, reading more about it, doing exercises on w3/codecademy, as well as codecademys’ ‘how to make a website’ to prep for this. I didn’t feel prepared for the project by the time I got to it, but the bottom line is I got it done!

If you want to put all of your time into this and have some money to hold you over and can work part time while you do it, I say go for it! It’s a great investment and a good skill to learn. In my case, if I can land a job doing this, even on the lowest-tier of coding job possible, I’d make more than what I was before I started doing this, and it’d be doing something I enjoy in a much better work environment. Good luck!

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Inspiring comment. Thank you for sharing your story.