Leveling Up: My Experience at TripleTen

by Karinne Hannah, Software Engineering bootcamp student

I started my journey at TripleTen unemployed and unable to drive. I had bad depression because I felt like I wasn’t contributing to my household or to my community. I’d earned a user experience (UX) design certificate, but I was having a hard time finding a job. 

A lot of jobs that I was looking into were looking not just for a UX designer, but for a full-stack designer. I‘ve had many jobs, starting as a dog groomer at 18 and having the opportunity to be a receptionist, tax associate, assistant manager, and even working in a warehouse, but I’ve always had issues with finding jobs that I love, and I’ve struggled with my mental health ever since I was young. 

Then my puppy started having seizures at 6 months and needed to be taken care of and given medication three times a day. This made it more difficult to find a job because I needed enough work flexibility to give my dog medication. 

Needless to say, I was pretty lost.

The only thing that I knew was that I wanted to improve people’s lives with whatever I was doing and that I wanted to work for a company that aligned with my values.

Level 1 - Choosing TripleTen

The next step in my life was to figure out what I could do to take care of my dog and what I could do with my background to find a career. I looked for a while, trying to find something that I could do to add to my skills but that would enable me to still work as a designer or do art. 

While I was looking for stuff to do, I took a break to watch some YouTube and ended up looking up more user experience design videos to see what I could do to improve my portfolio. I got an ad for TripleTen and watched the ad the whole way through. I was intrigued with how much the ad resonated with my situation. 

I had no money for schooling, and my mother had said she wasn’t going to help because she had already paid for my UX certification. I couldn’t drive, so I couldn’t go anywhere easily. That meant I couldn’t take any classes at the local community college. And lastly, I was having issues finding a job on my own with the market being pretty cutthroat at the moment. 

TripleTen’s ad addressed all of these issues in the first couple of minutes before a YouTube video, and I figured I had nothing to lose by inquiring about joining the bootcamp.

I was told that I could start the online program and defer my payment until after I graduate, and they even committed to helping me find a job or refunding my tuition. It was a no-brainer. I was immediately enthusiastic and decided to join right there. 

Level 2 - Starting the program

Starting the program was very exciting. I was added to the Discord, and a success manager reached out. I scheduled my orientation call and a meeting to talk about what I would do in the program, why I was enrolling, and what they could do for me. I felt like I was welcome to ask any questions. After coming from a program where there was no communication from anyone, I was amazed with how much communication I had with the staff.

The program has lots of tools that can help me with the curriculum, my mental health, and even my career. There are private tutor sessions and public tutor sessions, career seminars, and other related seminars.

The platform itself is well organized and combines reading, videos, and practice before you are given a project. When I’ve had problems with my project, I’ve been able to get it checked by a tutor, other students, or teachers. This and the code review done by professionals were vital for my success. From the very beginning you have a ton of resources to help you with the program and your professional life. The only thing I regret is not taking advantage of these things earlier. 

Level 3 - Getting comfortable

From the very beginning, I had issues getting comfortable with my new life as a student. I’d done programming classes since middle school; off and on, I’d learned some Ruby and JavaScript. I’d also taken an official intro to programming class in high school that taught me Python. But even with my background in programming, I still often felt like I wasn’t grasping the material or remembering the course material because of my memory problems.

This made me realize something: it’s important to reach out to other students or your success manager and let them know you’re struggling so that they can help you feel more confident with your work. Also, it’s important to take breaks while studying so that you can grasp the material more easily and make sure you understand what you are learning. 

Level 4 - Becoming an ambassador

As I was still having problems with my confidence in my coding, my success manager got in touch and asked me to become an ambassador. Without a background in social media or ambassadorship as a whole beforehand, I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task. 

This was one of the main reasons why I decided to become an ambassador. I wanted to show people like me that they could take their lives to the next level and that there was a solution to their problems with employment. After all, if I could do it why can’t you? I wanted to inspire confidence in people, namely women, who feel like they don’t have a place in the software engineering world.

Software engineering is for everyone. I truly feel like anyone of any background can write code if they learn the principles of it.

Continue your learning

I have always had a thirst for learning. I truly believe that unless you are doing nothing, you will learn something new every day. I believe that this personality trait is very helpful in the world of software engineering because it is always changing. I have already had experience in a frequently changing career field when I was a tax associate, with tax law changing yearly. 

Software engineering makes leaps and bounds even more frequently, and it’s important to be connected to tech news and newsletters (something that thankfully, TripleTen does) so that you can keep up with these changes. Having a zest for learning new things makes the field always exciting.