Culture at Dev Bootcamp: Restaurant vs. Kitchen

A quick note

January 17th, 2015 : 2 minutes

ON THE RESTAURANT VERSUS KITCHEN: What a dope analogy.

Are you a customer, ordering off a menu, expecting to get what you think you paid for? Or are you in the kitchen, experimenting and creating with your own two hands? For the last 6 weeks (or however long since I was accepted in DBC) I've been wishing and hoping that it'll be early enough for me to have influence and have a voice but expecting it to be already somewhat rigid and set in stone. I love the small startup feel in that you get hired to be a part of the evolution, not to be a cog in the wheel. Am I nervous? Sorta kinda maybe...but in the best way possible. I know that I will definitely sit into that consumer seat from time to time but I am genuinely eager to be in a melting pot with a bunch of other crazies who decided to take a leap and change things up in their lives.

ON FEAR: Of course I have fears.

I suffer from the imposter syndrome. I don't know if it's because I'm a woman or because I care too much about what other people think about me or maybe it's just a normal insecurity that anyone might have. Regardless, I've been focusing on personal growth a lot in the past several years and specifically, on killing this feeling that I might not know what I'm doing or talking about. A learning environment like DBC will really test how much progress I've made in this area. After all, I really am an imposter! I have no idea how to program and a lot of my peers already scoff at the idea that any bootcamp can teach someone how to program in a handful of months (or less). I will be tested technically and intellectually, and if I really want to learn, I better just admit that I'm an imposter up front so that I can fill in the gaps in my knowledge and stop being an imposter. Then, say one years from now, when I'm no longer an imposter, that I stop asking myself if I'm still one.

One of the biggest reasons why I left my last job is the same reason why I chose to join Dev Bootcamp over the many other competing learn-to-be-a-programmer-bootcamps: culture. It is incredibly important to me; it means everything to me. The work I do must be meaningful but it is more important that the relationships I have with the people I work with be meaningful. I am really excited to be a part of a community that values the same things as me, and realize my dreams of becoming a software developer at the same time.