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Wellness Wednesday for December 21, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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So, I'm trying to do another coding camp. I've completed one, but it was very basic and I didn't really learn much.

I was thinking of epicodus, but before I start, I have to write a pro DEI affirmation, we will have weekly guided small group discussions on DEI concepts, several weekly large group discussions, and homework on DEI topics throughout the course. I can't just nod my head, I have to actively participate and affirm this stuff on an ongoing basis. At the end of each day, we even have to rate our pair programming partner on whether they made us feel "unsafe".

I understand that I will have to bite my tongue wherever I work, but this seems oppressive to me, and I don't know if I'm socially adept enough to make it in an environment like this.

Does anyone here know anything about Epicodus?

I live in PDX, and if anyone can suggest a rigorous boot camp, preferably with a focus on pair programming, that would be great. And if there isn't one in PDX, are there any I could take online? Are there strategies I could use to get through Epicodus or will I just be banging my head against the wall?

At this point I'm half considering the trades, but if I want to immigrate to another country, and I might, then working in tech will be an advantage in a way that plumbing might not.

I have been programming since my early teens (that's a long time). In my opinion, these camps are of very limited utility. The one you mention - avoid like a plague, I don't know what they are doing there and which game they are playing, but they aren't going to teach you much useful. "Working in tech" is kinda big goal, so hard to say what would help (and probably starting now is very different from what it was in late 80s) but the obvious places are online things like Coursera or Udemy.

then working in tech will be an advantage in a way that plumbing might not.

I think you may be getting it wrong. I've met tradesmen who moved into America, and from what I heard from them is that they are getting much more work than they can handle, and they get tons of money, and they can choose what to work and not work on. I see constant lack of good tradesmen everywhere. Of course, if you're moving to a place where tradesmen aren't paid well or not respected it may be different, but I'd say in most countries people use plumbing, electricity, cars, etc. so there are always jobs like that. The pay is varied - it is true that some FAANG people make $500k+, but don't expect to make that out of a coding camp.