Get to know Ben Mitchell, who joined us for 10 weeks in our full-time Web Development bootcamp in Toronto. Learn more about why Ben enrolled, the Web Development bootcamp experience, and how the program impacted his career.
What were you doing before the Web Development program?
One year before the course started, I was an Operations Manager for a technology company called Miovision. Directly before the course started I was working at a startup performing business development and product management duties, while helping to build the front-end of our applications and web pages (using HTML and CSS).
What prior experience (if any) did you have in the course material taught?
I was familiar from a high-level with HTML and CSS, some of the soft skill concepts (Agile, Scrum, and pair-programming), and was aware of the technologies we’d go on to learn (React, Node, MongoDB, jQuery, and JavaScript). BrainStation brought all of my pseudo-knowledge about these topics together in an environment where I was able to solidify my understanding and cross the JavaScript ‘hump’.
Why did you decide to enroll in the program?
I enrolled in Web Development full-time because I was looking for a change in career, and wanted to build on the knowledge I had from self-learning HTML and CSS. I chose BrainStation because they teach the latest Web Development skills, the class sizes were small, and I would have the ability to gain wisdom from industry professionals (the student to teacher ratio was ~ 5:1).
Become a Web Developer in just 12 weeks!
BrainStation’s Web Development Diploma Program is a full-time, 12-week program that equips professionals with the skills and experience to start a new career in development.
What were your feelings going into the program? Excited? Nervous?
Going back to school for the first time since 2010 had my nerves a little shaken, as I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I would say that I was 70% excited, 30% nervous, and 100% caffeinated (I’m not certain I know how fractions work).
What was your favorite aspect of the program?
My favorite part about the regular program was that we were building something every day. You could clearly see the connection between the lecture material and the application. My favorite application I built during that time was my final project, UniqueIO, because I was able to build a Full-stack application that leveraged available machine learning techniques.
Any stand-out memories or “aha” moments?
An ‘aha’ moment for me was seeing how everything fit together. During the first half of the program I always wanted to push a little further and a little faster because we were not storing data in persistent ways (using hard-coded data or caching data locally). The first day that we successfully stored data in a database made me visibly giddy.
What job did you land coming out of the program?
I landed a Junior Full-stack Developer role at Kombine AI – a startup based out of Toronto. I work on a team of developers and computer vision researchers to build mobile and web-based software to improve athletic performance. I build reusable Javascript (JSX) components using the React and React Native frameworks, and manage data using GraphQL and Apollo.
Begin Your Journey as a Full-stack Web Developer. Give a Learning Advisor a call at +1 (800) 903-5159 to learn more and book a tour, or take a look at our Web Development program to view curriculum and Educator details, payment plans and more.
