My Journey to Become a Wilder in Wild Code School
Tags: career, beginners, webdev
Published: 2020-08-04 17:53:18

In this blog post, I wanted to share my journey on how I  became a **Wilder** by signing up for Wild Code School's Front-End Web Development part-time, remote course. In my [first blog post](https://dev.to/gladyspascual/using-lockdown-to-career-change-from-chemical-engineer-to-software-developer-e5k), I talked about my motivation for a career transition to Software Development. As a continuation, I wanted to share my journey to be part of the Bootcamp course.

### Step 1: Online Assessment
The first step to my journey of becoming a Wilder was to complete an online assessment. This involved creating a static website using HTML and CSS. This sounds scary at first, but don't worry, they did not just throw me on the deep end and expect me to know everything about what they are about to teach me. The idea was to see whether a candidate was motivated, able to learn, and adapt to challenges by being resourceful. The school ensured that I get to work and learn with like-minded individuals in the course on an everyday basis through assignments and project work, but of course with the guidance of an instructor who will mentor us if we get stuck on something.

Wild Code School have their own learning platform called Odyssey. To me, it's like a very organised notes that compiled all the useful articles and videos per topic, in this case, HTML and CSS, which I found very useful as a beginner. In addition to the assessment, they also asked me to complete Codecademy's first seven chapters on [Introduction to Javascript](https://www.codecademy.com/learn/introduction-to-javascript). 

To me, having this assessment and intro to JavaScript prior to starting the course was a really good idea as it ensures that everyone would be starting at the same level prior to starting the course. 

On top of the resources available in Odyssey, the five-week Coursera course on HTML, CSS and Javascript for Web Developers I did prior to joining Wild Code School helped me a lot on this assessment. If you're interested, here is the [website](https://gladys-pascual.github.io/wild-circus/) I created as part of the assessment. PS. I did not know Flexbox back then! 🙈 

### Step 2: Motivational Interview with the Campus Manager
After I submitted and successfully passed my online assessment, I was scheduled for a motivational interview with the campus manager, Francesco, who also gave the presentation that convinced me to join the school in the first place. I won't go into detail about my motivation as I have discussed this in length in my [fisrt blog](https://dev.to/gladyspascual/using-lockdown-to-career-change-from-chemical-engineer-to-software-developer-e5k). Overall, I had a great chat with Francesco and I was onto the next stage!

### Step 3: Livecode assessment with the course instructor
The final step was a livecode assessment where Anelisy, the course instructor, gave me a JavaScript problem and I solved it while she watches. The idea was for her to see my thought process and how I would Google to find the solution. It lasted for 30 minutes and it went well overall! I can't remember exactly what she asked me to do, but I remember that there was a `for` loop involved! 😊 

### Wrap Up

Overall, I really **loved** the process of getting into Wild Code School. The rigorous assessments and motivational interview ensured that I get to work and learn with people who have the same level of motivation as I do. For more information about the course, you can find it [here](https://www.wildcodeschool.com/en-GB/trainings/front-end-developer-part-time).